The Lord of the Rings: Gollum™
The Lord of the Rings: Gollum™
Game
Game2024
The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria™
Developer Free Range Games
The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria is a 2023 survival video game developed by Free Range Games and published by North Beach Games on October 24, 2023 for Windows. PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S versions were released in December 2023 and August 2024 respectively. The game is based on the fictional world of Middle-earth created by J. R. R. Tolkien and takes place during its Fourth Age after the events of The… From Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)
433 reactions from 4 sources (Steam reviews, Bluesky, Mastodon, Lemmy) · newest Nov 5, 2026 · last updated Nov 5, 2026 · How this works
Audience score
63
Fresh
199 positive · 117 negative
95% range 58–68%
| Source | + | − | = |
|---|---|---|---|
| Steam reviews | 199 | 117 | 0 |
| Bluesky * | 20 | 0 | 77 |
| Mastodon * | 0 | 0 | 17 |
| Lemmy * | 0 | 0 | 3 |
* shown, not counted in the score (label accuracy below our 85% bar or not yet audited).
Steam's own rating
Very Positive
6,499 of 8,110 reviews positive (all languages, per Valve)
What players are saying
63% recommend · 170 yes, 100 no
Counted from the reviewers’ own thumbs up/down on the 270 English Steam reviews we collected, not by the AI. Valve’s all-language rating: Very Positive (10,169 of 12,554 positive).
Players praise the game's atmosphere and lore, calling it a faithful and immersive Tolkien experience. [1][2][3] Many reviewers note a slow start and poor tutorial, with some saying the first hours are rough. [4][5][6] Some players criticize repetitive gameplay, poor map design, and frustrating progression. [7][8][9]
Liked
Representative posts
- [7]
We played this game with three people, picking it purely for the LOTR aesthetic. It ended up being one of the most disappointing survival/crafting experiences I've ever had to deal with. While it nails the theme and the visuals, it fails when it comes to the actual gameplay. The biggest offenders, to me, are the procedual generation and the backwards progression. Select few landmarks aside, every location ends up …
- [8]
Despite having a pretty great time with the opening hours of the game, I can't really recommend it. It really starts to get very repetitive and dry, with some really cheap and frustrating tricks employed to artificially slow down your progress. Every time you step into a new area, it's the same cycle. Every enemy is now barely damaged by your weapons. Your gear disintegrates in a few hits. There is no way to …
- [1]
Return to Moria is a strange, uneven, and oddly sincere game. I mean that as a compliment. At its best, it nails something that’s harder than it looks. It makes Moria feel like a place again. Not a backdrop. Not a dungeon you sprint through for loot. A place with weight, history, and danger baked into the stone. You’re not conquering Moria. You’re surviving it, one torch, one tunnel, one bad decision at a time. …
- [5]
***Listen*** I'm not gonna lie! The first TWO hours of this game are REAL rough! World feels dead, mobs are sparce and it's REALLY slow! To be honest it was just awful! At least solo! BUT I was encouraged to get through the first two hour slogfest and I'm glad I did! Once you get past the two hour mark, the game really does get fun! Combat gets better, world stops feeling dead and the progression feels pretty good! …
- [2]
I am gonna start of a preface that I am huge fan of Tolkien's works because it colours my preception of the game, especially considering the dwarves are my favorite people in the world of Arda. I feel like that is not the girly-pop answer, most girls would probably want to be an elf or a hobbit, but to me the dwarves of middle earth have always had a certain charm that is definitily carried over to this game. …
Summarised from 34 of the 354 public posts collected about this game; every point cites the posts behind it ([n] opens the post) and the split is counted from the posts’ own ratings. Updated Oct 11, 2026. How summaries are made
RottenBot@rottenbot · automated account
Players who liked The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria™ talk about atmosphere and lore are immersive and faithful to Tolkien; those who didn't talk about map is confusing and poorly designed. Which matters more to you?
Critics, per Wikipedia
The game received "mixed or average" reviews according to aggregator Metacritic, while the Xbox Series X/S version received "generally favorable" reviews. Eurogamer said "Though it doesn't stray far from the standard survival game formula and often lacks polish, The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria offers a moody, atmospheric descent through Tolkien's world." GameStar said that it "tickles the Middle Earth nerve of every fan, but overstretches your patience with comfort shortcomings and technical problems." IGN said "There's a decent game in here somewhere, as the compelling progression loop and chaotic multiplayer capabilities can make for a really good time – I just can't give you many…
From the “Reception” section of Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Critic context only — not part of the audience score.
