The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria is a survival crafting game set in the iconic dwarven kingdom beneath the Misty Mountains. It attempts to blend the deep lore of Tolkien’s world with mechanics familiar to fans of games like Valheim, Minecraft, or Deep Rock Galactic. While the premise is promising—reclaiming Moria, brick by brick—the execution is a mix of impressive atmosphere and repetitive gameplay.

At its core, The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria is a survival/base-building game. Mine resources (iron, silver, black diamonds), craft weapons, armor, tools, rebuild ancient dwarven halls.

It’s played from a third-person perspective and supports co-op (up to 8 players), which is where it shines. Solo play feels lonelier and less engaging, while group expeditions bring out the best of the exploration and combat. The crafting loop is standard but satisfying. Forge legendary dwarven gear, upgrade outposts, and uncover deeper lore. However, resource grind and backtracking can become tedious over time, especially when progression slows to a crawl in the mid-game.

Visually, The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria is a triumph. The dark, vast underground chambers and glowing forges evoke the grandeur and decay of Khazad-dûm beautifully. The game uses a stylized yet atmospheric art style that fits Tolkien’s universe well. The audio design includes somber dwarven chants, echoing footsteps, and battle cries that lend immersion. John Rhys-Davies returns as Gimli for some voiceover narration, which is a nice nostalgic touch for fans of the films.

Combat is simple but serviceable. You have light and heavy attacks, parries, and some ranged options. It’s enough to keep the goblins at bay but lacks the depth of more action-focused titles. Enemy variety is limited early on, but increases as you delve deeper into Moria.

The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria is a solid survival crafting game with an irresistible premise for Tolkien fans. It’s best experienced in co-op, where exploration and rebuilding feel more rewarding. While it’s not as polished or deep as genre leaders, its unique setting and lore integration give it charm and potential.

DISASTER | BAD | MEDIOCRE | OKAY | GOOD | GREAT |AMAZING| MASTERPIECE

Reviewed on: Win11 Home 64-bit, Intel i5-11600K, GeForce RTX 3060 Ti 8GB TUF, 32GB DDR4-3600 RAM, 2 x Kingston NV1 1TB M.2 NVMe SSD, Internet Broadband 1000/1000 Mbit

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Good fan service for LOTR fans especially for those who read Silmarillion. Songs, lore, some locations - very nice, love it!
As a game... Need A LOT of QoL updates. Some mechanics feels like never was tested.
Farming is uncomortable. You can easily remove fresh planted crop because it's the same button as plant. And as easily you can misclick and plant something else, because you need to scroll(!) seeds for every(!!) single farm plot(!!!). So annoying.
Crafting anything - you need to press craft each time. Then you need to craf some clothes on loom for armor it can be several dozens of "press button - wait 0.8 sec - repeat".
Net code is awful, anyone except host will wait on the border of two tiles on invisible wall.
Armor is almost cosmetic, only give you extra hp and after that you live on ration heals.
And as a cherry on top - cosmetic payed dlcs have more priority then updating this problems. I bought the game twice, on EGS and on Steam and i don't feel like i want to give devs any more money with this quality of their product.

Return to Moria has been an enjoyable journey back to the land of Middle Earth. Since the Shadow of Mordor games released several years ago, there has been no other games outside of Gollum....and we don't talk about that one.

During my time in Khazad-dûm, I mostly played solo and explored the entire map in just under 50 hours. This included all achievements, and like any dwarf, big hoards of gold and resources.

As a survival exploration crafting game goes, Return to Moria had a solid framework. Progression felt worthwhile, exploration in the first half of the game felt unique with beautiful locations like the Elven Quarters. Additionally, as you progress you unlock more construction items which can be used to make impressive dwarven architecture and bases. The game also had good set pieces with some unique enemy variety. However, as the game is randomly generated, exploration did start to become repetitive in the 2nd half of the game, with identical orc camps, troll caves etc.

Whilst combat had decent variety, with different weapon classes, ranged weapons and a rune crafting system to provide buffs, it felt a bit rough. I found some of my attacks just wouldn't connect. Nonetheless, it never got old taking down a big horde of pathetic orcs and seeing them run away afterwards.

I think the game does a great job at portraying the dwarves of Middle Earth. Having John Rhys-Davies reprise his role as Gimli was a huge bonus. Throughout the game I loved the dwarven singing and all the lore notes relating back to the fall of Moria and Durin's line were a nice touch. I also felt like the premise of reclaiming Moria in the 4th age was a great idea for this style of game.

Overall, a really solid entry into the Middle Earth franchise.

7.5/10

I look forward to seeing where the story DLC takes us next :)

Baruk Khazâd! Khazâd ai-mênu!

Fantastic experience as a co-op game. Lots of care and attention went into this game. There are times where the story can be a bit confusing and maybe you need to google your next step. The minimap is horrible lol. but other than that it's a great experience that I highly recommend.

For people familiar with the lore of LOTR, its a great experience... for a bit.

The game lacks depth, in every system included. They promised a lot at the start and never delivered on anything...just keep pumping out buyable cosmetic DLC's isntead.

There are much better games out there, its a shame no developer can make something good with such a lore heavy IP.

Combat feels like its designed for you to face 1 enemy at a time, but you will face hordes constantly . . .
Every single piece of equipment you make will be immediately outdated as you enter any new area . . .
There's enormous amounts of backtracking . . .
FPS can ONLY be capped at 30 or 60 . . .
There's a weird mouse flickering problem that makes your cursor just jitter on your screen . . .

Only the tutorial felt like playing a game, now I feel like I'm grinding for a free to play MMO.
Even at -40%, I don't feel like this was worth at all.

May the force be with you

they released a dlc on an unfinished game essentially making all of us waste our money in the first place.

valheim but more diggy diggy hole

Over 15 hours of game play and my world and dwarf was completely gone. It was as if I had just re-downloaded the game and started entirely from scratch. Aside from this game breaking bug and issue that appears to be hitting multiple players, the game itself is very clunky to say the least. Building anything in this game is a headache and ultimately frustrating. I can look past some of the little things like: being a dwarf with no dark vision, even ignoring my inability to build anything other than a platform and rope unless I have a hearth established nearby. I really want to love this game but the game breaking issue and the really poor building mechanics gets a down vote. Game still feels early access and the already onslaught of paid DLC leaves a poor taste in the mouth.