After 20 years, The Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle-earth 2 is still a career highlight for Civilization 7's creative director: "I absolutely love that game"

Ahead of a chat with Civilization 7 creative director Ed Beach, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that the veteran designer played a hand in making one of my all-time favorite strategy games. That would be The Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle-earth 2 – specifically its Rise of the Witch King expansion – for which Beach was executive producer.

With dual campaigns that let you save Middle-earth or sack it, along with some devilishly replayable skirmish maps, the 2006 real-time strategy title can be credited with introducing a bunch of console-heads to the traditionally PC-centric world of RTS games. Two decades later, I still have a soft spot for Battle for Middle-earth 2 – as does Beach.

“I am a huge Lord of the Rings fan. As a matter of fact, I can reach across the table and show you the Lord of the Rings game I’m currently obsessed with,” Beach says, raising board game The Lord of the Rings: Fate of the Fellowship to the camera. “So that was one of my most favorite projects I’ve ever worked on in my career.”

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“I specifically worked on the strategy game layer on the regional map of Middle-earth, and so it was plussing up the original version of that game that shipped with the base game,” adds Beach. “We made a whole bunch of enhancements to it for the expansion, so that was the specific piece I worked on there, but I absolutely love that game.”