The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria™

I am a Dwarf and I'm digging a hole...

Extremely soulless, with people only ending up playing because they're lotr fans who tricked themselves into thinking it had content to satisfy their starving appetites.

I really love this game. I can see where people who play survival sims a lot can be frustrated with some elements or glitches. But as a LOTR fan, I am SO excited every time I play this game. The lore and easter eggs are amazing. I really love the flavor and Tolkien inspired elements, like singing mining songs together for boosts, food and cooking being a key element of companionship, and the historic lore to all the things you can create. Then on top of all that, you get to explore Moria, and see things described in the books, and moments I swear are out of clipped movie stills recreated. If you're a fan of LOTR, dwarves, or mellow exploration crafting with deeply customizable difficulty settings, this is the game for you. I think it's a fun game that has cozy, exciting elements that is so fun to play with people!

laggy

Game is Great i love the challenge

Abandon all hope, ye who enter here

Repetiv, Generic and despite really trying, not that lore acurate. The game is a pretty generic survival semi-open-world craft game where you progress by steadyly unlocking better gear, resources and crafting methods. Multiplayer is possible, but not necessary required, but helpful. Nothing of this is new, or hasnt been done better by games like Subnautica. The combat-system is pretty clunky and rather underwhelming. You lock on an enemy and then strike him until its over. If you have multible enemys or destroyable stuff next to you, you will have a problem. Health is also not regeneratet during fights or in the mines at all, so you better hold out until you are where you have to be. The mines themselves are lovingly created, the visuals quite good and the layout encorages creative traveling. They are also lore acurate for the most part, if with some libertys for gaming-purposes. The game does not deliver on its premise. You do not rebuild Moria, you do not do anything with the help of others (unless multiplayer) and the story is quite railroading. At the begining you are trapped in the mines and then you are forced to reach the other side to get out. The game is just a long walk, wich is balantly railroaded along a single path. The game becomes forced after some time. But the game is one thing above all: repetive. You use resources to craft gear, master a part of the path, defeat enemy, reach new part of the mines, need stronger gear, need new resources, meet stronger enemy, get everything, defeat stronger enemy, get to next part, rinse and repeat. After the sixt part of your journy the underlining mystery or the goal are not longer enough to keep you going. And since the game heavily railroads you along one path without alternatives you feel constricted. And then happens what caused me to quit the game. You reach the other side, you craft the thing necessary to leave the mines and then you meet the final boss. Without spoilers: The boss is a thing that in canon can not defeated by a single ordinary warrior. So you walk back, use your thing to leave the mines and your character says: "I cant leave, i still have stuff do do here. If i dont defeat this boss, he will kill the entire platoon the king send!" Ans so you are suposed to brave another part of the mines, get new gear, new resources, etc. EXCUSE ME!?? LEAVING THE MINES AND GETTING REINFORCMENTS WERE THE WHOLE GOAL OF THE ENTIRE GAME!!! And what makes you think that you can defeat something on your own that can apparently easily kill half an army? Because the story isnt suposed to be over you have to do the same repetive sh_t again that you have been doing the entire game, despite EVERYTHING about the situation at hand makes leaving and getting help the only rational choice. At this point i couldnt bear the repetitvnes of the game anymore and since there was no mystery or goal to drive me forward while the game forced me into an absolute stupid choice, i decidet to quit and stop playing. Seventy Hours of repetive, railroaded tasks and then the game pretends the maingoal cant be reached (escaping the mine), because your character is worried that hundreds of other dwarfs will be killed if you dont kill by yourself what will kill all of them. WASTED TIME. Do not buy this unless you are really into repetive tasks, repetive gameplay and balant railroading.

Minecraft in the setting of Moria. Quite beautiful and atmospheric — fans of the universe will definitely enjoy it. The campaign story is primitive and clunky, but since it barely affects the gameplay, the game doesn’t really suffer because of it. The game mainly focuses on the atmosphere of traveling through Moria and on building. Even despite the repetitive procedurally generated locations, the first journey still feels colorful and engaging thanks to the “key” handcrafted areas. Every story-related location looks vivid and memorable enough to enrich the adventure. The second major source of enjoyment is rebuilding Moria itself. Thanks to the atmosphere, the decent variety of building pieces, and several unique large-scale locations, every area makes you want to create something personal and special just to admire it afterward. You can easily spend a huge amount of time doing that. So if you enjoy building games, this is definitely for you. As for everything else, there’s barely any real survival aspect — food, resources, and everything else are available in abundance. The crafting system is fairly primitive and linear. There is combat, but the progression is just as linear: find a new axe, fight until enemies become too strong, then look for and craft another new axe. There are no real nuances to combat. The enemies are technically different, but similar enough that you never need to come up with any special tactics for each type. It’s nice that death carries basically no penalty — you just have to go back and pick up your items. And that’s a good thing, because most of your deaths will be pretty ridiculous :) Random falls, getting stuck during combat, or simply not paying attention to the “darkness” mechanic. Speaking of getting stuck — there are bugs, and quite a few of them, but none are seriously game-breaking. Sometimes structures won’t snap where they’re supposed to, sometimes you or the AI can get stuck, sometimes there are disconnects (though only occasionally), things like that. Overall, it leaves a pretty pleasant impression. The atmosphere really carries the game. If you don’t like the whole Tolkien vibe — dwarves, caves, mines, and all that — then it probably won’t click for you. Otherwise, it’s a pretty solid survival-building game.

Your instincts are correct - don't bother with this one, even if you're buying it because 'lotr'. It has all the work requirements of a survival crafter, none of the fun. Maybe if you have some entertaining friends but they really would be carrying the entertainment themselves.

This game is so miserable and awful in so many weird pointless ways. The stamina system is psychotic, so you can use infinite stamina potions. The weapons and armor break nearly instantly, so you can use the nifty repair station. You can't roll off of edges, so you don't accidentally fall off of edges. So many intentional willful design decisions that make the game FEEL BAD TO PLAY. This game is not hard, it's not grindy, it's not even low quality, it's just got a pile of design decisions that make it an absolute slog. The combat is like an N64 game tried to do something new. The build lore buffs are literally MEANINGLESS. The only saving grace was the lore, and even then, a lot of it was just "Wizard was here lol. -Wizard"