This is by far THE MOST underrated gem of a game that I’ve ever played. For some reason nobody seems to know about it, and it was so under performing that they killed the multiplayer for the game really early into its lifetime. Did this stop me from having a blast? No, because I have friends.
Conquest is the Lord of The Rings version of Star Wars: Battlefront. Two teams battle against objectives on different maps, and if you’re doing good enough you’ll be allowed to play as a “hero”. In Star Wars this could be Darth Vader, but in Conquest it’s Gandalf, or Frodo, or Aragorn, etc. It’s extremely simple, and the campaign is pretty much the same as the multiplayer but with bots instead of actual players. Both Battlefront and Conquest share similarities with the Dynasty Warrior games, having you cut down an absurd number of goons – it’s not difficult, but extremely satisfying.
I was never able to play Conquest online with other players, and had to resort to gathering my friends in my sofa and play it locally. You could argue that local multiplayer is more fun anyway, but I still harbor this bitter feeling towards EA for cutting down the online multiplayer early. I tried finding the game on Steam and the Microsoft Store, but with no luck. I’m not sure whether it’s possible to gain access to it on PC and play on private servers, but, oh well… yet another reason to hate AAA companies!
The game might be simple, and if you were to go back to it with this “modern gaming lens” it’d probably end up being quite rough. It’s neither graphically or mechanically mind blowing, but it’s also important to keep in mind that it was released during a time where local multiplayer was still fairly big. Halo, Call of Duty, Gears of War, etc – all of these game offered simple but fun multiplayer that could be enjoyed both locally and online. There weren’t events, or millions of skins to grind for.
I’ll die on this hill, but Conquest was way more fun than many of the other games at the time AND IT DID NOT DESERVE TO DIE! We’ll most likely never see a remake, and it could very well end up becoming lost media in the future, but it will always be part of our hearts <3
Fuck rogues, 9/10!