Age of the Ring: Realms in Exile Mod is a user-made game utility for the game, The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-Earth II: The Rise of the Witch-King. In this free-to-use real-time strategy (RTS) add-on, you get to play as a new sub-faction under the Dunedain, as well as an expanded spellbook available for every faction in the game.

The added content makes Age of the Ring: Realms in Exile Mod perfect with other Middle-Earth II mods such as The Battle for Middle-Earth HD Edition, allowing you to enjoy the game in even better graphics.

A mod of a mod

Essentially, Age of the Ring: Realms in Exile Mod is a spin-off upgrade to another Middle-Earth II mod, the Age of the Ring. It has allowed developers of this new add-on to make their own changes. It largely sticks to canon material and retains the game engine and mechanics, making the custom content easily balanced with the rest of the game.

The most important of these upgrades was the addition of the Arnor as a sub-faction under Dunedain. Fans of the Lord of the Rings (LotR) know Arnor as the Northern Kingdom established by the first of the Dunedain on the continent. Basically, these are also humans but with slight differences in the aesthetics of the units and the buildings. The mod also introduces new spells that keep the gameplay fresh.

While it’s a promising mod in itself, it’s quite difficult to install. For starters, it requires a particular version of the base game to work. Although the download package contains an instruction, first-time mod players might get sidetracked and end up with the mod not working. Aside from that, the content is good and easily integrates with the base game. There are virtually no bugs in this smooth mod.

Improve your Middle-Earth experience

As far as mods go, Age of the Ring: Realms in Exile Mod is a great addition to the base game. It doesn’t significantly alter the game, introduces two new pieces of content that improve the experience, and doesn’t have a lot of bugs. However, for inexperienced mod users, it might pose a challenge to get this working correctly.