What if Galadriel took the One Ring? LoTR: Heroes of Middle Earth devs talk about story, lore, gameplay and more

LoTR: Heroes of Middle Earth is an upcoming mobile game set in the Middle Earth realm and tasks the player with fixing the Lord of the Rings trilogy storyline.

A shadowy figure is corrupting the timelines and throwing the story off, establishing 'what if?' threads that the player must put right with the help of a new ring of power.

The game is a character-collecting strategy game where you collect characters and form factions to fight others.

We had the opportunity to speak with the Heroes of Middle Earth development team, Capital Games, where we discussed story inspiration, gameplay mechanics and more.

• If you're a fan of Lord of the Rings, check out our guide on the Return to Moria release. A crafting simulator set in Moria.

What is LoTR: Heroes of Middle Earth?

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LoTR: Heroes of Middle Earth is set during the Lord of the Rings trilogy storyline, but also draws in events and characters from The Hobbit and the Appendices.

The story places the player as a new ring-bearer blessed with visions from key moments in The Lord of The Rings. In these visions, they see a shadowy figure disrupting the events. Through the ring, the player can take control of the heroes and put these events right.

As you progress, you'll be able to collect your favourite characters and grow a squad to combat the meddler. Strider and Frodo will be the first characters you encounter, and each character has special abilities that can buff others. For example, Strider specialises in large forward strikes and gives a sneak attack buff to the hobbits in your squad, who excel at stealth.

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There will be a mixture of campaigns and 'Storybook Raids' that take place in key areas of The Lord of the Rings. The first Storybook Raid to come at launch will be set during the Mines of Moria conflict with more to be released over time.

There are also plans to develop a multi-squad PvP experience, with the game cited to have a multi-year content plan mapped out already.

The narrator will be played by Earendil, the legendary seafarer from the Silmarillion who will help the player restore the timelines of Middle Earth.

Due to the nature of the plot, it will be possible to see other infamous Tolkien characters like Tom Bombadil in the game. Game Director, Nicolas Reinhart expanded on this by saying:

"We get to show characters that have never before been portrayed. For example, we've led the charge by having Earendil, the Steward of Middle Earth, sailing through space on his swan-shaped boat as the narrator and guide through the game.

"This gives us license to imagine characters like Tom Bombadil, Halbarad a ranger of the north, and to flesh out more the Dunlendings and Easterlings."

Squad Mechanics

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When speaking about how the game creates squads, Game Director, Nicolas Reinhart explained:

"The players have discovered a ring unlike any before and with this ring players can bridge time and space bringing together characters from different ages to build incredible 'what if?' style squads. Mixing and matching together characters that may have never been together before."

This means that if a player wishes to build a faction-based squad they can also mix in other characters they have collected. In theory, this means you could have a team of orcs and riders of Rohan in the same squad if you wish.

There will be different iterations of characters too and alternate characters from different timelines. As you can build a squad of whichever character you want, this means you'll see unique combinations. 'What if?' characters will not be present in the version at launch, but the developers confirmed that they have the intention of adding them later.

Artistic inspirations from Tolkien

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Whilst we've seen countless iterations of the Lord of The Rings, Heroes of Middle Earth has ditched the darker tones of recent games and instead, has drawn artistic inspiration from the early watercolour artwork of Tolkien and from book passages that describe the scenes.

The characters are more colourful, as are the set pieces depicted for a more whimsical feel.  Game Director, Nicolas Reinhart explained:

"The world of The Lord of The Rings is a world that is at war, maybe even the brink of an apocalypse in some ways but there are also a lot of really light and whimsical parts that we also wanna capture.

"So we looked to Tolkien's watercolours, his illustrations but we also do a lot of interpreting of the words as written as well, like the Shire is fundamentally a bright and sunny place.

"There are some things that are strange and silly like my own personal reading of the goblins is that they're kind of whimsical and don’t get me wrong they're scary, but they also have some whimsy to them as well.

"We're really inspired by everything that he's [Tolkien] made and so we really wanted to take a strong opportunity to build our own interpretation and bring a fresh look at it overall."

Exploring 'what if?' timelines

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Capital Games have also partnered with Middle Earth Enterprises to ensure that any new storylines stay authentic to Tolkien's works. Game Director, Nicolas Reinhart explained:

"With the incredible partnership we have with Middle Earth Enterprises, we can explore alternate timelines to ask, 'what if?' questions of timelines that may have never existed.

"So, what if Galadriel had taken the one ring and become the dark queen? What if Smeagol hadn’t? Who are the Nazgul if they had resisted the temptations of the ring?

"We're gonna answer these questions authentically to the lore and explore these incredible ideas with players."

This 'what if?' story thread that has been widely successful for Marvel over the years is an interesting one to dive into. When asked if there were any 'what if?' storylines the dev team thought about and scrapped during development, Nicolas Reinhart answered:

"I will say that we've gone back and forth on narrators... in an early on version of the game that we talked about internally was like 'what if Tom Bombadil was the narrator of the game?' and we really liked that except that we were like - would players take the game seriously if everything was done in rhyme and singing."

Heroes of Middle Earth pricing and platforms

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As a mobile character collecting game, it is likely that the game will operate on a mobile monetisation system, that being free-to-play with microtransactions. When asked to elaborate further on this, Nicolas Reinhart explained:

"For us it's really important that we make sure everything becomes available to players over time. So, even if there are new characters, ultimately a lot of this is just about time, and nothing is ever like hard blocked from the players being able to engage with."

With this added information, it seems as though certain characters may be event-exclusive at first, with players waiting for them to become free later on.

If this has sparked your interest and you want to play LoTR: Heroes of Middle Earth, the game will launch May 10^th on ios and Android devices.

The game is available for pre-register on Google Play now, all players who download the game in the first week of launch will get special timed-launch rewards.

• If you're a fan of Lord of the Rings, check out our guide on the Lord of the Rings Gollum release date. An RPG from the perspective of Gollumn in Mordor.