38 PCWorld MARCH 2020NEWS HOW WARCRAFT III BECAME A GREAT LORD OF THE RINGS GAME
must’ve played dozens of different iterations
back in the day. Hell, I think I even tried to
create one.
There were other Lord of the Rings maps
as well, though none quite as successful as
Helm’s Deep. The Mines of Moria had a few
different adaptations, wending through
Balin’s tomb and down all those rickety
staircases and across the bridge where
Gandalf faced off against the Balrog. Again,
instantly recognizable locations—though it
tended to be better for solo play than the big
multiplayer battles.
With the release of the Return of the King,
the Battle of the Pelennor Fields also became
popular. This one was harder to simulate than
Helm’s Deep though, as Minas Tirith’sseven-tiered city didn’t translate well to
Warcraft III’s landscape tools and overhead
camera, nor were there as many hooks for
scripting.
Many of the late-era maps opted to cover
the entirety of Middle Earth instead. These
went by various names, including “The Ring
Wars,” “War of the Ring,” and “The Third
Age,” but essentially you’d play a standard
RTS battle out across a scale map of Middle
Earth. One person would play Gondor, one
Rohan, one Mordor, and so on.
It was the closest you could get to a full
retelling of Lord of the Rings in Warcraft III, but
again lacked the storytelling and the
immediacy of Helm’s Deep. It was more like
playing Risk, less like watching the films.
So maybe it’s
just that Warcraft III
was a great Helm’s
Deep game, and
only a passable
Lord of the Rings
game. Still, I find it
fascinating. You
have this perfect
right-place–right-
time crossover,
and it happened
naturally. These
days, something like
Fortnite’s recent Star
Wars event is a
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. co-marketing deal