Battle for Middle-earth II demo to premiere on GameSpot

With Electronic Arts' The Lord of the Rings, The Battle for Middle-earth II PC game set to hit shelves at the end of the month, GameSpot is getting ready to offer gamers an early peek at the game in the form of a single-player demo. Would-be ringwraiths can head over to the premiere page and watch a timer count down to the demo's release, or just make a note to come back when it goes live at 9 a.m. PST on Thursday.

The Lord of the Rings, The Battle for Middle-earth II is the sequel to the 2004 real-time strategy game that used assets from Peter Jackson's award-winning motion pictures based on the fiction of novelist J.R.R. Tolkien. The sequel will leverage Tolkien's expanded written lore along with the movie rights to include new battles and characters not featured in the films.

The 1.3GB demo allows gamers to choose from two of the three new factions in Battle for Middle-earth II (goblins and dwarves), and get used to them on a pair of maps covering a tutorial and single-player skirmish mode. For more on the game, check out GameSpot's previous coverage.