The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria

by Aethyna Jan 31, 2024 | 1 Votes | 70 Played | 0 Reviews

7 rate

Genres:

Action , Adventure

Graphics:

Labels:

Adventure , Survival , Co-op , Fantasy Setting , Crafting

Platforms:

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North Beach Games Set in Middle-earth's Fourth Age, The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria is a survival-themed sandbox-like adventure where the dwarves, led by Gimli, set off to reclaim their homeland, Moria. However, things went awry, and you, one of the dwarves in Gimli’s company, fell into Moria. Trapped, you need to find a way to survive! Play Now Similar Games

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Summary Plotline Gameplay Community Graphics/ Sound Conclusion

Summary

Set in Middle-earth's Fourth Age, The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria is a survival-themed sandbox-like adventure where the dwarves, led by Gimli, embark on a quest to reclaim their homeland, Moria. However, things went awry, and you, playing as one of the dwarves in Gimli’s company, fell into Moria. Trapped, you need to fend for yourself by building yourself a cozy base and defending it from orcs that had adopted Moria as their home after their previous invasion.

Plotline

The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria is set in Middle-earth's Fourth Age after the events of The Lords of the Rings novels, where Gimli and a company of dwarves decided to embark on a quest to reclaim their homeland, Moria, and restore the long-lost, ancient Dwarven kingdom of Khazad-dûm. However, despite their efforts the Doors of Durin remained stubbornly shut.

Opting for Plan B, they decided to try blasting the door open, rolling in barrels of explosives into tunnels they have dug under the door, but while doing so, a mysterious purplish fog rolled into the tunnels from the crevices in the walls, causing a lot of panic among the dwarves working in the tunnels and also a quake that collapsed the tunnel.

In this game, you play as one of those dwarves in the tunnels. The ground gave way and you found yourself inside a part of Moria, with no way to return to your company… at least for now. Tap into your dwarven ingenuity and build a base for yourself to survive. There are more than just dusty skeletons and ruins within the walls of Moria, and you’d best be prepared!

Gameplay

Before you start, you’ll be able to customize your very own dwarf. The amount of customization options available is pretty astounding, and you can create both male and female characters. There are even preset voices that you can choose from too. Though, funnily enough, there’s no restriction as to how the player can mix and match what they like, this means that you can create a very manly dwarf with a high-pitchy voice or with a big chest.

Anyway, once you’re done, you’ll be treated to a pretty revelatory introduction and subsequently, an interactive tutorial where you’ll play while you learn the ropes. As a sandbox game, almost everything, besides the main structures of the place, can be destroyed for crucial resources that you can then use to build and craft a variety of items and structures of your own. Yes, this means that you can build a jungle gym-like of a base if you’d like within the walls (and ceiling) of Moria.

Most of the basic resources can quite readily obtained in this game since there are plenty of stuff left behind in the previous battle, including barricades that can be taken down for wood and cloth; the armored fallen that has already turned into skeletons can be salvaged for metal scraps, and rubble can be cleared for stone. These can then be used to build or craft stuff.

You can even find mineral deposits, like iron, gold and mithril, mine them to get the ores and then forge these into metal bars, unlocking access to better tools and new workstations. Interestingly enough, while on one of my mining runs, my dwarf went into an ore-frenzy mode where she started singing while she worked.

Building is also fun here since you are given quite a lot of freedom to build as you like - within the confines of the preset building areas, that is. There are some invisible grids to help align some stuff like walls, but generally, you can build literally anywhere. As you progress, you’ll unlock new zones where you’ll get to set up new satellite bases too.

There are plenty of existing structures in the place that could use some repairs to become operational again as well. There are even temporary platforms you can set up to allow you to reach high areas via some clever positioning and platforming (i.e., jumping from one platform to another).

As a survival game, you’ll need to keep your dwarf well-fed so he/she can get going. Surprisingly, food isn’t as scarce as you might think here, there are various plants and mushrooms that you can harvest for food. You can hunt down critters too, like rats, for meat. All of these ingredients can be cooked at the hearth, making the foodstuff more filling. However, note that cooked food can rot if left on the table for too long and that there’s no way to bundle cooked food into a “takeaway” so you will have to return to the hearth to replenish your satiety.

Aside from food, you’ll need to regulate your dwarf’s temperature, will, and sleep too. Noise levels are also important here since they may attract unwanted attention to you or your base.

As mentioned before, there is some combat in this game aside from hunting down critters for food. When night falls, enemies ranging from wolves to bands of orcs may converge on your base and attack it, destroying the things you’ve painstakingly built. This is why it’s vital to have solid defenses up and make sure that you’re there to defend your new home.

Combat can be a bit clunky here, however. You’ll often find yourself outnumbered, though not every enemy will attack you first – some may head straight for your forge, storage pallets, or something. The game doesn’t seem to have a dodge button, so fights often revolve around what we call “tanking and spanking” in the MMO circles.

That said, you don’t only have a basic attack which is typically a “fast attack”; there’s also a charged attack that you can use to deal more damage by holding down the attack button before releasing it. The downside though is that you can lose the charge if you get hit, which means that a charged hit can be tricky to pull off. Oh, and there’s no enemy targeting here, so you can technically have a swing of your ax hit multiple enemies in a cone-shaped swathe in front of you if you position your dwarf right.

You can die in this game, naturally, but you can also be respawned if you have a bedroll claimed, which you should. However, you’ll lose everything you’re carrying but you do get the option to try to recover what you’ve lost by heading back to the place where you fell.

As fun as the game is, there are some downsides that might just be deal-breakers for some players. For instance, I, for one, am very disappointed that the game isn’t as fully sandbox as I’d like. As a dwarf, I would have liked to be able to dig around more freely, but that’s not possible here. Although I can understand the need for some restrictions, the areas you can dig are severely restricted by hard barriers – i.e. rocks, making this aspect of the game not as fun as I’d expect.

Community

The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria supports online multiplayer co-op, up to 8 players in a single session. As I always say, survival games are definitely a lot more fun when played with friends, so if you have buddies who have the game, make sure to bring them along for the ride!

Graphics/ Sound

The graphics in this game is pretty astounding. Granted that most of the stuff you see has very muted colors and, well, there are plenty of dark areas since the game’s set in Moria after all, the visual style and design used here really propels the player to the fictional world of Middle-Earth. The game clearly differentiates the art style used in different sections of the map.

In fact, when coupled with the many pieces of lore, you can find as you explore the place, the ambiance, the many lore-filled tunes that your dwarves may sing when inspiration strikes, such as when mining or drunk on ale, and the fantastic soundtrack that is obviously inspired by Tolkien, the game can become really immersive to play. The voice acting, especially for Gimli, here is superb, too! This isn’t surprising considering that they managed to hire John Rhys-Davis, the very same voice actor who portrayed Gimli in the 2000s LOTR films.

Conclusion

All in all, The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria may not be the best survival-themed sandbox-like adventure out there, but it’s a competent addition to the genre. The game is oozing in lore as well, and its dedication to the source materials is admirable. This is definitely a game that fans of the LOTR will want to try.

New Game Added: The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria

by Aethyna Jan 31, 2024

Set in Middle-earth's Fourth Age, The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria is a survival-themed sandbox-like adventure where the dwarves, led by Gimli, set off to reclaim their homeland, Moria. However, things went awry, and you, one of the dwarves in Gimli’s company, fell into Moria. Trapped, you need to find a way to survive!