Warner has announced Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, a next-gen, third-person Lord of the Rings action game that promises an "original, dark story of retribution".
A shadow grows over Middle-earth as the greatest armies of the Third Age prepare for the coming battle. Take up arms in the clash over Middle-earth as the most powerful heroes and villains from the greatest fantasy epic of all time.
Guardians of Middle-earth delivers an authentic multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) game set in Middle-earth! Play with friends to bring up to 10 players together in strategic five versus five competitive multiplayer battle arenas in this epic setting. Call upon legendary heroes and villains from The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit as you form memorable alliances in this truly groundbreaking MOBA experience!
Warner Bros. and Monolith have announced a new update for their console MOBA game, Guardians of Middle-earth, that will add both a Survival mode and a new map for the one-lane versus mode.
The new Survival mode takes place in the Glittering Caves of the White Mountains, and pits one to five players against a series of incoming enemy and boss waves, trying to keep towers up and stay alive as long as possible.
The "Goblin-town" map for the one-lane mode sets the battle in the Misty Mountains near the Witch-king's dwelling, as seen in The Hobbit last year. We've got videos of both the new mode and the new map down below.
To celebrate the release, Monolith devs are jumping in on the PlayStation Network and hosting a special "Play with Devs" session on Friday, March 1 from 5-8pm PT. The game is free this week for PS Plus members, so if that's you download away.
Monolith says the new content is coming "soon" to both PSN and XBLA, so no date yet. The company tells Joystiq that the new one-lane map will be free. Survival Mode will also be free for anyone with a season pass (included in the boxed retail copies of the game), but cost extra otherwise.
Welcome to this week’s PlayStation Plus update, where we’re excited to bring news that the Guardians of Middle Earth MOBA greatness will be coming free to PS3 for PS Plus members! If you’ve never tried this unique genre that’s taking the gaming community by storm, give Guardians of Middle Earth a download and see what all the excitement is about. While you’re at it, check out a handful of discounts on some pretty amazing games you may have missed out on for both PS3 and PS Vita.
Friendly reminder: The deal is on through March 4th: purchase a one-year membership of PS Plus and get three bonus months free. Current members can stack this value on to their existing membership as well. Learn more about the offer here, or click the link below to go to the SEN online store.
Don’t have PlayStation Plus, or just want to add more time to your existing membership? Go to the PlayStation Store on your PS3 or PS Vita or click here to get access via the Sony Entertainment Network online store.
February 5th PlayStation Plus Update
Guardians of Middle Earth (PS3)
Free for PS Plus members (Original Price: $14.99)
Take up arms in the clash over Middle-earth with the most powerful heroes from the greatest fantasy epic of all time. Form alliances with and against friends and jump into the wildly popular Multiplayer Online Battle Arena (MOBA) gameplay. With 20 iconic guardians from Middle-earth, and new guardians coming all the time, it’s the perfect time to get lost in the multiplayer fray in epic 5 versus 5 battles.
Karateka (PS3)
50% off for PS Plus members (Original price: $9.99; PS Plus price: $5.00)
A beautifully simple premise with a fun pick up and play fighting system, Karateka blends old school gameplay charm with fluid combat animations and gorgeous backdrops and music to provide an amazing adventure with a ton of replay value. Are you skilled enough to rescue Princess Mariko with the fighting finesse of her True Love? Or will you need the power of the burly brute to topple the opposition? For more on Karateka, check out PS.Blog’s post from Assistant Producer Heather d’Evelyn.
Big Sky Infinity (PS3 and PS Vita – Cross Buy Enabled)
40% off for PS Plus members (Original price: $9.99; PS Plus price: $5.99)
Big Sky Infinity is a lightning-fast, randomly-generated game that adapts to how you play; which means, it’s never the same game twice. You pilot a spaceship that’s flying straight into an alien armada. The further you progress, the harder it gets, with giant bosses, streams of enemies, and unique events that shift the gameplay to keep you on your toes. It’s Cross Buy enabled, so this purchase will get you a version to play on both your PS Vita and PS3. Check out more Big Sky Infinity from the game’s director James Whitehead.
Knytt Underground (PS3 and PS Vita – Cross Buy Enabled)
40% off for PS Plus members (Original price: $9.99; PS Plus price: $5.00)
Knytt Underground tells a quirky and strange tale that’s set in the future, hundreds of years after the humans disappeared from the planet. Sprites, fairies and various other lifeforms roam tunnels in the underground. With a curiousity about their origin and the meaning of life, they strike out to find those answers they try to understand the ones who had obviously figured it out: the humans. It’s a beautiful adventure with a vast environment to explore and story driven quests that will keep you hooked. Read more about Knytt Underground in the PS Blog’s post featuring the Creative Director Nicklas Nygren.
What’s your favorite content from this week’s PS Plus update?
Thanks for reading this week’s update. As usual, you can join the PlayStation community over on the PlayStation Community Forums in the PS Plus space to continue chatting about PS Plus, or find other PlayStation topics to discuss, or even start one yourself. See you in the comments!
