A new gameplay trailer for Guardians of Middle-earth has revealed the latest playable characters in the upcoming massive online battle arena (MOBA) title for Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network. Joining the likes of Gandalf, Gollum, Sauron, Legolas and many more, is Nori, the dwarven demolition specialist and Wulfrun, the mysterious practitioner of the dark arts.

[springboard type=”youtube” id=”8MMb4YnzyeQ” player=”xbla001″ width=”640″ height=”400″ ]

 

Guardians of Middle-earth aims to blaze new trails by bringing the MOBA experience to home consoles. It’s a move Ruth Tomandl, Senior Producer at Monolith, believes will keep it from competing head-to-head with the established PC giants of the genre, like League of Legends and the DOTA franchise. In an interview with GamesBeat, Tomandl states, “I think it’s an advantage for us, certainly, to be only coming out on the consoles. It’s let us focus on making a really good console game, but it also eliminates any question of competing.”

Though what can fans expect from a console translation of a genre that’s notoriously competitive and meticulous? “A lot of it is the pacing. The matches are shorter. You get into matches more quickly. When you get into a match, you start the larger battles more quickly,” explains Tomandl. “The map is a little smaller, so you move between lanes a lot more. There’s more incentive to move between lanes. I think it just gets into more of a fast-paced battle more quickly. Which is something I think console gamers are more interested in. PC gamers, I think, have more patience to invest a lot of time and then reap the rewards of it, whereas console gamers want to get in, play a match, get out, and get more expertise that way, by playing more matches. I think that’s the biggest difference people will notice.”

Guardians of Middle-earth is scheduled for release sometime this fall.