Tolkien liked to remind readers that the War of the Ring was never only the story of the Fellowship (The Silmarillion–his real passion project–wasn’t published in his lifetime). In Appendix A of The Return of the King, he laid out in plain terms what was happening across the north while Frodo carried the Ring toward Mordor: Dain Ironfoot and King Brand died defending Erebor and Dale, Celeborn and Galadriel repelled attacks on Lothlorien from Dol Guldur, and the entire northern flank of Middle-earth buckled under coordinated assault.
That broader war is the territory Snowblind Studios mapped out in The Lord of the Rings: War in the North, released in 2011 by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, which sent players into Eriador, Mirkwood, Mount Gundabad, and Carn Dum to face Agandaur, Sauron’s lieutenant charged with breaking the north before the south could be reinforced.
Fourteen years later, that game appears to be coming back. A report from Game Rant notes that SteamDB has been updated with a new listing titled The Lord of the Rings: War in the North, Legacy Edition, suggesting a remaster or re-release is in development. The SteamDB entry carries an app ID of 2523770 and includes an EpicOnlineServices SDK, which points toward Unreal Engine as the underlying technology. The original listing was first added to the database in 2023, but the recent update is what drew attention, hinting that development may have progressed to a point where a Steam release is on the near horizon.
Lord of the Rings : War in the North
The original game was pulled from sale on Steam sometime in the late 2010s, almost certainly because the underlying Tolkien gaming licenses are notoriously complicated. Those rights have been reshuffled in recent years, and the renewed activity around Middle-earth gaming, including the announced The Lord of the Rings open-world game from Weta Workshop and Private Division, suggests the licensing picture has cleared enough for older titles to resurface. The Legacy Edition listing tags the game as supporting both co-op and local co-op alongside the singleplayer mode, which matches the original’s cooperative structure.
No publisher or developer has officially announced the project. The SteamDB entry is legitimate, but an announcement with platform details and a release window has yet to come from any rights holder. We will continue to track any developments as they surface.