"Multiplayer Online Battle Arena," or MOBA, is the name given to the emerging genre of games initiated by Dota, and now led by games like League of Legends, Dota 2, Heroes of Newerth, Smite, and more. Because MOBA games come from a heritage of real-time strategy gameplay, they tend to have most of the qualities of that genre. They're complicated, high stakes affairs, with lots of controls and nuances, where one little move can sometimes turn the tide of battle completely. These are traditionally games meant for hotkeys and minimap clicking, mouse precision and a Ventrilo client, rather than the relatively imprecise triggers and joysticks on a console controller.
Which makes it all the more impressive, then, that Monolith (a studio with a long shooter tradition that includes No One Lives Forever and the FEAR series) has chosen to take on Guardians of Middle Earth, a MOBA game designed from the ground up to recreate the traditionally PC-centric experience on consoles. Yes, games like Awesomenauts and Monday Night Combat have borrowed MOBA principles, but Monolith here goes full bore, all the way back to the top-down isometric view that began with the original Starcraft Aeon of Strife map at the genre's inception.
In fact, given this task, the fact that Monolith's game also happens to use the Lord of the Rings license (right around the release of the new Hobbit film) is almost inconsequential. Tolkien nerds may want to see Sauron battling it out with Gandalf directly, but MOBA nerds should be even more excited to see what Monolith does with this emerging new form.
Guardians of Middle-Earth will launch on Xbox Live Arcade one day later than previously stated. The official Twitter account for the game confirmed the new Xbox 360 date of December 5.
The account also confirmed the PS3 version is still on track to launch one day earlier on December 4. The PS3 version will be available both at retail and as a download through PSN.
#lordoftherings
Good news: Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment chose today to reveal how much their December 4 MOBA/DOTA-style Guardians of Middle-Earth game will cost. (The game is like League of Legends but with Lord of the Rings characters. Got it?) More »
Guardians of Middle-earth begins lording over PSN on December 4 in the UK, with an XBLA release due "this autumn." The Lord of the Rings tie-in MOBA will retail for 1200 Microsoft Points or £11.99. Specific dates have not been announced for other regions yet.
Publisher Warner Bros. is cleverly ensuring that its big holiday movie tie-in game will be in stores for gift purchasing potential, despite being digital. A UK retail edition will contain a PSN code for the game and pre-paid access to DLC, including characters based on the movie version of The Hobbit. That retail version will be in stores December 14, for £24.99.
Given Gollum's propensity for killing things in the dark, it only makes sense that his character is suited to hit-and-run tactics in in Guardians of Middle-earth. On the other hand, we never thought we'd hear Gandalf described as "tanky," but there you go.
Sometimes when we start up a game with branching story paths or "evil" character options, we'll get down with our bad selves and go for the dark choices, intent on violently slaughtering the goody-two-shoes right off the "light" side. With Guardians of Middle-earth, we don't think we'll be able to do that, though.
Perhaps it's because we're invested in the lore of Lord of the Rings, because we've spent years devouring the books, films and Trivial Pursuit board games, and we've rooted for Frodo, Gandalf and the good guys to win the whole time. Choosing to play as Sauron now would feel dirty.
That said, the first-ever gameplay trailer for Guardians of Middle-earth makes each side look equally cool, and it promises the game will launch this fall, for XBLA and PSN only. Go Gandalf! Really, go -- Sauron's like right behind you.
Take up arms in the clash over Middle-earth with the most powerful heroes from the greatest fantasy epic of all time. Form alliances with and against friends and jump into the wildly popular Multiplayer Online Battle Arena (MOBA) gameplay. With 20 iconic guardians from Middle-earth, and new guardians coming all the time, it’s the perfect time to get lost in the multiplayer fray in epic 5 versus 5 battles.
Karateka (PS3)
A beautifully simple premise with a fun pick up and play fighting system, Karateka blends old school gameplay charm with fluid combat animations and gorgeous backdrops and music to provide an amazing adventure with a ton of replay value. Are you skilled enough to rescue Princess Mariko with the fighting finesse of her True Love? Or will you need the power of the burly brute to topple the opposition? For more on Karateka, check out PS.Blog’s post from Assistant Producer Heather d’Evelyn.
Big Sky Infinity (PS3 and PS Vita – Cross Buy Enabled)
Big Sky Infinity is a lightning-fast, randomly-generated game that adapts to how you play; which means, it’s never the same game twice. You pilot a spaceship that’s flying straight into an alien armada. The further you progress, the harder it gets, with giant bosses, streams of enemies, and unique events that shift the gameplay to keep you on your toes. It’s Cross Buy enabled, so this purchase will get you a version to play on both your PS Vita and PS3. Check out more Big Sky Infinity from the game’s director James Whitehead.
Knytt Underground (PS3 and PS Vita – Cross Buy Enabled)
Knytt Underground tells a quirky and strange tale that’s set in the future, hundreds of years after the humans disappeared from the planet. Sprites, fairies and various other lifeforms roam tunnels in the underground. With a curiousity about their origin and the meaning of life, they strike out to find those answers they try to understand the ones who had obviously figured it out: the humans. It’s a beautiful adventure with a vast environment to explore and story driven quests that will keep you hooked. Read more about Knytt Underground in the PS Blog’s post featuring the Creative Director Nicklas Nygren.
What’s your favorite content from this week’s PS Plus update?
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