The extremely popular Lord of the Rings themed MOBA, Guardians of Middle Earth, will finally be heading to PC later this month, Warner Bros has announced in a press release. The game, developed by Monolith Studios (not the Nintendo studio behind Xenoblade and the upcoming X, a different developer entirely), and ported to PC by Zombie Studios, will feature all 36 characters from the original game, as well as six maps including The Shire and Mirkwood. It will also feature three separate modes.

Unlike most other MOBAs, Guardians of Middle Earth will not retail for free, and will instead be made available in several ‘tiers-‘ the base game for £14.99, which includes characters like Gandalf, Gollum, and Galadriel available to play as from the get go; a Mithril Edition for £60.99, which includes all 36 characters, alternate skins for all of them, the Mithril Guardian relic, and a buddy key; and finally, the bonuses of the Mithril Edition will also be made available for separately for people who have the base game and want to upgrade.

While it will be interesting to see how a MOBA on PC does when it is not free to play from the get go (a large reason for the explosion of League of Legends, and subsequently, the genre), the game remains a near top of the genre entry, so it is recommended for people to check it out.

As the only character who can talk to Sauron directly, the Mouth of Sauron dispatches orders to the armies of Gorgoroth, and even encounters Aragorn before the Battle of the Black Gate.

Guardians of Middle Earth is a multiplayer online battle arena or MOBA style game wherein players can choose from more than 20 characters from the Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. This includes Thoren Oakenshield, Gandalf, Sauron, Legolas, Frodo and many other famous characters as players work to survive on the battlefield. Various items and special abilities help players gain the advantage in extensive online battles.

The new DLC will put Arwen’s father into the fray and will be available soon for both Xbox and PS3 via Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network. Monolith has also revealed a new trailer for the same, showcasing Elrond’s skills in battle.

It was these same skills that helped in the battle of the Second Age, wherein the Last Alliance of Elves and Men fought in the Battle of Dagorlad against Sauron and the forces of Mordor to decide the fate of Middle-earth. It was also there that events governing The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings would be set into motion.

Guardians of Middle-earth is a MOBA style action game, featuring characters from both properties such as Gandalf, Frodo, Sauron, Legolas and many more battling it out for supremacy.

This adds to the already bloated rosts which features more than 20 characters from Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, including Gandalf, Gollum, Legolas, Frodo Baggins and many, many more. Developed by Monolith Productions, Guardians of Middle Earth is available for the Xbox 360 and PS3. Check out our review here.

As the one who took the One Ring to Mount Doom and fought Sauron’s evil forces on the way, Frodo debuts as a striker who can also turn invisible when the situation demands it. He also has tons of annoying voice overs, but that’s okay.

Frodo makes a nice addition to the roster which already features more than 20 characters from the franchise. This includes Gandalf, Gollum, Legolas and Sauron among others. The DLC is currently available on both PlayStation Network and Xbox Live on PS3 and Xbox 360 respectively. Check out the trailer above to see what Mr. Frodo is capable of. Besides those ever-so annoying voice overs of course.

The latest addition to Guardians of Middle Earth line up of heroes and villains is the devious and powerful spider Unglob, one of the hatchlings of the evil spirit Ungoliant who fans will recognize from the books.

Unglob is a striker class villain who grows increasingly powerful as the game progresses. She relies on brute strength and quick strikes to down her foes rather than stealth. Her abilities include releasing a web that blinds and pulls enemies closer, her hunger for prey grants her passive bonus movement speed, and her ultimate bite packs quite a welly as it stuns, damages and lifesteals a unit for significant amount of damage. Warner Bros has also released a video detailing her abilities. Check it out below.

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In addition to the character, the three-lane map is now available with the Mirkwood skin which transforms the map into the dark and foreboding jungle.

Guardians of Middle-Earth is a humble attempt by the developers to bring the widely successful MOBA genre to console, and they’ve succeeded to an extent albeit with toning down the scale and complexity associated with the genre. Read our full review of the game over here.

The leader of the wizard council makes his way into the roster of the console MOBA Guardians of Middle Earth. His abilities include a shield that can be detonated for area of effect damage, also silencing nearby enemies in the process. Check him out in action below:

Guardians of the Middle Earth attempts to bring the incredibly popular Multiplayer Online Battle Arena (MOBA for short) to the console audience. Ten players team up in teams of 5 each and must work together with the utmost coordination in order to destroy the enemy team’s base before they destroy yours. The current roster features over 20 of the most iconic characters from Middle Earth, including: Gandalf, Gollum, Legolas and the dark lord Sauron himself, with many more to be added down the line in the form of DLC. It is available on XBLA and PSN for $15.

Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.

