The world of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth has captivated millions of fans across generations, with its richly woven lore and epic tales of bravery, camaraderie, and adventure. “The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria” takes players on a unique journey into this beloved universe, offering an entirely new perspective through the eyes of the Dwarves as they seek to reclaim their ancient homeland. Developed by Free Range Games and published by North Beach Games, this survival crafting game has become a notable addition to the ever-expanding universe of Middle-earth adaptations. But how well does it deliver on its promises? Let’s delve deep into the game’s features, gameplay mechanics, and overall impact.
Storyline and Setting
Set during the Fourth Age of Middle-earth, the events of “Return to Moria” take place after the fall of Sauron. Players take on the role of a Dwarven company led by Gimli, son of Glóin, as they endeavor to reclaim the ancient underground city of Moria (Khazad-dûm). The mines, abandoned for centuries, are now a sprawling labyrinth filled with danger and mystery. The narrative’s premise is compelling, as it builds on the franchise’s rich history while carving out a fresh storyline centered around the Dwarves.
The procedurally generated environment ensures that each playthrough offers a unique experience. This approach not only enhances replayability but also captures the essence of exploration and discovery that the Dwarves embody. The game’s visual design brings Moria to life with its grand halls, intricate carvings, and ominous shadows—a fitting homage to Tolkien’s descriptions.
Gameplay Mechanics
“Return to Moria” is a survival crafting game at its core, combining resource management, base building, and combat elements to create a multi-faceted experience. Here’s a breakdown of its core mechanics:
Resource Gathering and Crafting
The heart of the gameplay lies in resource gathering. Players must mine ore, chop wood, and gather various materials scattered throughout the mines. The crafting system allows for the creation of tools, weapons, armor, and even aesthetic items to customize the environment. Crafting is both intuitive and rewarding, as each crafted item serves a purpose in the broader objective of reclaiming Moria.
Base Building
A significant feature of the game is its base-building mechanic. Players can construct and expand their bases within the mines, creating safe havens from the lurking dangers. The design system is flexible, allowing players to build functional outposts or grand Dwarven halls that reflect their vision of a reclaimed Moria.
Survival Elements
Survival mechanics add an extra layer of complexity. Players must manage hunger, fatigue, and temperature while exploring the mines. Darkness plays a crucial role, with the ever-present threat of orcs and other creatures increasing as the light wanes. Torches, fires, and strategically placed light sources become essential tools for survival.
Combat
Combat is another key component, with players facing off against orcs, trolls, and other dark creatures. The game’s combat system is straightforward yet satisfying, offering a mix of melee and ranged options. Team coordination in multiplayer mode adds depth to the combat experience, as players can strategize to overcome challenging enemies.
Multiplayer and Co-op
The multiplayer and co-op elements of “Return to Moria” are among its most engaging features. With support for up to eight players, the game allows friends to team up and explore the mines of Moria together. This cooperative mode emphasizes teamwork and strategy, as players can divide responsibilities such as mining, crafting, and scouting. Working together becomes especially critical during battles with tougher enemies, where coordinated attacks and resource sharing can mean the difference between victory and defeat.
The multiplayer experience also enhances the immersion, as players can communicate and role-play their characters as part of a Dwarven company. The sense of camaraderie is palpable, making the journey through Moria feel like a shared adventure. Additionally, the game’s procedural generation ensures that each multiplayer session offers a unique environment, encouraging repeated playthroughs with different groups. However, some technical issues, such as occasional connectivity problems and synchronization bugs, can hinder the experience, though these are relatively minor compared to the overall enjoyment.
Procedural Generation and Replayability
One of the standout features of “Return to Moria” is its procedurally generated world, which ensures that no two playthroughs are ever the same. This dynamic approach to world-building means that each session offers new layouts, resource placements, and enemy encounters. The procedural generation captures the essence of exploration and unpredictability, reflecting the theme of delving into the unknown depths of Moria.
