A lost Lord of the Rings ARPG makes a surprise return to Steam!

In case you didn't know, about 16 years ago an action RPG titled The Lord of the Rings: War in the North was released, though it failed to achieve notable success in terms of both sales and critical reviews. It is worth keeping in mind that it landed on digital and physical shelves during the same period as behemoths like The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, which—combined with its poor technical state—caused it to fly under the radar for the broader gaming audience.

It remained on digital storefronts until late 2018, when its gradual removal began, and according to data available on SteamDB, it was pulled from Steam in February of the following year. That was the status quo until today, when it officially reappeared on Steam in a remastered version dubbed the Legacy Edition.

Naturally, this new release brings a suite of improvements: we get hot swap—the ability to switch characters on the fly whenever we want without waiting for a level to end—a lock-on camera system that lets you lock onto a single target, and fixes for various technical bugs, most notably those tied to companion AI. On top of all that come performance updates, so the game now runs at 60 FPS on consoles with support for modern resolutions up to 4K.

As for the reason why the game was originally pulled from sale, we don't know for certain. The prevailing assumption is that the license expired, which makes sense now considering that Aspyr—the team behind the remaster—is part of the Embracer Group, which owns Middle-earth Enterprises and, by extension, the rights to various Lord of the Rings properties.

Either way, we can only speculate on that front; what we do know is that the game is currently available on PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, and Nintendo Switch 2 for $20, with a slight launch discount on select platforms.