The Lord of the Rings: War in the North – Legacy Edition review for PS5, Xbox Series X, PC, Switch 2

If I played Lord of the Rings: War in the North back when it first came out in the PS360 era, it didn’t make much of an impression on me. I likely did, seeing as it was a hack & slash action game that came out at a time when I was eagerly devouring as many of those as I could, but as I played through its Legacy Edition re-release that Aspyr Media shadowdropped, nothing about it seemed familiar.

The good news is that meant I went into the game without any kind of preconceived notions of what it was supposed to be like. It didn’t have to live up to any fond memories, or overcome any bad first impressions from well over a decade ago.

It probably would’ve benefited from any kind of feeling of nostalgia, though, because without that, LOTR: War in the North just comes off as a dated action game that doesn’t have much reason to exist.

I know, Aspyr promised that this game has quality of life improvements like the ability to swap between characters and visual and performance upgrades. But neither of those things makes a huge difference, especially if you want to play the game solo. In fact, one of the first things I noticed about the game is how ugly it looks. I know we’re just talking about a fresh coat of paint on a game that’s from over a decade ago, and that a lot of the other Aspyr re-releases don’t fare much better visually, but still: War in the North looks every one of its 15 years, and then some.

But the real reason that War in the North isn’t worth playing without nostalgia is that it plays a lot clunkier than it looks. The bulk of the game is spent running into areas, taking on massive hordes of enemies, and hacking and slashing (or firing off magic spells, if that’s your preference) until everyone is dead. Then it’s on to the next area to do it all over again.

Not only is it repetitive, it’s also unsatisfying. There’s no weight to any of your attacks, nor is there any from your enemies. As a result it’s hard to tell exactly how hard you’re hitting those evil orcs and trolls, and how hard they’re hitting you. Without that kind of feedback, it all feels like mindless button-mashing.

To be sure, sometimes all you want is mindless button-mashing, and I could see this being fun if you and a friend or two have fond memories of the game’s original release. But without that emotional link to Lord of the Rings: War in the North, I can’t imagine why you’d want to pick this one up.

Aspyr Media provided us with a Lord of the Rings: War in the North – Legacy Edition PS5 code for review purposes.