Reactions
60 of 433 · most liked firstWe played this game with three people, picking it purely for the LOTR aesthetic. It ended up being one of the most disappointing survival/crafting experiences I've ever had to deal with. While it nails the theme and the visuals, it fails when it comes to the actual gameplay. The biggest offenders, to me, are the procedual generation and the backwards progression. Select few landmarks aside, every location ends up feeling the same. I got lost wandering through identical-looking corridors…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Today I’m thinking about The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King’s video game because holy fuck what a banger
neutral · AI labelView post →I really wanted to like this game and really tried to as well. 53 hours in, I've seen *most* of what the game has to offer. The crafting aspect of this game is good, I enjoyed the way you unlock recipes and it really promotes exploration. I thought the narrative angle was good in terms of telling a tale from the Dwarves' perspective. But, that's were the good ends. The procedural generation of the map SHOWS. A lot. Stair cases leading to nothing. Tons of clipping objects. Nonsense routes…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →***Read this if you are a solo player!!*** Everything about this game sounds great! The concept, graphics, and mechanics are fun! But if you are not a fan of empty worlds then this game isn't for you. I enjoy open world survival games and I was looking forward to restoring The Kingdom of Khazad-Dum so I purchased this game with ready to spend a few hours living the LOTR Dwarven dream. Instead I discovered by about two hours in, that this is basically Minecraft with a fantastic LOTR skin. Again,…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Despite having a pretty great time with the opening hours of the game, I can't really recommend it. It really starts to get very repetitive and dry, with some really cheap and frustrating tricks employed to artificially slow down your progress. Every time you step into a new area, it's the same cycle. Every enemy is now barely damaged by your weapons. Your gear disintegrates in a few hits. There is no way to mitigate this; there is no character progression, and gear progression is locked…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Question for you all. What is a video game or movie/movies that you wish you could experience again for the first time? For me, the video game would be Skyrim. It was everything I wanted it to be when it was released. The movie/movies would be the Lord of the Rings Trilogy. I watched them...
neutral · AI labelView post →Return to Moria is a strange, uneven, and oddly sincere game. I mean that as a compliment. At its best, it nails something that’s harder than it looks. It makes Moria feel like a place again. Not a backdrop. Not a dungeon you sprint through for loot. A place with weight, history, and danger baked into the stone. You’re not conquering Moria. You’re surviving it, one torch, one tunnel, one bad decision at a time. Co-op is where the game really comes alive. Playing with friends turns the whole…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →First off, if the reviewer has less than 20 hours, might be best to ignore them. They complain about broken mechanics and it simply isn't true. You are weak when you start. As you progress you get better armor, weapons, food, storage, abilities, brews, meals, lighting, special abilities, buffs and so on. Sure, you start off with a stick and no armor. All games are like that. People that want easy mode in 20 hours are just plain missing the point. The first two hours or so are slow and the…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I have played this game for 133 hours and dicovered that there are items you need to progress that just aern't available. It looked good from the start but being being stuck on a single level for more than 50 hours of play time took the fun right out of it.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →It's a really fun game, but if you want to play multiplayer you need the Epic Games website or auth system to be functional and working! I was having a lot of fun playing it, but even though I bought it from Steam, it's dead in the water unless the Epic games authentication system is functional. When I couldn't host network games anymore, I decided to try to use the dedicated server. But the dedicated server refuses to launch as well. Developers: why even use Epic Games infrastructure…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Some really weird decisions made by the devs with this game. If you are a LOTR fan, it really immerses you into the lore and atmosphere of the universe. Unfortunatelly, this is where it all ends. - The game has basically no improvements in terms of gameplay from start to finish. It basically means you farm zone1, fight mobs in zone2, farm, go to zone3 etc. NOTHING changes. Valheim has this kind of mechanic, but every time you advance, something new and exciting is being added. Here, you have…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I cannot recommend this game as much as I enjoy parts of it, the fact that you have to struggle through entire areas doing half damage and basically unable to defend yourself until the game happens to drop the new materials you need to do damage in the area you're in, I literally had to sit there for 20 minutes as 15 orcs destroyed my entire base and lost about half the items as they glitched through the floor, the fact that I didn't lose game critical materials during it is a miracle, having a…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This game is not fun. There are not a lot of fun mechanics in general, but the main reason is that you get tired and hungry way too fast, and your armor breaks way too quickly. Essentially, you can only go like 100m from your house before you are tired and gear is getting worn down. You can barely make it 20 mins before you have to go back home to sleep, eat, and repair. Even if you think you can risk it with broken armor, eventually your stamina bar goes down to nothing so you are not able to…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →One of the best survival game I played, the only thing missing to this game imo is a skill tree so we can have different dwarfs specialised in different things like a cook, smith, gardener, tank, melee, range etc, that would be just perfect.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Dom: Tolkien fought in the bloodiest battle in human history, and he wrote The Lord of the Rings, which is very idealistic. Martin fought in...no battles. And wrote Game of Thrones, wallowing in violence and sexual violence.
