Though games such as Defense of the Ancients 2 (DOTA 2) and League of Legends have become huge hits for PC gamers, but console gamers have not yet been widely exposed to the relatively new multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) genre of gaming. Warner Bros. aims to fix that oversight this fall with the release of Guardians of Middle-Earth, a MOBA for Xbox LIVE Arcade and PlayStation Network. A brand new gameplay video has been released, showing what gamers can expect from the title.

A cinematic trailer for the game hit the web just before E3 this year, featuring a Lord of the Rings character battle royale with Gandalf, Sauron, Galadriel, Gollum, and more. Fantasy fans (ironic) were instantly upset by the obvious disrespect to Lord of the Rings cannon, but their complaints were quickly drowned out by the outcry from MOBA fans that the game is simply League of Legends with Lord of the Rings characters. Both are, to some extent, correct, and it is obvious that the Lord of the Rings IP is simply being used here because it can. MOBA action was going to come to consoles sooner rather than later, and Guardians of Middle-Earth will show whether or not console gamers will embrace that style of gameplay.

For those who are unfamiliar with the MOBA concept, it features two teams battling to destroy the enemy base. Each player gains control of one character (guardian, in the case of Guardians of Middle-Earth) that will fight and level up over the course of a match. The games are normally presented in a top-down point of view, as MOBAs were originally mods of real-time strategy games. Take a look at the gameplay trailer for Guardians of Middle-Earth below, and see what Warner Bros. envisions a console MOBA to be: