Fallout developer Troika's near miss with a Lord of the Rings game
Troika, the developer behind the first two Fallout games, nearly made a Lord of the Rings game. That’s right, an RPG based on The Lord of the Rings. The revelation comes from Tim Cain, creator of the original Fallout games, who says that when Troika was finishing work on Arcanum, they were approached by Sierra Entertainment to make a Lord of the Rings demo. Unfortunately, the tight deadline resulted in a choppy demo that used the Arcanum engine, with modified pre-rendered backgrounds. But the idea of a Troika-developed Middle-earth CRPG is certainly intriguing.
“We were approached by Sierra to do a Lord of the Rings game,” Cain explains. “We had just finished Arcanum, and it was right at the time when Sierra was bought by Activision, so it was a weird time. We still had the freedom to do whatever we wanted, but it was a little bit ‘on your toes.’
“We did a little demo that used the Arcanum engine, but we repurposed the pre-rendered backgrounds from Arcanum to make it look a bit more detailed, because it was a tight deadline. It was choppy, but it was a shadow Fellowship that would have ventured ahead of the known Fellowship, clearing a path for them.”
Troika worked with an advisor from the Tolkien Estate to develop their own characters and story based on The Lord of the Rings, with a significant twist. “We were gonna do our own thing, but it was pretty much based on The Lord of the Rings,” Cain says. “It was going to be very similar, but we were going to have items of power. We were going to have a Dwarven ring of power, we were going to have a Palantir, things like that. But the thing is, if you use the item of power, your Corruption level would go up. And if your Corruption level goes up high enough, you turn into a Ringwraith. That was the idea.”
Cain explains that each party member would have had different stats and skill trees based on their race, with Hobbits being most resistant to Corruption and Humans most susceptible. The team also had plans to let a character become fully corrupted and turn into a Ringwraith if their Corruption meter filled completely.
“Everybody would have had a different set of skills,” Cain says. “It was going to be very class-based, not like Arcanum. Everybody had different stats, like Hobbits might be most resistant to Corruption, and Humans are most susceptible. You would have had to pick your party based on who’s best at resisting Corruption.
“The guy running the show was on board with the idea that if your Corruption meter filled completely, your character would turn into a Ringwraith. That was the plan. I don’t know if we would have gotten to that point, but that was the idea.”
Cain says the demo was well-received by Sierra, but instead of asking Troika to make the full game, development was pulled internally, and Sierra released their own Lord of the Rings game. That game, titled The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, was released in 2002 to a wave of critical panning.
The Troika game would have been less of an RPG than Arcanum, but the idea of a Troika-developed Middle-earth CRPG is certainly intriguing. The game would have been less faithful to Tolkien’s lore than the Sierra game, but potentially more innovative in terms of gameplay. The Sierra game was also released near EA’s The Two Towers tie-in game, which had more action and references to the Peter Jackson movies.
The Troika game, had it been made, could not have been worse than the Sierra game. But we’ll probably never know for sure, because it was cancelled before its demo was even shown to the public.
In other Lord of the Rings news, the new Middle-earth: Shadow of War game features a very special orc called Hargash, who is also known as ‘Harghash the Blighted.’