neutral · AI labelView post →Game starts of pretty good, but once you start progressing, you realize how horribly paced progression actually is. About mid-game, you'll constantly hear your dwarf say "I need a better weapon!" up until you clear the game even if you keep up on upgrading weapons. The combat and enemy AI is abysmal, there is no challenge, and your armor gets chunked away after 3 hits, even with the best available armor. Besides building the crafting stations and beds, there is no reason to build anything at…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I love Dwarf games. As a man under 6 foot, who loves hard labor and good ale, I relate to Dwarves unfathomably well. This game advertised itself not only as a continuation of the Dwarf story featured in The Lord of the Rings, which was sadly left mostly unfinished by the books / films, but also as a true Dwarf simulator. Delve into the forsaken mines, slay goblins and monsters, build, collect, and craft, and reclaim your ancestral homeland, that's what being a Dwarf should be all about.…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The Lord of the Rings: The Third Age (2004) | RPG | PS2, Gamecube, and Xbox | Electronic Arts Ringwraiths were the cursed servants of Sauron, terrible and deadly in their unearthly power. But in this game, they're like liquid metal slimes from Dragon Quest -- rare encounters worth tons of XP!
neutral · AI labelView post →Whoooo! Go Birds! I am THOROUGHLY enjoying the Super Bowl for once. This is one of the Giant Eagles "miniatures" (from The Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game), one of my first minis when I started back into painting 8 years ago. #paintingwarhammer #miniatures #LOTR
neutral · AI labelView post →Warhorse Studios is working on 2 new games. A new 'Kingdom Come' game and an open-world Middle-earth (The Lord of the Rings) RPG.
neutral · AI labelView post →Still working to complete this game before passing final judgment, but so far it's shaping up to be one of the worst survival games I've played. Frankly, if "Lord of the Rings" weren't in the title, I doubt it would have the positive reviews it currently does. I've been playing co-op on hard difficulty with one other person, and the world just feels hollow. Combat is clunky and unsatisfying, and on top of that, enemies and animals have a habit of simply standing idle rather than engaging. We…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Return to Moria is a derivative, sloppy and really sluggish Open World Survival Craft game, topped with a very light sprinkling of LotR lore and locations used only as a marketing device. The premise is really interesting but completely stilted by a lazy, uninspired and stale execution. Slow progression, poor level design (although the environments do look pretty good and create a viable Middle-Earth ambience) as well as really unimpressive combats and enemy design make for a quite…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (Game Boy Advance, Griptonite, 2002)
neutral · AI labelView post →Tales of the Shire: A The Lord of the Rings Game delayed to July 29th, 2025 (UPDATE): The hobbits are going to Switch 🕹️
neutral · AI labelView post →I understand people's skepticism here, but once upon a time they thought The Lord of the Rings was unfilmable, and that League of Legends was just a video game for 14 year olds who use the r-word. You never know, that's alls I'm saying.
neutral · AI labelView post →The Lord of the Rings: Fate of the Fellowship has just been announced! Thrilled to announce that there's a new Pandemic System game coming in 2025 based on Tolkien's masterpiece.
