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."
"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."
The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth 2 remains a cult classic in the strategy space, and although its official servers were closed in 2010, a dedicated multiplayer community keep the game playable today. "That game has had a way longer life than I ever realized," says Beach. "I only learned about that a year and a half ago – that this game I worked on 20 years ago was still going strong, and had this huge community!"
Meanwhile, Beach continues to work on Civilization 7, with the game's massive Test of Time overhaul now live. Speaking to GamesRadar+, Beach took us through the update's biggest changes and detailed how it was created with fans.
