The Lord of the Rings: War in the North - Legacy Edition announced for modern consoles

It’s Time for War! Limited Run Games Brings Action Role-Playing Classic The Lord of the Rings: War in the North™ - Legacy Edition to Modern Consoles

 

Shipping in Standard and Deluxe Edition, Loaded with Collectible Treasure From

Middle-earth: Pre-Orders Open Now!

Limited Run Games, a premium publisher of physical video games, announced today that action role-playing classic, The Lord of the Rings: War in the North™ - Legacy Edition is coming to PlayStation® 5™, Nintendo® Switch™2 and XBOX, via physical Standard and Deluxe Editions! 

 

Pre-orders are open today and extend until December 13, 2026, so if you or your Fellowship is yearning for adventure, you’re advised to pre-order today! 

 

Originally developed by Snowblind Studios, and then by Aspyr for the Legacy Edition, The Lord of the Rings: War in the North™ – Legacy Edition was first released in 2011 and fast became a fan favorite thanks to its action packed third-person gameplay, mixed with a compellingly authentic storyline and deeply engrossing RPG elements.

 

Play solo or team up with a friend online or via split-screen co-op as you battle for the survival of your Fellowship. All of Middle-earth depends on your uniquely skilled heroes working together. Fight together, or die alone!

 

The Lord of the Rings: War in the North™ - Legacy Edition delves into the brutal, untold story of Agandaûr, a Black Númenórean and servant of Sauron who has rallied an immense force in the ruins of Fornost. While Frodo and Samwise embark on their journey to Mount Doom, a new Fellowship must rise and defend the North. Let this be the hour when we draw swords together!

 

Seamlessly hot swap between three uniquely skilled characters:

 

• Eradan: Dúnedain Ranger – Stealth and precision with bows and swords

• Andriel: Elven Loremaster – Magical support with healing and area-of-effect spells

• Farin: Dwarven Champion – Tank-like durability and devastating melee attacks

 

Featuring deep RPG progression, gamers can customize their hero with unique skills, abilities, and gear, as they collect powerful weapons and armor to shape their individual playstyle.

 

A darker, grittier take on Middle-earth, in The Lord of the Rings: War in the North™ - Legacy Edition, gamers will witness first-hand the brutal reality of war with mature storytelling, blood-soaked battlefields, and the desperate fight to defend the North against Sauron’s advancing armies.

 

The Lord of the Rings: War in the North™ - Legacy Edition will be shipping physically via Standard and Deluxe editions of the game. Included in each edition is as follows:

 

The Lord of the Rings: War in the North™ - Legacy Edition (Standard Edition) – PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch 2, XBOX - $49.99 / €55.95 / £45.00 / CAD $70.99.

 

• Physical version of the game (Disc or Game Card)

• O-Ring Slipcover

• 8-page Booklet “A Wayfinder’s Ledger,” featuring riddles from in-game and/or the official riddles for the ‘Riddles in the Dark’ activation

 

The Lord of the Rings: War in the North™ - Legacy Edition (Deluxe Edition) – PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch 2, XBOX - $79.99 / €88.95 / £73.00 / CAD $112.99.

 

• Physical version of the game (Disc or Game Card)

• SteelCase

• Exclusive letter written by actor Jed Brophy on weathered-looking paper, closed with a wax seal sticker

• Full Color Cloth Map 

 

Pre-orders for The Lord of the Rings: War in the North™ – Legacy Edition are open now and extend until December 13, 2026, at 11:59 PM ET. To pre-order, please visit: https://limitedrungames.com/lotr 

VisionQuest trailer offers tantalising hints

The all-new original series coming exclusively to Disney+ October 14, concludes the epic trilogy that began with 2021’s groundbreaking, award-winning “WandaVision” and 2024’s acclaimed “Agatha All Along.” 

Vision, rebooted and having escaped from those who sought to weaponise him, has been in hiding. Searching for new meaning, he consults the AI personas embedded in his programming, including F.R.I.D.A.Y., E.D.I.T.H., J.A.R.V.I.S., and the infamous Ultron. His discreet existence ends when a bounty placed on his head thrusts him on the run with Thomas Shepherd, a mysterious boy who may be Vision’s son, reincarnate. As Vision evades capture, he must confront his nature, resist Ultron's influence, and unravel the enigma that is his young companion if he’s to survive.