Gloin is a new dwarf in Guardians of Middle Earth and you can now play as him in the game. The DLC is available on XBLA and will be released for the PSN later. The game is also free on PS Plus from February 4 to March 4.

“As one of the 12 dwarves who accompanied Thorin Oakenshield to reclaim Erebor and father of Gimli, Glóin joins the epic character roster in Guardians of Middle-earth, with Season Pass holders set to receive two more Guardians in the coming months, and more to come as well,” the press release reads.

In  Guardians of Middle-earth, gamers team up as the most powerful heroes from the greatest fantasy epic of all time, bringing up to 10 players together in a competitive multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) game.

You can check out the trailer below.

If you’re going to select one company for tie-in games, you really should look no further than Monolith Productions. Back in the day they were responsible for Tron 2.0, The Matrix Online, as well as their own IP No One Lives Forever. If you have not played any of these games, you’re truly missing out on some great games with a strong element of storytelling. Monolith has clearly shown that they can be faithful to the content of the tie-in but also expand to make an enjoyable experience.

Guardians of Middle-Earth is a little different from their titles previously mentioned. Most of their games used to be first person shooters with an emphasis on a story. Guardians of Middle-Earth is a third person game and the gameplay here is quite simple, destroy the enemy’s tower before they destroy yours.

There’s a deep level of game play set up that really needs to be appreciated. You can easily ignore strategy and go for a hack and slash style but you’ll quickly find yourself the only one dying. This game pulls away from your crappy hack and slashes fest and proves that if you can play it cool and try not to die, you will be rewarded by skill and enjoyment.

The gameplay is broken down into 2 parts, in-game and in-lobby. In-game is pretty simple with a straight forward layout for buttons which are mapped to special skills that take time to regenerate. You still have a basic skill that is strong enough to get the kills you need in order to drive the forces back. When you level up on the battlegrounds, you can upgrade skills and to be fair, each battleground starts every player at level one. Players can level up by killing armies, controlling points, destroying towers, upgrading towers, killing other players, and the list goes on. Matches are 5 players per side, and the Battlefield throws out armies for each side. When you upgrade your towers, you upgrade your armies and you can only do that after you’ve leveled up yourself.

After a match you can get experience points for certain skills, and yes you can even get points for having the most deaths. These points level up your rank and unlock more skills for you. Certain ranks unlock slots on your D-pad where you can map extra perks that you’ve earned from some battles. You also get in-game cash which can be used to buy gems, relics, potions and more characters. In the lobby you can also create your own load outs for characters by building your own belts. If that’s too much work, it’s quite alright seeing how every character has their own load out. So when you select a character to play you can either select their default load out or use a custom one.

There are also a huge amount of characters to choose from. The game does not stick to only one series as you can pick from either good or bad from Lord of the Rings all the way to the Hobbit movies. By default you start with some good characters like Gandolf, and there are also characters of the week. Once you get enough money you can buy characters like Goluum or Dori.

In the lobby you can either jump into a quick match or select from Battlegrounds, Elite Battlegrounds Skirmishes, or custom matches. You need to rank up in order to play Elite, but they all have some commonalities. The most you can have is 5 versus 5 in most matches, but in certain selections, the slots can be filled by AI if a user doesn’t jump in. This helps from having people wait forever for a person to join. In a few matches I ended up being the only real person playing while all the other slots were filled with AI, and let me tell you, they’re good.

Rounding out the package, the art is top notch. The intro cinematic is pretty impressive, and the in-game characters all have a high level of detail. The battle arenas are all built the same, seeing how the game play doesn’t change, but each level can be different depending on trees, shires, and other cool details.

If there’s anything negative to say about the game, it’s too bad there’s no offline campaign. Monolith is fantastic with their story telling, and no doubt they could have easily developed an entertaining campaign. Although there is no direct single player mode, you can create a custom match to play only AI, and it’s pretty satisfying.

If you’re in the mood for a well developed PVP game, don’t throw your money at those other knock off games. Guardians of Middle-Earth is the game you want. It may lack a single player campaign, but you have options to play the game by yourself if you want. There’s deep enough strategy that makes you avoid the clustering of a death match, and allows you to really think about how to win, rather than how to kill. Intuitive button mapping, leveling up in and out of the battle grounds and great artwork makes this game stand heads above the rest.

This game was reviewed on the PlayStation 3.

Guardians of Middle Earth has players competing in a multiplayer online battle arena, where they must either team up with friends or engage in free-for-alls across maps for victory. The maps themselves contain various items for tipping the scales in one’s favour.

Up to 10 players will be able to face off competitively, with over 20 characters to be selected including Gandalf, Gollum, Legolas, Sauron and even some characters from the upcoming The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey film. Other features include voice communications, leader board systems, stat tracking and much more. Check out the launch trailer above for gameplay.