Replayability is a significant strength of the game. Whether playing solo or in multiplayer mode, the ever-changing environment provides fresh challenges and opportunities. Players can experiment with different strategies, such as focusing on stealth over combat or prioritizing certain types of resource gathering. Additionally, the customization options for both characters and bases allow for varied playstyles, making each playthrough feel personal and distinct.
However, procedural generation also has its drawbacks. While it adds variety, some players might find the lack of handcrafted, story-driven environments less engaging over time. Certain areas can feel repetitive, and the procedural system occasionally produces layouts that are less intuitive or aesthetically pleasing. Despite these minor issues, the system’s benefits far outweigh its limitations, solidifying “Return to Moria” as a highly replayable experience.
Graphics and Sound Design
Visually, “Return to Moria” delivers a stunning depiction of the Dwarven homeland. The game’s graphics strike a balance between realism and fantasy, with intricate details that bring the grandeur of Moria to life. The towering halls, ancient statues, and labyrinthine tunnels are a testament to the craftsmanship of the developers, who have clearly drawn inspiration from Tolkien’s vivid descriptions.
Lighting plays a crucial role in both gameplay and atmosphere. The interplay between light and shadow is not only visually striking but also essential for survival, as darkness often heralds danger. The glowing embers of forges, the flicker of torches, and the soft illumination of magical artifacts create a visually dynamic environment that feels alive and immersive.
The sound design is equally impressive. The clang of pickaxes against stone, the echo of footsteps in vast caverns, and the distant roars of enemies contribute to a rich auditory experience. Each sound effect is meticulously crafted to enhance the sense of immersion. The musical score, inspired by Howard Shore’s work on the film adaptations, adds an epic and emotional layer to the game. The melodies shift seamlessly between moments of quiet exploration and intense combat, capturing the essence of Middle-earth’s grandeur.
While the graphics and sound design are generally excellent, some players have reported occasional performance issues, such as frame drops in heavily detailed areas or during large battles. These technical hiccups, though noticeable, do not significantly detract from the overall experience and are likely to be addressed in future updates.
Pros and Cons
Pros:
Immersive Setting: Faithful to Tolkien’s vision, with detailed environments and lore-rich storytelling.
Engaging Survival Mechanics: A blend of resource management, crafting, and combat that keeps players invested.
Co-op Multiplayer: Enhances the experience through teamwork and shared exploration.
Procedural Generation: Offers replayability and fresh challenges with each playthrough.
Atmospheric Audio and Visuals: Captures the grandeur and danger of Moria.
Cons:
Repetitive Gameplay: Resource gathering and crafting can feel monotonous over time.
Limited Enemy Variety: Combat may become predictable due to a lack of diverse enemies.
Procedural Generation Trade-offs: While it adds replayability, it can lack the depth of handcrafted levels.
Performance Issues: Some players report frame drops and glitches, particularly in multiplayer mode.
Final Verdict
“The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria” is a worthy addition to the Middle-earth gaming universe. It successfully captures the spirit of the Dwarves’ resilience and ingenuity while offering an engaging survival crafting experience. While not without its flaws, the game’s strengths—such as its immersive setting, co-op multiplayer, and replayability—make it a must-try for fans of Tolkien’s world and survival games alike.
For those willing to brave the darkness and reclaim the ancient halls of Moria, “Return to Moria” offers a journey filled with challenges, triumphs, and a deeper connection to Middle-earth.
Customer reviews for The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria™
Return to Moria is competently made but I ultimately found it to be uninteresting. The gameplay is functionally the same from start to finish, as is the progression. As a whole, it felt like a paint-by-numbers survival game with a LoTR paintjob, which I think is a shame.There were many points in my group's playthrough where I expected the game to lean into its theme and introduce a new mechanic that leveraged something unique about the setting or the game's context, but it was always more of the same old stuff. The mining could have been interesting, but it never evolved past "point at a resource and hold left click". The crafting could have been interesting, but it never went beyond "make the same sword/helmet/pickaxe again, but with slightly better stats". I guess for a game about dwarves, I expected it do something more compelling with the signature dwarven activities. I'll acknowledge that my expectations could have been unrealistic, but that doesn't change how safe and vanilla the game is as a whole.
