This is the real-time strategy corner of The Lord of the Rings, EA's mid-2000s Battle for Middle-earth games. Rather than retell the story through a hero, they hand you the armies, letting players command the forces of good or evil across the war for Middle-earth, with named heroes fighting alongside massed troops. The first game leaned hard on the Peter Jackson films; the sequel and its Rise of the Witch-king expansion broadened the scope to Elves, Dwarves, and the armies of Angmar.
The hook is scale: large battles staged in a recognizable world, with the spectacle of the films reframed as something you direct. It is a games-only branch of the franchise, and a fondly remembered one among strategy players.
The The Battle for Middle-earth strategy games franchise spans 3 games in the CrossBinge catalog.
Part of The Lord of the Rings.