The Lord of the Rings: War in the North Preview
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Each of the three races available for play has a different unique ability. Elves can see traps, humans can harvest herbs that can later be turned into potions, and dwarves can see weaknesses in walls and structures, allowing you to bust open secret chambers and passages. During our demo, we saw that the classes have other options; the dwarf waded into combat with a two-handed weapon, the elf sat back and fired arrows using an interface reminiscent of aiming in Resident Evil 5, and the wizard deflected incoming ranged attacks with a spell called Sanctuary.
The combat is fast-paced and fairly brutal, as befits the new, "grittier" approach to Middle-earth that Stormblind is taking with the game. Bosses are enormous and absorb a huge amount of punishment before going down, dishing out knockdowns and stuns everywhere. In War in the North, co-op plays as big of a role as it does in something like Left 4 Dead; according to Snowblind, "to survive the level, the entire party has to survive."
