02 Jun 2026 10 min read

An Evening At the Inn Issue 8 - The Tragedy of The Lord of the Rings (Games)

Been a while, huh? I did mention that this would become a bi-weekly-ish newsletter, but I've also not been in a great place mentally and been quite busy with work things. I've got a couple potential projects, let's say, that I'm hopeful I can talk about soon.

First a word on An Evening At the Inn. I know I said there'd be more original reporting when I started this newsletter – but honestly that was before I lost my job. Because of being freelance again, this has, in some ways, taken a backseat. Most of my orginal reporting I've had to extend to pitches rather than put here to pay the bills. Or the pieces I'm doing for outlets are so time intensive that I often don't have time to put together interviews for this. Reporting is still something I want to do here, but I still have to figure out the balance of everything. And honestly, I've been struggling with that bit since going freelance.

So, for the time being, you might see me link to my reporting here. In this case, please read my enormous interview I did for Game Informer on the turn-based "reniassance," where I talked to the devs behind Persona, Metaphor, Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, and Sea of Stars (you do have to be a subscriber, but you can also find it in the print issue on newstands soon).

Now onto the main show.

Please consider supporting An Evening at the Inn and my work as a freelance journalist via Ko-Fi. Your support means I can keep doing all this. Comments, feedback, tips? Reach out to madsenhayes@gmail.com

From the Innkeeper

In a Hole in the Ground

Where are all the good The Lord of the Rings games? You might think I'm being facetious, but I'm not. If there's a single series that should have had more runaway successs in the realm of video games, it's Lord of the Rings. Yes, we have Shadow of Mordor/War, The Battle for Middle-Earth, and a smattering of movie tie-ins – but LOTR has, disspaointingly, fallen victim to trends and failed experiments for decades. Even more dissapointing is that we don't have a truly good LOTR RPG, something with an original story or premise in a universe bursting at the seams with potential.

Shadow of Mordor roughly counts as an RPG, but I'm not afraid to say it's narrative is utterly abyssmal. I know some will point to The Third Age, which is a game that sort of works in spits of itself – it's a fairly obvious copy of Final Fantasy X in nearly every way, while having a cast of cookie cutter characters that literally follow in the footsteps of the Fellowship, and it kind of just works. But the potential for something bigger, and grander, has always been there.

I think the problem with LOTR games largely stems from a misguided approach – to much of "what would this game look like with LOTR," versus "what could LOTR uniquely bring to video games." So much of what we've seen from the series has been grafting Middle-Earth onto already existting experiences. What would a LOTR MOBA look like, what if we took Star Wars Battlefront 2 and did a fantasy version of that, what if we had a Shire-based farming and life sim, and whoever thought a Golumn stealth game was a good idea. Even the "successes" take this approach – Shadow of Mordor is largely Assassin's Creed meets Batman Arkham, and Battle For Middle-Earth is heavily inspired by the assymetric design of StarCraft.

But if you look at the granular elements of what makes LOTR works, it's the sense of whimsy, the beloved characters that grow in leaps and bounds, and the sense of awe and discovery to its world. Games have laregly tried to recreat those elements from the films, instead of creating their own versions of that. A good analog that's been far more successful is Star Wars, with the likes of Knights of the Old Republic, Jedi Fallen Order, and Dark Forces. These are games that don't ask what could Star Wars bring to video games, but rather what could games bring to Star Wars.

A few years ago I wrote a half joke article that Dragon's Dogma 2 is the best LOTR game ever made, but the more I've reflected on it I think I mean it. It's the sole game that has best captures the sense of intrigue and discovery in a high fantasy format – clearly inspired, in part, by LOTR. Despite some issues, I do largely think Lord of the Rings Online manages to succesfully capture this vibe as well – though you do have to be willing to put up with some clunky "legacy" MMO design.

And that brings us to the current moment, in the wake of failed experiment after failed experiment. Embracer has fumbled its ownership of Lord of the Rings rights in pretty much every way up until now. Golumn was a disaster, Amazon flat out canceled its new LOTR MMO (which they even told people they'd need to "move on" from LOTR Online for, and nothing else has materialized.

The big announcement now is a brand-new LOTR game made by Warhorse Studios, the dev team behind the Kingdom Come Deliverance Game. I've seen a good level of excitement over this announcement, but I can't help but dread, to some degree, what we see from this project for a single reason – Daniel Vavra.

