The Battle for Middle-Earth I & II & Rotwk Online Players

17 October 2026

Returning After 10 Years: My New Project, BFME 3!

Hello again everyone after a 10-year break! I am back, and this time I come with huge, concrete news that will excite you all... (just like i always have)

Yes, you heard that right. However, let me clarify an important detail right away: To respect legal boundaries and avoid any copyright issues, I must state that this is not a standalone commercial game. It is a massive, highly comprehensive modification (mod) project built directly on top of the original *The Battle for Middle-earth 1 (BFME 1)* game engine.

Most importantly: This project is a gift to the BFME community. It has absolutely no commercial purpose and will remain **COMPLETELY FREE** for everyone, forever.

Furthermore, since it has been over 20 years since the original release, I wanted to accommodate players who have lost their physical CDs or are struggling with installations on modern systems. Therefore, I have provided a clean installation process that bypasses the CD requirement. My intention here is not to encourage piracy, but simply to offer technical convenience for veteran players who want to revisit this legend. Players who still own their original copies and wish to use their legal CD Keys can easily integrate them into the game using various community tools available online.

To elevate *The Battle for Middle-earth* experience to an entirely new level, here are the enhancements I have completed so far through my work on the core game engine:

A- COMPLETED SO FAR (These were the hardest to pull off)

"All of this was achieved directly at the core engine level. This means players will absolutely never need to install any third-party apps to play online"

1- Smoother Online gameplay.

2- More responsive commands and smoother offhost gameplay. (meaning offhost delay fixed)

3- Smoothness improvements tested on GameRanger and L n AN carried over to Online.

4- An independent server accessible through the game’s built-in Online menu. (meaning the game has its online server now)

5- Account login, player lists, lobbies and in-game chat.

6- Working Custom Match hosting, game browsing and joining.

7- Password-protected rooms, ready status and host kick controls.

8- Connect and play across different internet connections without port forwarding. (no more NAT error)

9- Working 1v1 Quick Match on Fords of Isen, with automatic matchmaking and match launch.

10- The game keeps running in the background while Alt-Tabbed. (no more cheat in the games by using alt+tab)

11- Automatic match logs to track smoothness and stutters.

2. PLANNED

1- A ranked QM ladder with player ratings, standings, win/loss records and match history.

2- 2v2, 3v3 and 4v4 Quick Match.

3- Premade teams: queue for QM with friends.

4- More balanced, skill-based matchmaking.

5- A larger QM map pool.

6- Team-only push-to-talk voice chat.

7- Measure and further reduce offhost command delay. (its already done but I want to make it more smooth)

8- Bring QM smoothness up to the same level as Custom Match.

9- Faster Alt-Tab recovery; finish testing Online exit and re-entry.

10- Better stability on weak connections and brief dropouts; fair ladder rules for DCs.

11- Easy account creation, automatic connection, updates and a visible game version.

12- Long-match and larger-team testing before a public release.

13- Explore 60 FPS and smoother animations while keeping Online matches in sync.

14. 8× / 16× AF options for sharper terrain and distant textures.

15. Explore in-game AA support to reduce jagged edges.

16. HD unit, building and terrain textures that preserve the original designs and scale.

17. More natural running, turning, attack and cavalry animations.

18. Livelier building animations that react to unit production.

19. Improved shadows, lighting, water, smoke and battle effects.

20. Reduce FPS drops and micro-stutter during large battles.

21. Performance, Balanced and High Quality graphics presets.

22. A modern, scalable UI with 4K and ultrawide support.

23. Automatic replay saving and easy replay management.

24. Spectator mode and casting tools for live matches.

25. Customizable hotkeys and saved control profiles.

26. Friends lists, game invites and a clan system.

27. Seasonal ladders, achievement badges and tournament support.

28. Automatic error reports to help diagnose desyncs and crashes.

29. File integrity checks and stronger anti-cheat protection for ranked matches.
30. Support all languages included chinese, japanese, russian etc.

If you have any ideas or things you'd like to see added, feel free to reach out to me via e-mail (forshire@hotmail.com) I truly hope I can find the time and motivation to bring all of these to life. Until next time...