TLDR: Looks good on the surface, but the gameplay is just clunky, while devs are focussing on churning out DLCs.While the game had a good start for an early access title, it started out really buggy and clunky. The early game areas also look amazing, but you'll see that most of the assets are copy pasted throughout further areas. Example: there is only one singular dungeon in every major area that looks exactly the same.However, they never improved on that. Instead, they released three DLCs, and just announced two more. Meanwhile, the combat feels very buggy and unresponsive compared to games like valheim, where combat is actually enjoyable. Most of the mechanics just feel slapped on, and don't really feel connected to each other.Conclusion:
All that's left is just bunch of shallow and clunky game mechanics randomly slapped onto some nice looking environments that will ultimately grant you no real satisfaction besides looking at a few nice locations once in a while.
Great Lord of the Rings survival and building game. Story is good, building is even better. I've spent many hours rebuilding the lost city of Dwarowdelf.
Decent, but with LOTS of room for improvement.As far as survival crafters go I liked this one more than I thought I would, but a few baffling design decisions leave a lot of room for improvement.Perhaps the most egregious of these is the fact that for the entire game you are one tier behind in gear, with your character always grumbling that they need a better weapon as you chip away at enemies for tiny amounts of damage, and then after beating the game, when there's nothing left to do (because there is no endgame/postgame) that's when the last tier of gear unlocks - when you literally have no use for it. if it was offset by 1 instead of saving it til it's useless, if you could actually make the mithril items when it makes sense to make them, and use all of the weapons, not just the stupid spear in the final area/fight, that would literally solve all of it, but they've done it the stupidest way possible instead.combat is also another big weak spot. you are constantly in multi-enemy fights, but the game's mechanics eat your charge attack inputs, unreliably leave you swinging at the air because it failed to lock on, or rollerskating across the room to hit an enemy you didn't mean to hit, and some charged attacks have such terrible range and animations that you literally can't land them on enemies because their entire animation triggers faster than your downswing and interrupts you. pushing an enemy to get them off balance makes them immune to further stagger making any follow up hit cause you to take an unavoidable counter hit instead of giving you an opening. hitboxes are all over the place and big broad swings pass through enemies doing no damage. the drake enemies have especially egregious hitboxes, the entire combat experience is a sh*tshow.Building a base can also be a buggy experience. the game limits the number of non-anchored consecutive parts that can be built before becoming structurally unsound and crumbling, however the way this is calculated under the hood is buggy and building along a ledge where all pieces are anchored to the ledge can inexplicably fail because it's calculating the first part put down as the only anchor point and ignoring the ground it's touching. there are also incredibly annoying grid snapping inconsistencies that cause misalignments when trying to put a foundation or roof in.There are some really cool set pieces and holes in the ground to explore, but the reused tile layouts and caves past about the half way mark get far too repetitive. There are also item disappearance bugs. durin's crown either didn't drop, or fell through the world on our playthrough and we didn't feel like redoing an hour of progression and a boss refight from the previous backup to see if we could get it, so that bit of lore that item is used for was permanently unavailable. several times part of the materials used to make a teleporter evaporated when moving it causing us to be stranded a 20 min hike from the next nearest way back to base. food buffs and stamina wears down about 2x as fast as it should, you have about 10 mins to explore before needing to teleport back to base to hork down another sandwich and take another nap.All that being said. it's cool to find the lotr lore bits in the game, it's enjoyable to find cool things down in various holes, the songs and stuff are neat (until you've heard the same ones 200 times, then they're grating). armor and weapon designs are visually decent (though paced terribly). All in all It was an ok experience, and it's pretty close to being good, but in its current state i don't think I'd recommend it without a deep sale, and unless you're feeling especially dwarfy and have a real bad urge to diggy diggy hole.