neutral · AI labelView post →Grass Starters Elbo - Grass/Fairy Saplinq - Grass/Fairy Taurel - Grass/Fairy Inspirations: elves, Link, Zelda, The Lord of the Rings. The basis on a Nintendo game is inspired by Nintendo's popularity among modern Korean gamers & the proximity between Korea & Japan
neutral · AI labelView post →Bree Game: The Lord of the Rings Online Dev: Turbine 🇺🇸 | Standing Stone Games 🇺🇸 Release: April 24, 2007
neutral · AI labelView post →Played The Lord Of The Rings: Duel For Middle-Earth again w/ @jridpath.bsky.social. Love this board game more every time I play it! Designers: @toinito.bsky.social @brunocathala.bsky.social, illustrated by Vincent Dutrait. #boardgaming
positive · AI labelView post →Here's one of the funniest examples of this, to me. It's from the manual of the Lord of the Rings Volume 1 video game by Interplay. Not only do you have a gendered language disclaimer, but you have a "smoking is bad" and "wolves are good" disclaimer.
neutral · AI labelView post →Too janky and frustrating, every system seems designed to prolong gameplay artificially
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →'I played the Lord of the Rings RPG where Frodo can straight-up die and the game just keeps on going' by Joshua Wolens. Great article, with a proper title which we really do have to appreciate. Read it: www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/i-...
neutral · AI labelView post →TL;DR - DO NOT buy this game unless you really want it, and on STEEP discount only (even then...) I was excited for this game when it was announced way back in 2022. Love me dwarves, and we hadn't had a solid new LOTR game in a bit. I picked it up during its launch sale after it finally arrived on Steam following its year as an Epic exclusive. A few months ago I finally sat down and fully went through the game with a friend after my previous attempt to play solo stalled. It was not worth the…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Writing my retroclone for the Lord of the Rings Adventure Game and doing what I know to be right in my heart: making rules for baths.
neutral · AI labelView post →Why isn't it the end of July yet, all a girl is hanging for is Tales of the Shire: A The Lord of The Rings Game
positive · AI labelView post →Gone Cardboard: Cross Middle-earth to explore The Lord of the Rings: Fate of the Fellowship, a new co-operative game from Matt Leacock and Z-Man Games that's built on the Pandemic game system. Due out June 27, 2025. First details: boardgamegeek.com/blog/1/blogp... —WEM
neutral · AI labelView post →Tales of the Shire: A The Lord of The Rings Game has been delayed to July 29, 2025 www.dekudeals.com/items/tales-...
neutral · AI labelView post →Woah alright! Let's look at The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (video game). www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wmpx...
neutral · AI labelView post →Sentinel of the Galadhrim My Elven OC based on my character in The Lord of the Rings Online! (still my favourite game of all time) #lotro Photo by @sennedjem.bsky.social
positive · AI labelView post →Game #24 The Lord Of The Rings: The Two Towers (PS2) 𝖢𝖮𝖬𝖯𝖫𝖤𝖳𝖤𝖣✅ After all these years, the game still fucks
positive · AI labelView post →I love the concept of this game but the way the stamina and exhaustion mechanics work, make this game nearly unplayable. You can buff up however you like, no matter, because less than 2 minutes into the day, you're plum out of stamina and severely exhausted. Also, the weapon and gear progression is genuinely wrong. you have to struggle your way through areas that are way above you, just to finally craft a suitable weapon that wont be useful at all in the very next area of progression. the game…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I am compelled to write this because Sol is a jerk. I really want to like this game. It has some really interesting gameplay dynamics. And of course it's LOTR dwarves. However, the developers have gone astray with some key aspects. First, the weapons one has available are never up to the task. When you go into a new area, you are woefully underpowered for it, not matching it as it increases. Second, gameplay feels rushed and forced because of the strict day/night cycle and related "tired"…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →following tonight's short game, HBO Max servers overwhelmed with baseball fans watching the extended editions of the Lord of The Rings trilogy to fill that void
neutral · AI labelView post →how can i listen to the Lord of the Rings halftime show at the Michigan game
neutral · AI labelView post →I'm glad I only paid like $2 for this, because this might be one of the premier cases of "I don't think the devs played their own game" I've ever experienced. It's not awful. It's not unplayable. But it's a chore riddled with design decisions that make absolutely no sense and all add up to a very tedious experience. It's a shame, because I wanted to give this game a shot, but after finishing the third biome I feel absolutely no interest in grueling through this noise solo.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Getting to know me through media My all time faves: Game - Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice Movie - The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers Show - Star Trek: The Next Generation Album - TOOL: Lateralus
