The DeanBeat: Middle-earth: Shadow of War is the revenge of the nerds

Sometimes the GamesBeat staff is a microcosm of the world of gamers and other real people. This week, Jeff Grubb, our PC gaming editor, called the rest of us nerds because we were talking knowledgeably about Shelob, a major character in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings novels and one of the major characters in Middle-earth: Shadow of War, a major video game coming October 10 from Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment and developer Monolith.

This is going to be a big game with big sales — no matter what I say about it in an upcoming review. It has been 63 years since The Lord of the Rings was published, 44 years since Tolkien died, and three years since the last Peter Jackson movie appeared (The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies, in 2014). And to me, The Lord of the Rings is bigger than ever. I have high expectations for this game, because the time has come for a video game to carry on the Tolkien legacy.