The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth
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The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth (2004)

by EA Los Angeles, Electronic Arts
Platforms:
PC (Microsoft Windows)
Genres:Strategy, Real Time Strategy (RTS)
Themes:Fantasy, Warfare
Game modes:Single player, Co-operative, Multiplayer
Story:
The players control the heroes or villians from the famous Lord of The Rings movies. With a hero characters similar to the Warcraft series you control both the armies and all the unique heroes. The game follows the movies very closely and even got scenes from the films appear in game. Not only does the game contain a giant campaign where you play through the journey of the ring as the good side, the game also features an evil campaign where as the players play as the evil forces of Middle Earth. With multiple diffrent races from all over Middle Earth, a giant spell tree to customize your game and a unique basebuilding layout the game was great for its time.
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My favorite paart of the game was doning something and the characters spitting out quotes of the movie. It has all of the original actors saying these things. Sure they have only 10 phrases each, but if you control 10 characters that is 100 film quotes. So thematic. Such a good game.Normanfi
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Stories about this game (436)
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user avatar@Normanfiuser avatar@Normanfi
June 13, 2026
My favorite paart of the game was doning something and the characters spitting out quotes of the movie. It has all of the original actors saying these things. Sure they have only 10 phrases each, but if you control 10 characters that is 100 film quotes. So thematic. Such a good game.
My little brothers keep ancient half-dead laptops in our house to play this game, BATTLE FOR MIDDLE EARTH 2: RISE OF THE WITCH KING, because it CANNOT be run on modern systems legally. We love these games. There isn't anything else like these games out there. GOG! Please save these games!
This is my all-time favorite RTS — The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth. I first discovered it when I was about six years old, watching my older brother play in complete awe while I impatiently waited for my turn. Those moments felt magical, and the game left a mark on me that never faded. Now, 20 years later, it still brings back a flood of warm childhood memories. I would be beyond happy to see it added to GOG so I can relive those unforgettable feelings and experience that magic all over again. I would also absolutely love to see The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth II and its expansion The Rise of the Witch-king added as well — having the full trilogy available in one place would be a dream come true.
This was the golden era of RTS games and nothing comes closer to these games. The Battle for Middle Earth and its sequel used the same engine and mechanics as that of CNC 3 and probably why these will remain the best The Lord of the Rings titles ever made. I spent hours and hours puring into them when I was little, and I would love to see them return. I have lost my discs for them, tried a pirated copy but didn't work. I would love to see them on GOG so we can have a legit way of playing these amazing RTS games again.
So loved this game, and then BFME 2 came out and was even better. I still remeber the excitement of my wife and I buying our 2 box sets so we could start gaming. Still have them in fact, but laptops don't have CD-ROM drives anymore so now we can't play one of our favourite games anymore :( Please bring back this game!!!
This game, Impossible Creatures, and Unreal Tournament 2004 were the big 3 of my childhood. Battle for Middle-earth deserves to live on, please bring it to GOG so a new generation can experience it.
user avatar@Oshii123user avatar@Oshii123
June 29, 2026
This game, i remember playing it when i was maybe 10 yo, 13ish years ago, i remember opening it in the morning in my mom's pc letting it play out in minas thirith, helm's deep or minas morgul, always defending, then i would go out for groceries with my parents and when i came back i would have the points maxed out and i would buy all the abilities, i spent so much time in this game, the LOTR universe as a whole is precious to me, its my favourite universe, its magical, familiar, distant yet so close. This game developed my love for RTS games, i then started playing age of empires, but still this one holds a place in my heart because it was one of the first games ive ever played, i would spend whole days playing it witouth feeling bored. Games like these may be old, but they should remain available to be played by everyone.
user avatar@visara57user avatar@visara57
June 29, 2026
I used to play this game non-stop every day after highschool on the Windows XP family computer. Please help rpeserve this, and also BFME 2. This game is GOATed, from the campaign to the soundtrack to the free play modes (skirmish).
user avatar@ekitz08user avatar@ekitz08
July 01, 2026
For me, it's my favourite game. I just have fun and I think that's a very special game.
When I was a teen, my cousin had this game on his pc, and when I saw lord of the rings game I was blown away. Lord of the rings game where I can control an army, and then I figured out that you can create and control your own Hero?! At that time that was awesome discovery, shame that other games don't have that feature. So I wish it was on gog, so I could experience whole game all over again.
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