One thing I always liked about Middle-earth is how naturally it works as a world to explore.
You can travel from the Shire through the wild, reach Rivendell, cross the Misty Mountains… then suddenly you’re somewhere completely different like Rohan or Gondor. It feels like a real place instead of a map with zones.
Half the fun in a game like that would probably just be wandering around and seeing what you run into.
Walking through a dark tunnel in the mountains…
hearing something big moving somewhere deeper in the cave…
then suddenly taking fire damage from something you definitely didn’t see yet.
and your brain just panics for a second:
“pass… not… you shall… wait—hold on.”
Art by Abe Taraky.