“VisionQuest” stars Paul Bettany, James Spader, Ruaridh Mollica, Todd Stashwick, T’Nia Miller, Lauren Morais, Orla Brady, Diane Morgan, Polly Frame, Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer, with Emily Hampshire and James D’Arcy. The series is directed by Christopher J. Byrne, Gandja Monteiro, Vincenzo Natali, Terry Matalas, and written by Terry Matalas, Cindy Appel, Christopher Monfette, Nicole Falsetti, and Matthew Okumura. “VisionQuest” is created for television by Terry Matalas, based on the Marvel Comics. The executive producers are Kevin Feige, Louis D’Esposito, Brad Winderbaum, Paul Bettany, Mary Livanos, Terry Matalas, Jac Schaeffer, and Christopher J. Byrne, and the producer is Roopesh Parekh.

Pulp: What Do You Do For An Encore?: Movie Review

Director: Garth Jennings

There's a moment in director Garth Jennings' blisteringly good concert-cum-doco feature where UK band Pulp's de facto leader Jarvis Cocker asks what's next for the band in a contemplative voiceover as they perform to sell-out crowds as part of their 2025 More tour.

It's an intriguing insight for a group which went nearly a decade and a half in various iterations before exploding into the collective consciousness of the British music-loving public thanks to their Different Class anthems of the mid-90s.

Meshing live footage of their More tour with archival footage of both the band and Jarvis' early life proves to be a potent mix in this movie that finds a way to elevate the concert experience while furthering the group's standing.

Their first new studio album in 24 years, More, came out to universal acclaim in June 2025 and off the back of its success, a live tour saw them rekindle their ferocious performances and reconnect with their fans. It's some of that energy and excitement which Jennings collects together for Pulp: What Do You Do For An Encore, spinning together essentially some of the greatest hits of Different Class and showcasing their live versions through a lens.

But what Jennings, along with collaborator Jarvis Cocker, do in terms of selecting both musical and personal highlights is to coalesce the experience and recollections of the band as they marched on their way to success, which was in no form, guaranteed.

Pulp have always managed to speak to the masses via their music, and in truth, perhaps portions of this film won't enhance or capture a legion of new fans. But the documentary shows a clever way of capturing the artful energy of the More tour, its theatrical ambitions and how its stripped down moments proved to be deeply cathartic.

As a film about musical connection, of missed opportunities and of the terrors of triumphing, Pulp: What Do You Do For An Encore? deserves plenty of plaudits for gifting the musical movie a brand-new lease of life.

It's an exuberant, joyous celebration of alchemy and eclectic eccentricities and as such, is well worth watching.

The Wizard of the Kremlin: Movie Review

Cast: Paul Dano, Jude Law, Alicia Vikander, Jeffrey Wright, Tom Sturridge
Director: Olivier Assayas

There's a definite low-level energy to director Olivier Assayas' latest, a kind of biopic of the rise of Putin in post-collapse Russia.

From its soft-spoken lead in Paul Dano to its continual overuse of voiceover to tell the story, this dramatic reconstruction of the life and times of an oligarch helper, Vadim Baranov (Dano, playing a version of the real-life Vladislav Surkov) has a subtle tone - but one that leaves you questioning whether the film is pro-Putin.

In the early 1990s, the USSR has fallen and as the country rebuilds itself, Baranov sees an opportunity for himself to rise from his theatre artist background to a reality TV producer who happens to catch the eye of Russia's soon-to-be-dictator Vladimir Putin (Law, in a subtle and understated turn.)

Emerging as a spin doctor from the dust, Baranov begins to shape foreign policy as well as a new Russia. But at the heart of his life remains Ksenia (Vikander, widely underused) a free-spirited influence on his life that never quite spurs him into action.

When Baranov's approached by a contact from abroad (Wright, largely absent in the film except for narrative leaps), he begins to reveal the reality of what's transpired over decades, putting himself squarely in danger.

