The Lord of the Rings games in general have sold well under the licence, but overall haven’t stunned anyone into shouting best game evar when they played it. Needless to say, it is a popular franchise, kind of like Star Wars. Whose made the best Star Wars game in recent memory? That would be Pandemic Stuidios with the Battlefront games. Thus EA, in a spate of logic, handed over to them the keys to the next LOTR game, Conquest, and basically told them to make Battlefront but in the LOTR universe.

Anyway, we figured we’d offer that little refresher on how awesome the game is going to be before hitting you up with it’s release date which was just sent over to us by EA. You’ll be beating up orcs or killing elves, depending on what side you choose, on Jan. 9 in the US and Jan. 13 internationally. The game ships for the 360, PS3, PC and DS. Sorry Wii owners, gypped again.