The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria (2023)

Catching up on some Grouvee posts I've missed the past few weeks, love that there's so much to read! Haven't had the time or brain space to play much new stuff in terms of story driven games but I have been dipping in and out of The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria with an old childhood buddy who loves Tolkien's work.

The setup is pretty neat, I like the simple but also kinda versatile building and crafting. Definitely a game that's enhanced with a friend but also very zen to just chill out to and craft solo. It's been nice spending time with my friend who I don't see much now due to him moving away, he's been showing me around the mines and telling me about all the lore!

My only complaint so far is the procedural generation of the mines. I've come across too many structures that just don't make sense at all, like stairs leading immediately to a brick wall, or stone staircases perched on top of wall columns... stuff that I thought would have been programmed to never occur? It's a good premise for lots of variation and exploration but eventually you start to find buildings and avenues that almost look as horrible as the uruk hai birth scene in the films when they rip out of their mud sacks.

It's not ruining the experience though, still having a good time!

Playtime: 2 hours (explored until second shadow door)

Intro

This is a bog-standard survival crafting game in which you walk around, gather stuff, have a full inventory, walk back all the way to your base, make some stuff, sleep and repeat. Each time you delve a little deeper into the dwarven city. There's also something that's technically combat.

The Good

• Very Easy difficulty mode.
• Character with inventory can be taken to other servers/seeds.

The Bad

• Tiny inventory.
• Items break really fast, even though you're a freaking dwarf making them.
• Story elements are almost non-existent.
• I already noticed exact duplicates of rooms.
• Character creator lacks options like short hair, flowing beard, medium brown hair colour, etc.

The Ugly

• Combat consists of only four elements: attack, special attack, shoot bow & block.
• Insipid AI that always acts the same.
• Very little variation in the environment.
• No free exploration - you can only mine through pre-determined walls.
• There's nothing else to the game, no traits/skills, no item stats/traits, no magic - nothing.

Conclusion

If this didn't have the LoTR license this game would already have been forgotten. It almost feels like an asset flip. They bought "standard survival crafting game", only added LoTR visuals and hired John Rhys-Davies to narrate the intro to make you think it's worth €25. It's not.