Christian Allen, who served on the leadership team at Warner Bros. Games during the development of 2011's The Lord of the Rings: War in the North, has stated that the game did not receive a fair opportunity upon its original release. He expressed satisfaction with the game's recent re-release, noting that it "didn't get a fair shake" in 2011.
Allen recounted his vocal opposition to the game's release date, which coincided closely with Bethesda's highly anticipated RPG, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. "Fifteen years ago I argued vociferously not to release this up against Skyrim, as it wouldn't get a fair shake. I got overruled," Allen stated, as reported by VGC. War in the North launched on November 1, 2011, just ten days before Skyrim's release. The title also faced competition from Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception, which released the same day, and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, which arrived a week later.
While Allen was not directly involved in the development of War in the North, he was part of the studio's leadership. He credited the developers at the now-shuttered Snowblind studio for their work. According to Allen, the game "got lost in the wash" upon its initial release, with reviews consistently comparing it to Skyrim, an outcome he had predicted.
Furthermore, Allen suggested that War in the North "hardly had any marketing." He speculated that Warner Bros. executives either underestimated the game's potential or assumed that dedicated Lord of the Rings fans would discover it organically. He also theorized that the financial pressures on publicly traded companies can discourage executives from altering release dates, even if a delay could benefit a game's performance. "Quarterly revenue motivations drive more decisions than people realize. It's a big challenge with stock-price driven organizations," Allen explained. "Must be hard to be an exec and go 'Well, this game will do better if we hold it until March, but my bonus will take a 50% hit.'"
Aspyr Media has licensed War in the North from Warner Bros. and recently re-released it as part of a Legacy Edition. The publisher has indicated plans for further Lord of the Rings game re-releases in the future. Allen's career in the industry includes roles at Red Storm Entertainment, where he worked on Ghost Recon, and Bungie, where he was the design lead for Halo: Reach. He later joined Warner Bros. Games as design director before founding his own company, Serellan, and subsequently working with Epic Games as lead Unreal Engine evangelist. He is currently the design director at The Indie Store, the developer behind Project Zomboid.