“He’s making an effort,” laughs Campbell. Up high on one of the Elvish Flets, there are Legolas and Gimli – as one might expect, Gimli isn’t happy about being so far above the ground. Speaking of the Fellowship, it wasn’t long before we ran into a certain pair of Hobbits – Sam and Frodo, fresh from Moria but not yet split from the Fellowship. Nor do the Elves use money, so quest rewards will instead be barter tokens, which can be redeemed for different types of rewards like equipment and weapons – or, for instance, the aforementioned lawn decorations. So the Turbine team took the opportunity to dig into the lore and connect players more with the members of the Fellowship as they rested in Lorien after the chaos and despair of Moria. That’s driven most of the content in Book 7, he said, since they couldn’t do the standard sort of combat quests, like repelling enemy invaders and exterminating Orc camps.
Since the Elves are so withdrawn and reclusive, the Golden Wood is a peaceful and otherworldly place.
The space of Lorien is very different from much of the rest of the game, Campbell explained as he showed me around the forest.
