The Lord of the Rings, The Battle for Middle-earth II Q&A - Fan Questions, Part I

The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth II will be a real-time strategy sequel that combines the epic scope of the award-winning motion pictures with the expanded lore of J.R.R. Tolkien's numerous fantasy novels. Among other things, the sequel will feature improved graphics, better tactical control of player armies, more playable sides, customizable hero units, and an all-new campaign. Senior producer Mike Verdu took the questions of the Battle for Middle-earth II fan community and has answered them below.

Question: What's this product all about?

Mike Verdu: We're creating a bigger, richer, deeper Lord of the Rings strategy game that will immerse you, transport you, and enchant you as you experience the Middle-earth you've never seen. You'll fight epic battles in new places with new armies led by new heroes. You'll experience unprecedented depth of strategy with innovative RTS features that combine creativity and strategy. You'll see Middle-earth like never before with visuals that hit a new bar.

Q: What's new in Middle-earth? Does this game go beyond the films?

MV: The game is based on both the books and the films. As Middle-earth's fate hangs by a thread, you'll command the most ancient and storied civilizations of Tolkien's world, the Elves and the Dwarves, as they unite to fight Sauron's armies in the Northern Lands. New races, places, and heroes come to life from the book fiction and Peter Jackson's movies. If playing on the side of light isn't your thing, you can control the Dark Lord's minions in a mission of ruthless conquest. You'll command vast hordes of Orcs, Goblins, Trolls, Giants, Spiders, Nazgul, Evil Men, and even Dragons.

Q: What's new for the strategy gamer?

MV: Depth of strategy comes in the form of fast and fluid RTS game play, an innovative fortress and wall building system that lets you create your own custom castles, the freedom to build anywhere in the world, a Risk-style strategy meta-game that is infinitely replayable, better control over your armies in battle through smart formations, tactical fidelity in melee combat, customized heroes that become your avatars in battle, and naval units and battles at sea.

Q: Have you upgraded the game engine? How are the visuals?

MV: New technology brings you a high fidelity vision of Middle-earth. Water that sparkles in the sun and crashes on the shore in explosions of foam and spray. Sun dappled meadows and swaying trees. Landscapes of ice and snow. Amazing particle effects for magic spells. The improvements under the hood include a new shader system, normal mapping, specularity, perspective shadows, distance hazing, an improved particle system, and other cool stuff.

Q: How much new content is in the game? Will you be bringing back anything from the first game?

MV: This is like two games in one. We're creating a full game's worth of new content--units, heroes, structures, locations, missions, new game mechanics, and new technology--and we're also bringing back all of the units, heroes, structures, and locations from the original Battle for Middle-earth. We want to deliver the complete Middle-earth experience, with all of the races and heroes from the books and movies and all of the places on the map.

More detail: Battle for Middle-earth II will have a total of six factions (sides), 80+ units, 34+ heroes, and 50+ maps. We're adding three entirely new factions based on Elves, Dwarves, and Goblins--and each new faction has new units, heroes, and structures. We're enhancing the existing factions from the first game as well. For example, we're adding Corsairs and Black Riders for Mordor, Wild Men of Dunland for Isengard, and Dunedain Rangers for our Men of the West faction (Gondor and Rohan are being combined into one faction).

Q: What is the single player game experience like?

MV: There are three ways to play. You can start up a story-based campaign with lovingly crafted RTS missions on the side of Good or Evil. You can also play a new free-form "War of the Ring" strategy game that spans all of Middle-earth and lets you battle a new strategic AI for control of the world. Finally, you can jump into a "one off" battle against AI where you choose the factions and the map. The story-based single player campaign takes you to the Northern Lands of Middle-earth where Elves and Dwarves are fighting a series of massive battles against Sauron's forces during the War of the Ring. These battles in the North are as epic as anything shown on film, with vast armies clashing in new locations like Mirkwood, Lorien, Dale, and the mountain fortress of Erebor.

The Good campaign puts you in charge of the allied ancient races warring against Goblin hordes descending from the Misty Mountains and the dark tide flowing out of Sauron's fortress of Dol Guldur. If you choose to play the Evil campaign, you'll control the armies from Dol Guldur as well as a host of corrupted creatures. Instead of defending the North, your mission will be to conquer it. Victory for the Evil side will come when Sauron controls the northern lands of Middle-earth.

Once you are finished with the Good and Evil story-based campaigns, you can unlock infinite replayability with our new War of the Ring strategy meta-game. You can choose to re-fight the entire War of the Ring--in the South as well as the North--by choosing a side and a starting location on the 3D living world map of Middle-earth. You can then build up your forces, move your armies, and take territories in a Risk-style strategy game. Battles for contested territories can be auto-resolved or played out in a classic real-time encounter on the actual RTS map.

Q: Is the War of the Ring part of the campaign game? Is it a skirmish mode? Can it be played multiplayer?

MV: War of the Ring is an entirely new way to play. You conquer Middle-earth your own way, battling for control of the world against a strategic AI or another player. All of the races of Middle-earth are yours to command as you fight across the entire world, re-visiting classic battles like Helm's Deep, Isengard, and Minas Tirith. You can also stage battles in Minas Morgul, the land of Mordor, the land of Rhun, and other locations from across Middle-earth. You create your own history of the War of the Ring--and it plays out differently every time.

Q: What's up with fortresses and wall building?

MV: We are bringing a new level of creativity and strategy to base building. First of all, we're letting you build structures anywhere on the map, not just on the little build plots we gave players in the first game. We're also adding the ability to build customizable fortresses that can anchor your base defense. Each fortress can be tricked out with cool upgrades that are specific to each of the six factions in the game. For example, the Men of the West player can deploy trebuchets, arrow towers, and boiling oil as upgrades to their fortresses (among others). Goblin players will have giants that throw rocks and spider lairs as defensive upgrades. Most cool of all, we're giving you the ability to build walls around your fortresses and other structures so you can create your own landmark castles of Middle-earth. You can even upgrade every wall segment--you can build gates, towers, emplacements, and all sorts of cool stuff. Wall building is very easy to use and incredibly powerful; you'll be amazed at what you can create.

The good news is that we've applied the lessons we've learned from the first game about making things accessible and easy to use, so the interface for base building--even with all the added freedom--remains very clean and streamlined. So it's easy to do but gives the game tremendous depth. It's like having your cake and eating it too.

Q: What are some examples of strategies that are enabled by this new base building system?

MV: The fortress and wall system is very flexible and powerful--you can optimize your base defenses to suit your strategy and style of play. With the many options available, you can easily, quickly, and inexpensively create a basic castle with simple defensive walls and cheap fortress upgrades. Or you can spend some additional resources and create massive fortifications bristling with trebuchets and arrow towers and secured by a foundation of reinforced stonework. When the team plays Battle for Middle-earth II in multiplayer, some players build huge castles that can defend against an attack from any angle; other players use small, strategically deployed wall segments with selective upgrades to guard the approaches that would most commonly be used for attacks. Both strategies can work...it really depends on the player.

Q: Will there be heroes and creatures from the books that didn't appear in the films? What about heroes from the films that weren't in the first game?

MV: New heroes from the books include Glorfindel the Elf Lord, King Thranduil of the Mirkwood Elves, and King Dain of the Dwarves. We're also including heroes from the films that didn't make it into the first game, like Elrond, Master of Rivendel, Arwen, Galadriel, Wormtongue, the Mouth of Sauron, and others.

Q: What is the "Create-a-Hero" feature? How does it work?

MV: We're going to allow you to create your own hero by picking a race and type and then customizing the appearance, weapons, spells, and abilities for that hero. As a player, you can ask yourself: What would I be if I were a hero in Middle-earth? An Elven Wizard? A Battle Troll with a spiked mace? A Rohan Shield Maiden who can ride a horse? You decide.

You will be prompted to create your own hero at the beginning of a campaign game. You'll also be able to access the hero creation feature from the game's main menu--to add to your bullpen of custom heroes or edit an existing hero. Customization options range from armor, clothing, and weapon choices to the actual ladder of powers and abilities that your hero will use to "level up" during game play.

Once you've created a hero, you can take him or her into multiplayer games as well as the single player campaign game. We'll limit the use of custom heroes for tournament games that count towards ladder stats, but otherwise players have the option to create and join multiplayer games with their created heroes (or not, depending on preference--some players may want to host and join "no custom hero" games regardless of whether or not they count towards official stats).