After more than a decade in development, Middle-earth Extended Edition has launched into version 1.0 for The Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle-earth. Unfortunately, Battle for Middle-earth isn’t available to purchase digitally, although you can find it used on eBay for the price of a new PlayStation 5 title. This mod has been a long time coming, but it adds the finishing touches on a project that has expanded a beloved RTS far beyond its original scope.
Battle for Middle-earth was developed by Danger Close Games and released in December 2004. Middle-earth Extended Edition started development eight years later in 2012, and its developer Rohirim91 released the mod piecemeal as they completed different aspects of it. Today’s release is the first in four years, but it more or less marks the mod as complete. That said, Rohirim91 hasn’t stated whether they intend to continue to work on the mod.
The release isn’t marked with celebratory language, but instead reads as a routine update. Rohirim91 provides instructions on how to get the mod to run and writes, “Middle-earth Extended Edition returns with an expanded set of playable maps, new features, polished campaigns and AI, balance changes and bugfixes. BFME 1 Patch 1.06 required.”
The mod is a prime example of what makes gaming such an engrossing hobby. It’s a work of passion, forged over the span of 13 years for a game that’s now 21 years old. While you can’t buy Battle for Middle-earth digitally, there has been a petition to bring it to GOG. If you’re interesting in lending your voice to that effort, shoot the GOG team an email and let them know you’d like to see it.
And if you’re a fan of this old-school RTS, you can download the most recent version of the mod here. It adds multiple factions, new maps, and tweaks the enemy AI to be much improved over its original version. In many ways, it breathes new life into a game that can feel quite dated at times, and it even changes the campaign missions to be truer to Lord of the Rings lore.