21 November 2018

Hello guys. This is forshire. I know you haven't heard from me in a long time. I been very busy in my personal life. Besides that "team bfme" joined the "bfme reforged" project. So our focus on there. But dont worry, i will try to release bfme1-2 editons for last time.

I am here to say;
1- I will broadcast next sunday (20:00 GMT+1) "2v2 500$Tournament" Final game. Just like old days

2- After that i will try to release new BFME2 edition which is free from deamon tools. I think i will be able to release it before xmas.

3- Also i will release a new BFME1 edition. İt will have HD support.

See you at livestream.

Turkish: Arkadaşlar önümüzdeki pazar günü 2vs2 turnuvasının finalini canlı yayın yapacağım. Ne kadar fazla türk olursa yayında o kadar fazla türkçe konuşmaya çalışacağım.

13 April 2017

CRITICAL BFME2 PATCH 1.09 UPDATE AVAILABLE

Hi Everyone,

unfortunately at release we found some issues with HD Edition compatibility, aswell as a few bugs in the patch files. These have now all been remedied and RoR will also be providing an update at the same time for HD Edition on Moddb. I have updated all the links in the main download thread.

I am very sorry for the inconvienence, but if everyone spreads the word that this is now available everyone should be on the same page within a few days. In future, the switcher will have a check for updates feature which will make things like this a lot easier.

If you have custom hotkeys or higher zoom for 1.00 and 1.06 make sure you back these up before installing this!

You will mismatch if you do not get the update.

DOWNLOAD PATCH 1.09 UPDATE

23 March 2017

Battle For Middle Earth II Patch 1.09 Is Now Live

Hi All, Patch 1.09 is finally here for download. It's been a long, long road, and I would first like to thank everyone who invested time into this monster sized patch. Almost 3 years of work, thousands of hours of work on both balance, cosmetics, and sounds, this is truly the biggest ever patch published in the BFME Franchise. I would like to extend thanks to Echelon for being my right hand man, and Rider of Rohan for helping a lot with art, and work on the switcher. Thanks to all in the beta team for their input and fine tuning of balance, notable mentions are included in the patch credits. Also a big thanks to Paramatha for coding the switcher for us. I have included some preview content below, the best way to preview though of course is to play the patch! There are hundreds of new Special FX, hundreds of new sounds, and new models. We also refined maps a lot and deleted the Tower Wars ones as they are mostly balanced for 1.06. We have a good map pool of quality over quantity which was not the case in 1.08. You can also checkout Val's youtube channel for many preview videos of patch content.

Download Patch 1.09

You can download Battle For Middle Earth II Patch 1.09 from any of the following mirrors

Downlaod

New Patch Switcher

11 Years Of Competitive Balancing

BFMEII Patch 1.09 is the biggest patch ever developed in the BFME Franchise, it is larger than all prior patches combined, including the official patches that GR developed for EA(1.05/6) and Battletest Patches. 1.09 is 3 years worth of beta testing, it fine tunes all uneven matchups from 1.08 and so much more. We hope that our work here makes for a fair, enjoyable experience for both casuals and competitive players alike.

New Maps & Reskin's

The 1.09 map pool is smaller than 1.08, but better quality maps, that also includes reskins of the most popular maps like Udun II and Fords of Isen II, previewed below.

New Special Effect's

Patch 1.09 comes with hundreds of new visual special effects, almost every power in the game has had an improvement, here are a few of them.

New Builder's & Models

All builder's now have a new, unique model so that faction differentiation is easily identifiable. There are also many other new model's included, mostly for High and Ultra setting's.

Random and Upgrade Textures

Many of our favorite models now also come with appearance variations, such as Eagle's, Mountain Giant's, Drakes, Knights, Dragons and more. Certain units like Mumakil also get new textures as they progressively gain rank.

New Sound's

Patch 1.09 includes over two hundred new sounds, every building has new variations as well as new unit sounds for deeper game immersement.

New Wall System

Mordor can now build walls and the radius that you can build from fortress has been increased. Also, purchasing Fortress Armor now correctly upgrades all wall's that the player owns.

Visual's for Leadership and Buff's

Ever get frustrated that spells like Farsight and Palantir show no visible horde FX? Not anymore! Patch 1.09 also introduces all new buff-nugget FX for existing spells such as heal, devastation, poison, and more.