Middle-earth’s forgotten action RPG just got a second life. The Lord of the Rings: War in the North — Legacy Edition is available right now on PS5, Xbox Series, Switch 2, Switch, and PC, bringing the 2011 co-op brawler back for a new generation of players who probably missed it the first time around.

What happened

Originally released back in 2011, War in the North let players team up as three distinct heroes — a Dúnedain Ranger, a Dwarf champion, and an Elf mage — to fight through a side story that runs parallel to the main War of the Ring. The Legacy Edition is a full remaster of that game, rebuilt to run on modern hardware and current-gen consoles, with the two-player co-op mode intact so you can drag a friend into the fight rather than going it alone.

Why it matters

Licensed Lord of the Rings games have had a rough track record, but War in the North was one of the few that actually earned a cult following, mostly thanks to its brutal, combo-heavy combat and the novelty of playing as original characters instead of Frodo or Aragorn. It never got a proper sequel or much support after launch, so a remaster is basically the closest thing fans are going to get to closure — and it’s a solid excuse to revisit a corner of Tolkien’s world most games ignore in favor of retreading the films.

What to expect

Don’t go in expecting a ground-up rebuild — this is a remaster of a 2011 action RPG, not a reimagining, so the bones of the game (loot, skill trees, hack-and-slash combat) are the same ones players remember, just cleaned up for current hardware. The Switch 2 release is notable too, since it puts a fairly demanding co-op action game on Nintendo’s newest hardware from day one rather than as an afterthought port. If you liked the original, this is your chance to relive it; if you never played it, this is arguably the best version to start with.

A decade-plus later, War in the North remains one of the more underrated LOTR games out there, and getting it back on modern platforms with co-op intact feels like the right way to bring it back — no gimmicks, just the same game running better than ever.

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