The second season of Prime Video's Middle-earth series, Rings of Power, launches on August 29, and to celebrate, you can grab some great Lord of the Rings games for free right now if you're a Prime Gaming member. Prime members can grab PC codes via GOG for Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor Game of the Year Edition and Lego: The Lord of the Rings, while Middle-earth: Shadow of War will be available via Amazon's Luna streaming service.
Arguably one of the best Lord of the Rings games ever made, Shadow of Mordor was an original story set in the grim lands where Sauron had made his stronghold. Released in 2014, players took on the role of ranger Talion, who sought revenge after his family was murdered and had bonded with the Elven Lord Celebrimbor to escape death. The swords and sorcery aspect of the game was pretty cool, but its real claim to fame was the Nemesis system, which allowed you to create a custom antagonist based on the actions you took in the game. For example, if an Uruk orc killed you, he became stronger, earning him a promotion in the process.
The Nemesis system also gave you a list of orcs to hunt down, and by exploiting their weaknesses, you would begin to whittle down Sauron's army. Shadow of War came out several years later and expanded on these ideas while giving players the chance to lead their own army of orcs into large-scale battles. As for Lego: The Lord of the Rings, this game is based on the feature film trilogy directed by Peter Jackson and follows the usual format of other licensed Lego games.
You can revisit famous locations from the movies, take out enemies, destroy the environment, and craft gadgets to help you progress further. There's nothing radically different here from other Lego games developed by Traveler's Tales, but the game has a cheeky sense of humor and a ton of content.
If you missed it, this month's selection of games is also available to Prime Gaming subscribers. Once you claim the free Prime Gaming games, they're yours forever, even if your membership expires. If you're not a member, you can sign up for Amazon Prime for just one month to take advantage of the subscription and get some great games this month, like classic Tomb Raider adventures Deus Ex: Mankind Divided and Loop Hero.
Prime Gaming Free Games for August 2024
Available now
- Steamworld Heist
- Deus Ex: Mankind Divided
- Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness
- Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation + Chronicles
- Gravity Circuit
- South of the circle
- Loop Hero
- Hiking to Yomi
- Kraken Academy
- Baldur's Gate 2: Enhanced Edition
- The Spectator 3
- Hard West 2
- On Guard
- Stray Gods: The Musical Role Playing Game
- Grime: Definitive Edition
- KeyWe
- Figure 2: Creed Valley
- Spells and secrets
- Young souls
August 29
- Arcade Paradise
- Industry
- The Atlas of Collages