The beacons have been lit! Gondor calls for aid! And The Lord of the Rings: War in the North will answer!
Well, probably.
A new Steam listing has seemingly confirmed that the excellent and long-unavailable The Lord of the Rings: War in the North is returning under the name The Lord of the Rings: War in the North – Legacy Edition.
The discovery comes courtesy of SteamDB, where a separate application bearing the title was updated on July 31. This is not the retired Steam page for the original game, but an entirely new application with its own App ID, depot and unreleased public build.
According to SteamDB, the new version has a 64-bit Windows executable, a total installation size of 21.38GB and support for Epic Online Services. A public build was compiled on June 2 before being pushed to the public branch on June 17, suggesting that whatever this Legacy Edition is, it has already reached a fairly substantial state.
The listing also directs its cloud saves to an Aspyr/War in the North folder, strongly suggesting that Aspyr is handling the project. Aspyr has plenty of experience dragging older games out of the mines of Moria, dusting them off and getting them working on modern hardware, having previously worked on rereleases and remasters including Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Tomb Raider I-III Remastered and several other classic licensed games.
This is not actually the first time the mysterious listing has been spotted, either.
The same Steam App ID has existed since July 2023 and was discovered by players earlier this year while operating under the codename “Slinky.” Even then, it was not doing a particularly good job of hiding its identity: its user agreement directly named The Lord of the Rings: War in the North, while its save directory contained references to both Aspyr and the game itself. Reports about a possible rerelease began circulating in March, although it was unclear whether this would be a basic port, a remaster or something more substantial.
The newly added Legacy Edition subtitle gives us a much clearer idea of what to expect.
It does not sound like a full remake, and the listing continues to use witn.exe as its executable, suggesting this is based on the original game rather than being rebuilt from the ground up. The installation has grown considerably, though: the English Steam version of the original occupied roughly 7.2GB, compared with 21.38GB for the Legacy Edition. That could indicate improved textures, higher-quality video, additional language files or other upgrades, although SteamDB cannot tell us exactly what has changed.
For anyone unfamiliar with it, War in the North was a third-person action RPG released in 2011 for PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. Developed by Snowblind Studios, the team behind the Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance games, it followed a new fellowship fighting against Sauron’s forces in the northern regions of Middle-earth while Frodo, Aragorn and the rest of the more famous fellowship were busy dealing with that small jewellery problem down south.
Over time, it has gained something of a cult-classic reputation, particularly among people who played through its campaign cooperatively. It was repetitive, rough around the edges and certainly not one of the great RPGs of its generation, but it had satisfying combat, plenty of loot and understood the simple appeal of wandering around Middle-earth with a dwarf while hitting orcs with a very large axe.
Unfortunately, actually playing it has become increasingly difficult.
The PC version was delisted from Steam in February 2019 and is no longer available from any major legitimate digital retailer. Existing owners can still download it, but everyone else needs to hunt down an old physical copy or an unused Steam key.
The console editions are similarly stranded. War in the North was never added to Xbox’s backwards-compatibility programme. The PlayStation 3 version is likewise unavailable on modern PlayStation hardware, leaving an original PS3 or Xbox 360 as the only straightforward legal options for anyone who does not already own the PC release.
No official announcement has been made, and SteamDB currently gives us no release date, price or details about potential console versions. The listing only confirms Windows support, although that does not necessarily mean other platforms are off the table.
Still, the evidence is now difficult to ignore. There is a separate 64-bit version of War in the North, Aspyr’s name is buried in its files, a sizeable public build has been uploaded and it now has the distinctly marketable title of Legacy Edition.
Unless someone at Warner Bros. has spent the last three years constructing an extremely elaborate SteamDB-based practical joke, The Lord of the Rings: War in the North is coming back like Gandalf the Grey making his dramatic comeback as Gandalf the White.
And after more than seven years trapped in licensing Mordor, it is about bloody time. Now, can someone get me The Lord of the Rings: Battle For Middle-Earth 1 & 2 remastered, please?