Its a game where you want to play with friends and moving is very important. There is a problem with DoTs and a battle against the enviroments like later on which made me quit. I enjoyed the lengendaries theyre cool and the building and as a fan of LotR the whole game is very cool but its a hard sell with how somethings are super clunky like the progression and combat.
You go down as one of the greatest dwarfs in the history of Middle Earth.The war of the ring is over. Fellowship hero Gimli puts out the call to begin the retaking of Moria, now that the Balrog is so much used charcoal.From all over Middle Earth, dwarf adventurers come to participate in this venture. You (and your friends if they are playing) are part of this gathering. It's a big deal.Misfortune! An accident (or was it...hint hint) drops you in Moria with no way out and no equipment or supplies. Your goal is to survive and return to the camp where Gimli presumably is mounting a rescue operation.Good luck, dude! The orcs and goblins are still there, as are all manner of hostile wildlife and nasty monsters. Worse still, there's a monster in the deep hoping to become the new Balrog-style master of Moria. Nobody is coming to help you, and Moria is scary AF.Dungeons and Dragons owes a lot of its genesis to the Moria of the books, and this game does a pretty good job of recreating the flavor, tone, and challenges of a mega-city under a mountain range with thousands of years of history behind it.You can play in story mode, which uses procedural generation to connect the "story areas" together, or in a sandbox mode which is aimed at a more immense sandbox reclamation project. I played with 2 friends online in story mode, so that's what I'll speak to.Your characters have different appearances and voices, but their stats are the same. This game uses equipment for character advancement. Better armor means less damage taken, better backpacks make for better carrying, better workstations and furniture placeables make for a better support system.Your character gets tired and famished/thirsty over time. So you gotta sleep at some point, even though its really easy to get off a diurnal schedule underground. You gotta repair your equipment. The only way to restore yourself is to build a basic camp: Fire and bedroll. Then upgrade to a table if you wanna eat and a cheap chest or palette if you wanna store stuff.It scales upwars in tiers. A tier 3 axe is much better than a tier 1 axe, but it requires better workstations to make and better materials. You scavenge for wood, stone, metal fragments (the real currency of Moria, omg), and rope. There are veins of minerals to mine, areas of underground plants and fungi to harvest, and tons of ruins to break into pieces for building new stuff.It's a sandbox crafting game at heart. You gather stuff so you can build stuff so you can gather and build better stuff.The game has a "noise meter" mechanic when the big orc/goblin camp hasn't been eradicated. When you mine, sing, or scavenge, the meter goes up until it triggers a horde attack. These squatters love their dwarf digs and don't want to leave. Once you take out the base, you only run into random patrols or your base gets raided by a horde raid every few days.You can build "keystones" that allow you to quick travel places. This is really useful because this place is HUGE. Walking it manually takes a looooong time. You gotta be strategic with them, because resources for them are rare. Luckily, you can always deconstruct them and place them elsewhere. Time still passes though. You get hungry while you're "teleporting back to base", so watch out!Yeah, singing is a huge part of the game and I am here for it. When mining or drinking, you can sing. If you complete the song you get a buff. Your friends can join in. You also sing to rededicate ruined monuments of note. It's maybe the most awesome part of the game.Buffs are numerous, worthwhile, and gained in awesome ways. It's not unusual to have 3 or 4 at a time. Look at the treasure pile you are building? Hoard fierce! Drink and sing with your friends? High spirits! Repair an ancestral statue (there are many)? Hero spirits! It's all about the attitude,Fighting is tactical. Don't get surrounded. Time your attacks. Dodge and run around when needed. Watch out for archers. Use your own missile weapons. Gang up on people. Lead trolls to sunlight areas if you can. Know when to run away. If you die, you can be revived by a friend on location. Otherwise its return to your last sleeping bag and go run for your equipment.All of it is steeped in Tolkien book lore. The game has a pretty huge quest station interface mechanic you can tab to, but it gets overwhelming fast. Its cool to have all the info on resources, names, and histories, etc. I want it. But be prepared to take some time in your main compound poring over what you've learned.The richness of the history and what your characters are doing is quite frankly, high fantasy epic stuff. Durin's prophecy. All the places that ooze cultural significance. The fact is, your character is setting the stage for the return of the dwarf people to their homeland. Every camp you build is going to be a waypoint for future expeditions. The resources you abandon to move to the next biome? The dwarfs coming after you thank you. The story places YOU at the center of a homecoming so immense it staggers the imagination.Like when we restored and relit the Belegost forge, we all roared with primal satisfaction because DWARVES. DWARF STUFF! That act means something because of the history built up behind it. You build the armor your ancestor wore and its AWESOME BETTER THAN YOUR JUNKY IRON DUDS. The game is full of moments like that.Get the game. Be the nobody from nowhere and do mighty stuff that make the greats sit up and take notice, nodding approvingly.
