In 2001, Troika Games was planning on working on a The Lord of the Rings game for Sierra. In fact, Troika Games developed a tech demo for this unannounced game, and we can finally take a look at it in the following video.
This 2001 LOTR game would be using an isometric viewpoint and would feature 2D graphics. The game would have pre-rendered backgrounds, and it would be using the Arcanum Engine. And… well… the demo runs pretty horribly. We’re talking about single-digit numbers.
Timothy Cain says that Sierra really liked what Troika Games has achieved, but they decided to pull all the development of this LOTR game internally. So in short, Troika Games was paid to create a demo for a potential LOTR game, that was it.
This demo looks kind of cool, and I’m pretty sure that most retro LOTR fans will find it interesting. Just don’t expect much from it.
Enjoy!

John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities. Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved – and still does – the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the “The Evolution of PC graphics cards.”
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Ah, Troika Games, not a single bad game in their (short) catalogue.
I miss Troika. VTMB was such a great game once it got patched but it was a mess on release. They were trying to beat the Half Life 2 release in order to be first to market with using the Source Engine. Turns out they released on the same day as Half Life 2 but VTMB was seriously rushed and it showed. I don’t know if it ever sold very much eventually but Troika shut their offices the following year after the VTMB release.
Wesp5 is still modding VTMB to this day 19 years after launch. That’s true dedication to a game.
I would love a remake of redemption. Christof sorry needs to be told.
It sold like 500,000 copies, it flopped hard thanks to Activisions meddling.
I dislike this demo. there is not enough minority representation.
Oh cool, Tim made a Youtube channel with some nice inside info.
Bebeklerin neredeyse yar?s?, ciddi bir hastal?ktan ba??ms?z olarak, arada s?rada kusar. Bebeklerde kusma neredeyse her zaman bardaktan bo?an?rcas?na ç?kar?r. Ancak bebeklerde ve küçük çocuklarda ard? arkas? kesilmeyen kusmalar her zaman ciddiye al?nmal?d?r. Aksi takdirde, çok kereler kusma sonucunda vücut dokusunda su kayb? ve kuruma (eksikoz) meydana gelir.
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Too bad, I’m sure it would have been pretty interesting, considering it’s Troïka.
It reminds me of Lord of the Rings on Super Nintendo, but potentially better. It was a good game though.