Why Warhorse’s Lord of the Rings RPG “Too Hard” Complaints Are a Good Sign

I know this might sound odd, but I honestly can’t wait for players to complain that Warhorse’s upcoming open-world Lord of the Rings RPG is “too hard.” Not because I want the game to be miserable, or because I think it should feel unfair to anyone who isn’t willing to invest the time to learn how its swordplay and systems work. The reason I’m excited is simpler: if people are calling it too difficult, it likely means Warhorse stayed true to itself—even with a licensed project on its hands. This is the studio behind Kingdom Come: Deliverance and Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, after all. And if its Middle-earth RPG ends up overly smooth, overly easy, or trying too hard to please everyone, then something important may have been lost along the way.

Why Warhorse Fits Middle-earth (Even If It’s “Too Hard”)

The main reason Warhorse is a compelling choice for Lord of the Rings is that its games understand what “ordinary” can mean in a world that doesn’t automatically reward the player’s desire to feel unstoppable. Kingdom Come wasn’t special because it handed players greatness right away. It stood out because it made that greatness something you earn. That philosophy matches Middle-earth well, and it feels especially relevant in today’s Lord of the Rings gaming landscape. This isn’t a setting dominated by superheroes; it’s a place where small people accomplish impossible tasks because they keep pushing forward, endure hardship with some resilience, and learn enough to survive long enough for their courage to actually pay off. That’s what I mean when I say I’m waiting for Warhorse’s Lord of the Rings game to be labeled “too hard.”

Done right, Warhorse could turn its Kingdom Come approach into one of Bethesda’s most serious challengers for the “serious open-world RPG” crowd.

What “Too Hard” Usually Means for Kingdom Come Players

One of my favorite things to read and hear is the argument that Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 is too difficult because it doesn’t let players feel powerful immediately. I’ll admit I get the annoyance—plenty of people gravitate toward modern RPGs because they want a power fantasy they can reach quickly, where they eventually become the kind of figure everyone fears or respects. But Kingdom Come stretches that road out and makes it rougher than most games are willing to do. And, in my view, that’s exactly why it works.

• Players often complain that the combat is too punishing, then get told they should train in the game.
• When those players push back, they sometimes say they already train in real life and don’t want to train inside a game.
• In response to that kind of feedback, design director Viktor Bocan’s take was refreshingly direct: maybe Kingdom Come simply isn’t the right fit for everyone.

I genuinely love that response. It isn’t built to flatter every type of player, but it also isn’t mean-spirited. It’s straightforward honesty. Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 understands its audience, including the subset that will bounce off the idea that getting good at something usually demands more effort than other RPGs ask for.

Later in the same conversation, Bocan put it even more clearly. He said, “We created a game where you can be anyone you want, but you need to give something to get something.” That line sums up the Kingdom Come mindset in a sentence: freedom exists, but it isn’t free; progress exists, but you still have to do the work. Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 lets an ordinary Henry grow into something bigger—but it first teaches players what it feels like to be weak. That’s the lesson Warhorse’s upcoming Lord of the Rings RPG needs to keep.

Licensed Games and the Risk of Losing the Edge

A licensed game has a particular danger, especially when it’s set in a famous world like Middle-earth: the license can pull the design toward safer choices. With a wider audience comes higher expectations, and with higher expectations comes more pressure to make the experience immediately approachable. It would be easy to imagine an open-world version where Warhorse rounds off the rough parts because Lord of the Rings players may not all be coming in as Kingdom Come fans. Still, I sincerely hope that doesn’t happen.

Why Middle-earth Could Make Warhorse’s Difficulty Shine

The funny thing is that Middle-earth may actually be one of the best fantasy settings for Warhorse’s grounded style. Even with its legendary warriors, ancient beings, and magical relics, Lord of the Rings has never really been about superheroes. The emotional center has always been about ordinary people attempting extraordinary things—then continuing anyway when the world throws obstacles in their path.

So if Warhorse builds a Lord of the Rings RPG where travel is demanding, combat is genuinely risky, preparation matters, and reaching meaningful places requires real effort, that would fit the setting perfectly. Middle-earth shouldn’t feel like a theme park where you sprint from one heroic beat to the next without any friction. The journey should matter. The danger should matter. Even the small wins should matter, because they weren’t handed out cheaply.

That’s also why I don’t want Warhorse to lean into the portion of the audience that decided Kingdom Come and Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 were too hard. Of course, those players are allowed to feel that way. But their frustration shouldn’t become the design target. Warhorse already built its identity on RPGs that ask something of the player, and a Lord of the Rings project from that studio shouldn’t apologize for doing the same thing.

If anything, this is where Warhorse’s identity could help the game stand out from almost every other fantasy RPG. There are already plenty of games where you become unstoppable far too quickly. There are plenty of games where difficulty is treated like a toggle or a management task rather than something woven into the world itself. A Middle-earth RPG from Warhorse could be different precisely because Warhorse is different.

• Travel that demands planning, not just fast movement.
• Combat that punishes mistakes instead of forgiving them.
• Preparation that affects outcomes, not just convenience.
• Meaningful progress tied to effort rather than handed out automatically.

And as weird as it sounds, I want to feel small right from the start. I want to think twice before picking a fight with an orc. I want to prepare before traveling into dangerous areas, and I want any lack of preparation to come back to hurt me. I want every step forward to feel earned through patience, repeated failure, and maybe a little stubbornness. More than anything, I want the game to treat greatness in Middle-earth as something that doesn’t come from skill points, stats alone, or a prophecy that grants plot armor.

That’s what made Kingdom Come so rewarding to me: the payoff mattered because the struggle mattered first. A Warhorse Lord of the Rings RPG could bring that same emotional structure into Middle-earth. Honestly, that’s the main reason the project excites me as much as it does. More than almost anyone else, Warhorse has the chance to deliver a grounded Middle-earth RPG where being ordinary isn’t a temporary phase—it’s the whole point.

So yes: I can’t wait for players to say Warhorse’s Lord of the Rings RPG is too hard. I can’t wait for the complaints about needing to train, prepare, travel carefully, and put real work into every meaningful bit of progress. If those complaints happen for the same reasons they did with Kingdom Come, then good. It would mean Warhorse remembered what makes its games special.