The potential for a survival game based on The Lord of the Rings franchise seems enticing. A huge fantasy world with near-limitless possibilities, exciting building prospects sustained by combat that could sway between cinematic and dynamic, and all those races entangled in everlasting conflict. Sadly, The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria is but a shadow of this, a slim take on the genre that doesn’t convey the expected enthusiasm, and only the most diehard fans are going to enjoy it in detriment of other entries in the survival genre.

Mining a Shallow Rock

Without unnecessarily diving into the lore that many fans know and love, the start of the adventure of the Dwarves is literally mined by a barrel blast. A cave-in will force you to find an exit through the mines, but this tutorial starts in the dark and is as uninviting as it sounds, even if things get a little more light a couple of hours later. A labyrinth of repetitive hallways and enemies that attack by the sheer power of numbers without any worries about tactics or even solid objects around them, this isn’t the greatest of first impressions.

Forced into the boots of a dwarf, which makes sense in the light of things but might not be the most appealing possibility for many The Lord of the Rings fans, you enter a tale of crafting and combat, with plenty of mining on the side. Advanced recipes are unlocked by repairing the broken statues you find along the way, you can set up camp anywhere you want by placing a hearth and a bedroll, and a host of other facilities follow if you have the necessary resources in your small starting backpack. This is a game of unlocking facilities as you find new areas and new resources, with all the dangers that come with it, from fauna to treacherous orcs and goblins.

The maps are procedurally generated, something that is often seen both as a blessing and a curse – while providing new layouts for every run, this comes at the expense of the genuine detail and care that a manual approach puts into a game. The mini-map design is hard to understand, a bland and vague interpretation that ignores individual rooms, providing equal doses of helpfulness and frustration during exploration.

Instead of easing in players with a friendly start, Return to Moria does the exact opposite with the excess of darkness, enforcing the use of torches and other light sources amidst a confusing layout, and with an inventory and chest system that refuses to stack items and instead places similar resources in different slots.

The other issue that stings is that every base you build has no immediate connection with the previous ones. Since you are constantly moving forward, everything you have built will be left behind, facilities and countless resources included, forcing you to repeat the process – and again spending precious time and resources – for more advanced camps. Only several hours in you get to unlock a fast travel system, but until then your only resort is to go for long walks through areas that look all the same and where getting lost is a recurrent issue.

This makes the gameplay tedious and repetitive, aggravated by the lackluster combat. With block and dodge roll, it could be dynamic enough to be fun, but between the random locking into an enemy that sneakily approached us and the complete lack of intelligence displayed by every foe, humanoid or not, makes it just another aspect that needed polishing. It’s common to see enemies clipping through our facilities and other objects, getting stuck, and hit feedback is of the random variety, with opponents sometimes reacting to our blows, but other times acting as hit sponges, often as their attack animation is already ongoing, although every so often not even that can be used as an excuse.

Occasionally, your base will be under siege, as several enemies decide that it would look better if every facility was razed to the ground. Your only option is to run back to it and fight the trespassers, something that becomes a chore given their numbers, and one of the things that is clearly better when playing with friends. Fighting these battles alone is severely unbalanced, especially if you have the bad luck of seeing your main weapon break in the middle of it. Far from fun, it’s a trying situation that makes the whole game feel more like busywork than an enjoyable journey.

A Glimpse of What Could Have Been

Return to Moria isn’t a bad game at its core; it comes with some odd design decisions and has a few bugs that get in the way – such as getting stuck on a wood tower and the character vanishing, with no chance to punch our way out – but there are glimpses of a good survival game here.

The crafting system is functional and adding all those walls and doors makes for some interesting creations – not extraordinary, but the basics are there and can provide entertainment for a group focusing on this. On the negative side, mining is a very restrictive affair, there’s nothing of the sort of free exploration or terraforming here, so don’t expect to let your imagination run wild when the game forbids you from going anywhere but the predefined path, with its nonstop impenetrable barriers.

When your dwarf is filled with joy and bursts into singing while mining, a little of The Lord of the Rings atmosphere springs to life. Exploring some areas without any care in the world is another moment when the game feels enticing and hints at the sandbox gameplay that could have been. But suddenly you are reminded that the whole place is a procedurally generated mess with barely any memorable locations, combat is dull and flawed, mining is extremely limited, and the repetitive walks to the base with the goal of storing your recent loot become tiresome. Return to Moria is one for diehard fans only, and even those have to consider just how passionate they are about dwarves and survival in dark places.

Score: 5.5/10

Pros:

• Some glimpses of The Lord of the Rings atmosphere and potential
• Crafting has some of the basics nailed down
• Multiplayer can be fun, but it’s not a saving grace

Cons:

• Mining isn’t freeform, being very restrictive
• Combat is dull due to lack of hit feedback and enemy AI
• Areas are repetitive and not that exciting to explore

The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria review code provided by the publisher. You can read MP1st’s review and scoring policy right here.