With it being Hobbit day today, I am reminded that, as a long-time Lord of the Rings fan, I’ve been in despair when it comes to the lack of games in recent years. With that in mind, I decided to try out a popular mod for Mount & Blade: Warband called The Last Days of the Third Age to see if it could scratch my itch. So, join me and the Uruk-Hai Gringutz as we bring an end to the world of men.
Now, one thing I need to make clear is that Mount & Blade: Warband is quite an old game, and its graphics have not changed significantly. Even with that said, I found it didn’t take me out of the adventure all that much, and the armour and weapons are about as accurate as you could really get. With that in mind, I went out into the lands of Rohan with a small gang of Uruk-Hai and orcs to see what trouble I could raise.
So, first things first, The Last Days of the Third Age plays like every other Mount & Blade game. You slowly build up your reputation while gathering, training, and feeding your troops. Once you engage in a battle, you control your character and fight with sword, spear and bow. It’s a fun system, and The Last Days of the Third Age functions in much the same way, but rather than gathering money, you get reputation points that you use to pay your soldiers and buy food and equipment.
Honestly, I love the design of the characters and entering some of the most well-known locations of Middle-earth, such as Isengard or storming the gates of Edoras, is charming. I also like being able to grab some recognisable weapons, like the Uruk-Hai machete, and use them in the field. It isn’t all perfect, however: the Trolls look a bit odd, and the named characters bear minimal resemblance to their counterparts in the films, but that’s more due to the engine than anything else.
There are some issues, mind, namely that the balance between the armies leaves a bit to be desired. For the most part, as a member of Isengard’s army, you spend most of your time fighting against Rohan, who are primarily horse-based. The issue is that Mount & Blade cavalry units are overpowered compared to infantry, especially when that cavalry has access to bows. This meant that in a lot of fights, Gringutz had to run around trying to catch the damn man-things as they shot arrows at him and ran away with no real solution, as Uruk-Hai aren’t great on Wargs. However, the fact that the game has Orcs on Wargs is aesthetically a great thing to see.
There also seemed to be an issue with death/wounds when facing your opponent. Usually, when your men are beaten in combat, they’ll either die or get wounded. These troops will eventually return after a period, but I saw more men die than get hurt most of the time. However, there are ways to mitigate this. The bigger issue was with some of the missions, mainly creating scout parties and catching Trolls.
The scout parties become a problem because you’ll lose a group of soldiers and never get them back. In the main game, this is less of an issue because you have so many sources of new troops, but there are fewer options in The Last Days of the Third Age. You can recruit troops from other evil factions, but they are paid from a different resource pool, so you’ll often see them leave before long.
Meanwhile, the Troll missions are based more on chance than anything, as the Trolls you hunt will wander around the main map and can run off if they see another army, and you will never see them again. However, with all that said, most of the missions are fun enough that it doesn’t become an issue.
The main thing that The Last Days of the Third Age taught me is that I really want a proper Lord of the Rings game in this style. I want a game that lets me build my own character and gather a group of warriors while fighting the forces of order, or Mordor and the evil factions. I would love to see a version of The Last Days of the Third Age in Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord with the updated graphics and physics. Alternatively, let’s see the developers embrace creating their own fantasy world using their design.