neutral · AI labelView post →It's just incredibly dull. The camp and building mechanics are an actual detriment here as you have to frequently gather resources for a camp that you will be moving on from pretty much as soon as you finish establishing it. The enemies are very few and far between and just kind of loaf about and baring the few camp raids, dont react to the players presence at all which...... everyone has either seen or read what happens in moria. Everything has durability for an extra level of grind.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Because i'd like to end on a positive note; Without DLC and Expansions this game doesn't have a lot to offer in terms of armor, weapons and building items. Though the DLC armor and weapons I don't think go any higher than anything currently in the base game. What you unlock for building in the base game doesn't fully match the items used to create the buildings you come across, so some modders have made mods to access base game assets for building in particuliar. The building system can be…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →After putting a number of hours in to this game in a 4 man group and seeing it to completion I have to say that this game is awful. The combat is an absolute click-fest with no real depth, the armour is entirely pointless and the map design frustrating. I'm sure the randomised map is good for replayability but I can't imagine many people actually do multiple runs. Having a single, authored map would likely have improved this. The map UI is terrible too, making it next to pointless to use…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Today on Is This Your Card: Angel is showing us the The Lord of the Rings Trading Card Game! twitch.tv/loadingready...
neutral · AI labelView post →Downloaded the "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring" Game Boy Advance game on my 3DS, and, while I haven't gotten to experience the gameplay much yet, the pixel art of the Shire is really cute and pretty.
positive · AI labelView post →i would recommend this game if they finally addressed all the glitches. i have tried 2 playthroughs and the first i got near the end and then died outside of the boundaries. losing the durins axe needed to actually complete the game with no way to recover it. the second time was a glitch where the screen just kept refreshing/time skipping back like a fraction of a second and was stuck in an infinite loop that the only way out of was to restart the game (no other game functions would work. even…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Wanted to like this game purely because of the LOTR name attachment but it's just so clunky. The progression is awkward and you see the same randomly generated rooms half the time that you just find yourself running in circles. I assume they didn't get this feedback because it was an Epic exclusive for the first year of release so no one played it til after that.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Just lost back to back games of The Lord of the Rings Duel. You know it's a good game when you enjoy losing. 7 Wonders Duel is one of my most played games and even factoring in new game bias I think this might be better. I should probably buy a copy and find out!
positive · AI labelView post →Rip Boromir 🥲 This is Sean Bean (Ned Stark from Game of thrones) as Boromir in the Lord of the Rings trilogy when he redeems himself after betraying the party by sacrificing himself taking 3 arrows to the chest! This hits on so many levels!
neutral · AI labelView post →The base game is very enjoyable and replayable. The tiles are not only generated differently in every seed but you can play this in Campaign or Sandbox mode. You can change the settings mid game if the play is too easy or too hard. You can take your character and the contents of their backpack into your next game or start fresh with a new dwarf. The Discord for the game is the best I've ever been on. I highly recommend anyone on the fence about this base game, jump in, the water is great. Do…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Another great night at The Rose & Crown #Tooting for Ben's Game Club www.instagram.com/bensgameclub The Lord of the Rings: Duel(s) for Middle-Earth, #vegan pizza + fries, and mulled cider - what more do you need?! Thanks for all the games @jackadimus.bsky.social! #boardgames #tabletop #lotr #games
neutral · AI labelView post →***Listen*** I'm not gonna lie! The first TWO hours of this game are REAL rough! World feels dead, mobs are sparce and it's REALLY slow! To be honest it was just awful! At least solo! BUT I was encouraged to get through the first two hour slogfest and I'm glad I did! Once you get past the two hour mark, the game really does get fun! Combat gets better, world stops feeling dead and the progression feels pretty good! After a few days I'm really enjoying it, especially being a Tolkein…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →New Solo Play is up and this time I'm trying out the first two chapters of the new The Lord of the Rings The Fellowship of the Ring Trick-Taking Game!! (Spoiler alert: I am obsessed with this game!) youtu.be/T162zkB-lmk
positive · AI labelView post →Amazon has cancelled The Lord of the Rings MMO, but promises it "continues to explore a compelling new game experience" set in Middle-earth www.eurogamer.net/amazon-cance...
neutral · AI labelView post →
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