The Lord of the Rings, The Battle for Middle-earth II, The Rise of the Witch-King Q&A
Producer Amir Rahimi fills us in on the details regarding this upcoming expansion to The Battle for Middle-earth II, which is set thousands of years before Frodo and the gang.
The rich fantasy setting of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings served as great material not only for movie director Peter Jackson, but for EA as well. Using the combined book and movie license, EA released The Lord of the Rings, The Battle for Middle-earth II last year. Like many real-time strategy games, The Battle for Middle-earth II let you oversee various factions, such as Gondor, Rohan, and Mordor, and you could manage their economies, grow their cities, and crush their enemies with massed armies. Now, with the Rise of the Witch-King expansion, EA is going back into the distant history of Middle-earth to show us what happened between the Battle of the Last Alliance where the One Ring was lost and the events seen in the movie. For more information, we turned to producer Amir Rahimi. We can expect the expansion to ship sometime next year.
GameSpot: Rise of the Witch-King is set thousands of years before the events of the movies. Why set the game in this time period?
Amir Rahimi: The story behind the Witch-King's rise to power is one of the most important and fascinating events that takes place in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. After 1,000 years of peace, the Witch-King commands the rise of evil in Middle-earth by gathering an enormous army and waging a 500-year war against one of the greatest kingdoms of men. Three thousand years after being defeated at the Battle of the Last Alliance, the Witch-King destroys the great kingdom of Arnorand, clears the way for Sauron to return, and begins his domination of Middle-earth. Given all of this, we decided that telling the Witch-King's story would be the perfect opportunity to bridge the 3,000-year gap in our game, between The Battle of the Last Alliance and the beginning of the War of the Ring that existed in the films.
GS: What's the appeal of the character? And, you can't really talk about the Witch-King without thinking of the other Nazgul, so will they make an appearance as well?
AR: The Witch-King is the most powerful of the nine Nazgul and one of the most powerful evil forces in the history of Middle-earth. In fact, according to the fiction, it was determined that no living man was capable of killing him. He single-handedly established a huge kingdom in Angmar and destroyed the Men of Arnor. Unfortunately, many casual fans only know him as the big scary Nazgul that got his head chopped off at the end of The Return of the King.
In The Rise of the Witch-King, we will introduce Morgomir, one of the nine Nazgul, and the Witch-King's right hand. If used effectively in the single-player campaign, Morgomir can sway decisive battles in the war against Arnor in favor of Angmar.
GS: The Witch-King leads a new faction known as the Angmar. Could you tell us more about it? We've heard that it's a "slow, strong, powerful" faction that's equivalent to the dwarves, but could you go a bit deeper into what that means? And, from the screenshots, it looks like a faction composed of a mix of different races.
AR: Angmar's buildings and units will be some of the most expensive in the game, but they will also be some of the most powerful. It will have very strong walls and base defenses. One of its major strengths lies in the ability to combine its units and spells in very creative and potentially devastating ways. For example, we introduce a brand-new spell to the game called fell wind. This is a low-level Palantir spell that players can choose as they gain experience during battle. This spell blows extremely powerful gusts of wind from all directions, knocking everyone within its area of effect into a giant clump. If the Angmar player can coordinate the bombarding of his siege weapons and archers in the center of the fell wind's area of effect, he can wipe out entire battalions very quickly.
One of the strengths of the Rise of the Witch-King expansion pack is the way the genesis of the Angmar faction weaves into the storyline of the single-player campaign. The Witch-King dominated the land of Angmar and brought its inhabitants under his heel. Among the inhabitants of Angmar were various types of trolls that were never visualized in the films.
For example, we introduce snow trolls for the first time to fans of the Lord of the Rings universe. These are trolls that have evolved in a cold climate, so they are white in color and have shorter limbs than their cousins that appeared in films. Their lower center of gravity and great strength (particularly in their legs) allow them to run at high speed and trample anything in their way, thus serving as Angmar's elite cavalry unit. Hill trolls, on the other hand, are taller and slower, but are smart enough to be trained to use siege hammers to unhorse enemy cavalry. Evil men, known as the Dark Numenoreans, also inhabit the land of Angmar. These are men who, through intimidation, have forfeited their will to the Witch-King and help him invade Arnor. The Dark Numenoreans have dabbled in the dark arts for centuries, so you can expect them to bring some very interesting powers to battles. Those who have had a chance to play the expansion pack with the Angmar faction really enjoyed it and the Angmar will be one of The Battle for Middle-earth's most diverse and interesting factions.
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- GameSpot Score7.3good
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