Both Kingdom Come Deliverance games are phenomenal RPGs that are, undoubtedly, made by many talented and passionate developers. But Daniel Vavra makes it incredibly hard to support both games.

Vavra was a vocal supporter of GamerGame in the 2010s. Here's a look at just a few of the things he talked about then.

But it also seems like time and distance hasn't taught Vavra anything. A few outlets, like Aftermath, have written about Vavra, who has consistently bemoaned being "pulled into the culture war" despite directly courting that audience. More recently, Kingdom Come 2 gained two nominations at Gayming Magazine's 2026 Gayming Awards. Vavra welcomed the nominations, but explained that it doesn't make him "woke."

It's impossible for Vavra making a Lord of the Rings game to not give me pause in light of where the series sits in the current culture. Tolkien's work has consistently been co-opted by right wing idealogues. The highly controrversial and downright evil weapons and surveillance company Palantir, is direclty named after one of Tolkien's creations. JD Vance has been exceedingly open about how Tolkien's work "influenced" his conservative worldview. And you can find countless articles about how the right has misunderstood Lord of the Rings, and things along those lines.

The commonality you'll find is that LOTR is easy to co-opt because of Tolkein's simplistic approach to good versus evil, how a lack of grey morality makes it easy to pin to specific ideals. And while that's somewhat true, there are strong queer readings of Lord of the Rings as well. What Tolkein really intended with his works is obviously not something we'll ever know, but will be endlessly debated.

But the point is that I have zero doubt that someone like Vavra will have all of this in mind when making and marketing a Lord of the Rings video game – and the single thing Embracer cares about is making money. I also have no doubt that there are developers are Warhorse who simply want to make a good video game, and wish their boss would just shut up. But the problem with the structure of this industry is that the vocal people in charge so often decide what happens, and how things are interpreted. Vavra is a perfect example of that.

I've long bemoaned the unrealized potential of Tolkein's series in games, but I simultanously just can't hand wave away Warhorse and Vavra in the hopes that we'll finally get a "good" Lord of the Rings game. Sure I have an open mind, but little hope that the video game industry will ever hold bad actors accountable for anything at this point.

And ultimately maybe it's time to just let things go. I love Tolkien's work, it's meant a lot to my life. But I also feel like Lord of the Rings is one of those series where we keep trying to recreat it, and shouldn't. Not everything should be franchised out endlessly, and sometimes it's better to just appreciate something as a cultural piece, rather than an endless money-making machine. But so goes the whims of capatalism.

Around the Realm

Rebekah Valentine talks to the creator of Baby Steps about, well, Baby Steps - but more importantly Super Mario Sunshine (the best Mario)

Chris Revelle digs into the prophetic powers of Final Fantasy Tactics

Maddy Myers talks to the team behind Mina the Hollower on putting cheats directly in the game, and why it's a good thing

Veerender Singh Jubbal reviews Dosa Divas, and interviews its creators, mixing critique and investigation

Edwin Evans-Thirlwell on the dissonance of players wanting weapons in Subnautica 2

The Back Page

For a reccomendation this week, there's no way I could suggest anything other than Mina the Hollower. Perhaps one of the best video games of the decade, Mina is a fantastically compelling advancement of the "Zelda formula," and ingenious in ways I don't often see. The sense of wonder and exploration crammed into Mina is immense, and I said in my review (which you can see below), that there's a clear through line you can draw from the design of original Zelda, to modern open world games, and then back to Mina. I'll also linke Giovanni Colantonio's review, as had some similar sentiments that I really enjoyed reading. It's the best 20 bucks you'll spend all week, month, and probably year.

Now the customary big RPG releases of June 2026. Kind of a sparse month for RPGs, surprisingly

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth (Switch 2) - June 3
Gothic 1 Remake - June 5
Starseeker: Astroneer Expeditions - June 11
The Adventures of Elliot: The Millenium Tales - June 18
R-Type Tacitcs I-II Cosmos - June 18

Now time for the pet update. The cats have been fighting again, mostly because Garrus is exceptionally jealous and can never let his sister have her own spot. Kelsey has taken to the couch recently, so of course as soon as she gets up he immediately takes her sport. Accordingly, here's a picture of her looking at her brother with utter disgust.