I want to love this game. and i did for a time. Me and my friend started playing it a few months back. we really enjoyed it being avid lord of the rings fans. now after the recent update the game has got progressively worse. First the performance started getting worse. Huge fps drops and constant slow loading and now the game wont even start. As soon as i get to the 'click any button to continue' it crashes. And now i cant even play it. Really disappointed as we were about 3/4s through the game and were near the end.
Fun game. Just hard enough and hit all my OCD carrots. 100% completion in 80 hours. Well worth the money. I still wanna play in the world after everything. I am sad to have to leave it.
If you have even the smallest interest in Lord of the Rings and you like survival games on a basic level, this is a great game! Been loving every minute of it. I would recommend playing with at least one other - it's lonely out there in the dark shadows.
Had an absolute blast with this, even playing the entire campaign solo. If you have any love for LotR and like exploring/crafting/survival, just get it. Thought the angle of it being in the 4th age was amazing and they tied in just enough class lore to make the universe feel real.There were definitely small things I noticed, often audio or physics glitches, that reminded me it isn't perfect. That said, given the studio size and what they accomplished, I really feel this game is a 9/10. Will likely come back down the line and do a sandbox server with friends.
This is an incredible game. My wife and I played the campaign from start to finish, completing everything, in about 50 hours on normal difficulty. There were only a few times where we died and really had to dig deep to get our things back, but for the most part, the game stayed fun and easy without being overly grindy.Absolutely recommended if you enjoy games like this - very similar to Grounded, and much less vague / frustrating than Valheim.A great game to spend a little time together on, singing the songs out loud.
Its a shame how you can have the most acclaimed IP on the planet, and this is all we get in terms of a game.The beginning of the game is awful. No inventory space, slow travel, boring combat, items break too fast, boring environment. Why are there wolves inside of Moria? And why does the torchlight flicker with so many weird colors?I cannot stress how boring and slow it feels to wander around Moria in the dark. Its garbage. Why would the game tutorial tell me to make a base at the beginning, if everything Im about to do is a 5-7 minute walk down the hall?im sure theres a way to enjoy this game but I just cant do it. I have 1000s of hours in Valheim, Enshrouded, etc. Ive been obsessed with LotR since I was a kid. You would think this game was made for me... But it is clearly not. I would love to say I recommend this game for the novelty, but I just dont.
First Impressions.
From the Intro Cinematic up until the initial start of the Campaign, the game grips one's imagination.
The Character creator is somewhat intuitive but could have used more customisation. However that might have done more harm than good as Dwarven race characters are to look a certain way according to Tolkein's Lore of Middle Earth.
Speaking of Lore, a lot of Middle Earth Lore has been researched into the making of this game with Runes and Diaries and even signs of the Fellowship within the mines of Moria (Elven Tongue) a.k.a Khazad Dum.The Graphics are spectacular and excellent visuals and mind blowing immersive shaders.
The ambient sounds makes one feel you are underground and exploring real caves.Movement controls are solid and one does not feel like controlling a Cow on a Wallmart shopping cart with shoddy Wheel Alignment.Over-all exploration is quite linear but is expected when one spelunks through caves, caverns, tunnels and mines.
Also the game does not rush you to advance the next progression point. You are free to explore and advance at your own pace.I'd give this game a solid 9/10 but that's just my personal opinion.
