The Lord of the Rings: War in the North that co-operation amongst traditionally antagonistic races is such a major theme in the novels, they wanted to replicate it in the game. Having experimented with two, three and four-player co-op, they ultimately decided to go with three-player, thus mirroring the classic triptych in the novels; Man (Aragorn), Elf (Legolas) and Dwarf (Gimli). Lead designer Andre Maguire explained that "how" players experienced co-op mode was equally as important as them simply playing it; However, according to Tomandl, the focus on co-op gameplay did not mean single-player mode was neglected; "War in the North" is the first "Lord of the Rings" game
The Lord of the Rings: The Third Age a minor character or extra who appeared at some point in the films, and who was named by the production crew but never named on-screen. "The Lord of the Rings: The Third Age" received "mixed or average reviews" across all systems; the GameCube version holds an aggregate score of 74 out of 100 on Metacritic, based on twenty-five reviews; the PlayStation 2 version 73 out of 100, based on thirty-five reviews; and the Xbox version 75 out of 100, based on thirty-eight reviews. Eurogamer's Patrick Garratt scored the Xbox version 7 out of 10. Comparing the combat system to "Final