Released in 2004, The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth was at its height at a time when EA had the license to make games based on Peter Jackson's movie trilogy . This license somehow returned to Warner Bros. in late 2008, forcing it to license the Middle Earth real-time strategy series. Now a bunch of fans are bringing it back with a modern engine, according to Kotaku reports. The project is aptly titled The Battle for Middle-earth: Reforged and was first announced in 2018. However, a recently released video showing all the gameplay pieces brought BFME: Reforged back into the limelight.
Due to licensing issues and the age of the original game, it's even harder for fans to have the original BFME version of EA and get it running on a modern PC. But the Reforged team goes further than just making the game replayable, instead giving it a full graphics update. It also adds new features and effects. The project's website describes a team of fans working on the unofficial remaster, some of them almost full time. The current plan for BFME: Reforged is to work for a beta that includes two factions and from there add four more factions before the full game is released.