Also the added DLC's make for more fun gameplay and cosmetic aesthetics.
iv tried so hard to like this game i love lord of the rings but this game is no good, dont buy this game the crafting is dogshit and combat is aids game feels unfinished wish i never brought it
Return to Moria is a worthwhile experience for any Lord of the Rings fan, especially for one who enjoys games like Minecraft. The story is solid, and keeping in the same tone of Tolkien's works, with bits of lore scattered throughout.Which leads to what finally sold me on this game enough to give it a try: Return to Moria features an aspect of fantasy Dwarves not featured enough in modern depictions: singing. For a game set in Middle Earth, the Dwarves in Return to Moria appropriately break into song every so often: either to give a buff while mining by singing a work song, belting out a drinking song before downing your beer, or chanting to venerate a statue of Durin.In short, Return to Moria is a lot of fun, satisfying to play, and is the best Lord of the Rings game that we've seen in quite a while. Gather up a company of Dwarves and give it a shot.
Finally a game you can actually get lost in, true to the lore, epic in scale, lots of verticality, in game maps don't hold your hand, definitely fun with a friend or 2.
Middle-earth has long captured the imagination of adventurers, but Return to Moria does something new—it gives the Dwarves their moment. Set in the Fourth Age, long after the War of the Ring, this survival-crafting adventure invites players to retake the fallen city of Khazad-dûm. The idea is rich with potential. Unfortunately, much like the mines themselves, what you find here is as much rubble as it is treasure.At its heart, Return to Moria is a survival game with crafting systems, base building, and exploration at its core. You chop wood, smelt ore, dig through collapsed halls, and reconstruct ancient Dwarven forges. There’s a satisfying rhythm to the early gameplay loop: explore, gather, rebuild. But as the hours roll on, repetition begins to weigh down the experience like a pack full of stone.Progression feels linear despite the game’s open premise, and systems like hunger, stamina, and crafting lack the refinement or variety of deeper survival games. It's not bad—it’s just barebones.You’d expect fierce battles in the heart of Moria, but the combat is disappointingly shallow. Most encounters play out as button-mashing brawls with barely any need for strategy. Enemy AI is sluggish, and hit feedback lacks weight. Fighting off goblins, orcs, and worse feels more like swatting flies than surviving a siege.There’s potential here, especially with different weapons and upgrades, but the lack of tactical depth and meaningful enemy variety means combat quickly fades into background noise.Where Return to Moria shines is its setting. The game does justice to Tolkien’s legendarium through its attention to lore, visuals, and sound. Ancient stonework looms above torch-lit halls. Echoes of long-lost Dwarves whisper in ruined chambers. Music is sparing but impactful—driven by drums, chants, and somber tones that evoke the melancholy of a fallen kingdom.There are moments—finding a forgotten tomb, rebuilding a massive forge—where the game nails its tone and offers a genuine sense of discovery and reverence for its source material.The game supports up to eight-player co-op, and this is arguably the best way to play. Chipping away at Moria’s vast stone halls as a team makes the slow grind more fun, and coordination adds life to what can feel like a lonely journey solo. That said, even multiplayer can’t completely mask the lack of enemy variety or the limited depth of the systems.Even after patches, Return to Moria struggles with performance hiccups, texture pop-in, and occasional crashes. Animations are stiff, menus are clunky, and the interface isn’t as intuitive as it could be. It feels like the game needed a few more months in the forge to smooth out its rough edges.Return to Moria is a game made with clear affection for Tolkien’s world. The setting is lovingly crafted, and the core idea—rebuilding Khazad-dûm—is full of potential. But the gameplay doesn’t dig deep enough, and the shallow combat, repetitive structure, and performance issues weigh it down.If you’re a Tolkien fan craving a new angle on Middle-earth, especially with friends, there’s something here for you. But if you’re after tight survival mechanics or rich combat, you might find yourself wishing for the light of the Silmarils to guide you elsewhere.Rating: 7/10
