Again, instantly recognizable locations-though it tended to be better for solo play than the big multiplayer battles. The Mines of Moria had a few different adaptations, wending through Balin’s tomb and down all those rickety staircases and across the bridge where Gandalf faced off against the Balrog. There were other Lord of the Rings maps as well, though none quite as successful as Helm’s Deep. Hell, I think I even tried to create one. I must’ve played dozens of different iterations back in the day. Modders competed, creating ever-larger and more sophisticated simulations of the battle. Dynamic, in a way that most Warcraft III maps were not.

It felt…well, maybe not real, but cinematic. Then on the gaming side you had a hit strategy game that drew from the same ur-fantasy source material, primed for custom content. You had these enormously popular films, a cultural zeitgeist that raked in awards, completely changed the “acceptable” length of a movie for over a decade, sold goblets at Burger King, and et cetera. Better yet, Warcraft III introduced “Hero” characters, bigger and more powerful units that gave modders a perfect way to separate rank-and-file armies from named characters like Gimli, Legolas, and Aragorn. Then you get Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne in the summer of 2003, and The Return of the King in December 2003.īoth took place in fantasy realms populated by humans, elves, dwarves, and orcs. The Two Towers released six months after, in December of 2002. Peter Jackson’s The Fellowship of the Ring released in December of 2001, a mere six months before Warcraft III. There’s a “student becomes the master” aspect to it, with the fairly rough Defense of the Ancients mod eventually spawning two of the biggest games in the world, Dota 2 and League of Legends.įor me it’s always Lord of the Rings though. People tend to remember Warcraft III’s custom scene because of Defense of the Ancients, which makes sense.

Play warcraft 3 frozen throne