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Lord of the Rings Mobile Game Is a Free RPG With Your Favorite Hobbits

A launch trailer shows turn-based combat in the game, which launches May 10.

David Lumb Mobile Reporter
David Lumb is a mobile reporter covering how on-the-go gadgets like phones, tablets and smartwatches change our lives. Over the last decade, he's reviewed phones for TechRadar as well as covered tech, gaming, and culture for Engadget, Popular Mechanics, NBC Asian America, Increment, Fast Company and others. As a true Californian, he lives for coffee, beaches and burritos.
Expertise smartphones, smartwatches, tablets, telecom industry, mobile semiconductors, mobile gaming
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David Lumb
2 min read
A stylish splash image showing heroes on the left like Aragorn and Frodo pitted against villainous orcs and goblins on the right, with the game's logo in the center.

Lord of the Rings: Heroes of Middle-earth is a free-to-play RPG for iOS and Android phones.

 EA, Capital Games

Want to do some orc-slaying on the go? You'll get your chance next month when Electronic Arts' mobile game The Lord of the Rings: Heroes of Middle-earth launches on May 10, bringing a free-to-play role-playing game to your pocket.

The trailer for Heroes of Middle-earth shows players assembling parties of their favorite characters to fight their way through dual campaigns as either the plucky heroes or fiendish forces of the Dark Lord Sauron. The game was teased last May and is finally coming out a year later. It's playable on iOS and Android phones, from the modest iPhone SE to the top-tier Asus ROG 6 Pro gaming phone.

The story seems to arc around finding one of the fabled Rings of Power and getting visions of famous adventures of the past. It sets up players to follow some of the plot points of the books and movies with squads of famous characters and soldiers from both sides of the fight. There's also PvP (player versus player) and other gameplay modes.

Combat is turn-based, with parties of five characters, and players will be able to kit out their roster of heroes with skills and upgrades as they level up. This naturally leads into the monetization, which seems like it'll drop random items for in-app fees.

Heroes of Middle-earth has a more stylized, cartoony version of J.R.R. Tolkien's heroes and world than fans of Peter Jackson's LOTR trilogy or the Shadow of War series may be used to. But it's in line with the last game EA's mobile studio Capital Games made, the popular Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes. It's a bit more lighthearted art style and calls to mind Vivendi and Sierra's 2003 game based on The Hobbit, which studiously avoided adopting the grimmer realistic look of the films.

Players can sign up to preregister for the game here.