For a would-be thriller that essentially takes on the Cold War, The Wizard of the Kremlin is a surprisingly muted affair that never quite settles for anything more than solipsistic drama. Dano is perfectly fine in a performance that zigzags between real-life video moments to scenes that simply show men talking.

And while Law's is less than half of the film, Assayas and the script make him seem like a reasonable character until the back third of the film sees his cruelty and ambition collide in particularly nasty ways.

The film overall lacks a dynamism throughout and while it is a document of times from behind the Iron Curtain, it does have the kind of panache that could shape a riveting piece of history.

Instead, this Wizard of the Kremlin sadly has little of the magic that you'd expect from such an incendiary and cautious tale.

Carrie: Review

Cast: Summer H Howell, Samantha Sloyan, Siena Agudong, Alison Thornton, Joel Oulette, Josie Totah, Heather Graham, Arthur Conti, Thalia Dudek, Amber Midthunder, and Matthew Lillard 

The message in the 2026 retelling of Stephen King's Carrie is nothing new.

Mike Flanagan, who created The Haunting of Hill House among others, knows how to spin a spooky tale and build suspense. And while it's no spoiler to say that the 2026 version of Carrie deals with mean girls, meme accounts and the perils of social media on the innocent and the easily corruptible, the central message of the dangers of toxic behaviour is in itself, not an entirely new one to extol.

But it is however a worthy one to repeat time and time again.

In this latest version, Summer H Howell impresses as Carrie White, the locked-at-home-teenager who suddenly after the death of her father finds herself the centre of attention as she attends the local high school, Ewen High School.

As the series begins, it starts with a series of 911 calls and montages of the school burning, people dead and carnage expanding much wider than just the prom that everyone knows. But as a clutch of youngsters from the scene are interrogated by the police, one message becomes clear as a mantra for the new telling of Carrie - it's also about the other people at the prom.

So to that effect, Flanagan concocts a story of a naive, innocent and sweet Carrie being inducted into the world she's never experienced. From the horror of the first-ever period to the discovery of betrayal, Howell crafts a believable character whose sweetness is juxtapositioned with the growing bitterness of schoolmate Chris (Thornton) whose seemingly perfect world is crumbling with her college dream fading, her parents splitting and her options running out.

While it has to be said that eight episodes feels a little too long for this series, complete with its structure of prefacing each episode with an example of how women have been beaten down ("People love to see women fall" is one phrase uttered in one pre-credits opener), the series remains eminently watchable as it espouses some familiar tropes of high school life for the bullies, the neglected and those just trying to fit in.

But there's a gentleness here that undercuts some of the nastier darker edges which would have distinctly benefited the show and gifted it an undeniable edge to help it stand out.

Carrie may be alien to the world around her and Flanagan's script uses that starting point as a prelude to the horrors of school life in the 2020s. From metal detectors at the gate to peering faces, to hunched teens slouching over phones, it's no wonder one teacher tells another that "these aren't your kids, they'll break your heart" at one point before some of the savagery and cruelness comes to the fore.

With some impressive reveals and shocks towards the end of the run, patience is rewarded for wading through some of the well-realised but very familiar set-up episodes.

Thankfully though, with Howell's performance leading this series, the 2026 version of Carrie is solidly impressive, even if it's never quite outstanding enough to feel as fresh as it could. Perhaps it's a relief that all eight episodes are released at once, because it makes a watch worth taking on - even if you know the basics of the story from Sissy Spacek's breathtaking interpretation.

Carrie is streaming on Prime Video from October 7. All eight episodes of the series were watched for the purposes of this review.

Other Mommy: Movie Review

Cast: Jessica Chastain, Jay Duplass, Dichen Lachman, Arabella Olivia Clark
Director: Rob Savage

The latest horror film to assault our senses in October arrives in time for Hallowe'en.

Bella, an 8-year-old girl living in a home with marital problems, confronts a sinister entity which comes out of her closet. 

The presence, whom she calls "Other Mommy," becomes increasingly threatening to her and her family.