I was almost forced to take a hiatus from posting today! I was up all night playing this game, when around 5 AM, my PC popped and shut off suddenly. It felt hot, so I just left it to cool down and went to bed. This afternoon, it wasn’t booting back up, so I opened it up and blew all the dust out of it (it was due for a cleaning anyway). Nothing looked broken, so I flipped off the power switch and flipped it back on… and it started right up! Woo! Adventures in custom-built PCs…

Anywhoo… today’s game is The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria. This game is like a blend between Satisfactory (minus the automation) and Deep Rock Galactic, with a Lord of the Rings theme. It’s a crafting game, but takes place deep in the mines of Moria. You can play solo, or play online co-op with up to 8 players on PC or 4 players on console. The mines are procedurally generated, so no single gameplay will play out the same.

You get to custom-build your own dwarf to play as, including their appearance, name, and origins. Of course, I like to play as women in my games (my mother was a strong, independent type, so I’m drawn to strong women in my life and games), so I made my dwarf a woman. I named her Nordri. I seriously debated giving her a beard (that’s an option!) but it made her almost indistinguishable from the men… so clean-shaven for now! You can edit your character any time from the main menu, so you’re not stuck with a single look for the entirety of your gameplay.

Gimli declares that it’s time to stop waiting for Durin’s potential return and that the one true home of the dwarves, Moria, needs to be rebuilt. He calls on dwarves from all regions of Middle Earth to converge on the Misty Mountains and help excavate it. But for some reason, they can’t get through the Doors of Durin.

While attempting to use explosives to blow their way in, you end up falling through a fissure that opens up and land deep in the mines. Unable to be heard by anyone, you decide to make your way to the Doors of Durin from the inside.

Along the way, you find Aric, a Raven of Erebor. He’s also trapped in the mine, but some “ill curse” prevents him from leaving. So he scouts ahead for other routes out of the mine while you forge ahead on your own.

This is where you get your introduction to crafting and building. Crafting helps you build tools and weapons, while building will create structures that you can use to improve a home, or in this case, climb a wall.

You make your way to the Doors of Durin, only to find them sealed with a shadowy curse from the inside. No wonder no one could get in! It looks like you need to venture further into the mine and find a different exit.

If you explore in the halls near the door, you’ll find signs of the Fellowship!

Venturing further into the mines, you find that it’s orc-infested. They’re pretty cowardly on their own, choosing to run instead of engage you, but be careful of packs of them roaming in the middle of the night. They can be aggressive when they’re prepared and in larger numbers.

You run into Aric again and he suggests you rebuild an old camp nearby, so you have somewhere to shelter and prepare food. You fix up an old stone hearth, a furnace, and a forge, and you now have the basics for crafting! You can find mushrooms, berries, and some other plants growing around the ruins, and you can kill roaming rats and wolves for meat. All these resources respawn pretty regularly, so you’re never in short supply.

You need to eat at least 2 meals a day to keep from getting hungry. If your hunger bar runs out, you’ll take the occasional small bit of damage to your health. You also need to sleep at least once a day to prevent exhaustion. Your stamina bar will get smaller and smaller the more tired you are, until you can barely trudge from one place to another. Sleeping will fast-forward the clock 6 hours.

There is a day and night cycle, and the luminescent stone ceiling in the mines will mimic the time of day, so it’s extra dark and cold at night and decently bright during the day. Make sure you keep a torch on you at all times, to keep your courage up in the darkest corners. There are small buffs you get depending on various situations, and you’ll see them in the bottom left corner of your screen. Also, certain meals will give you an additional buff if you eat them at certain times of the day.

Occasionally, a pack of orcs will attack in the middle of the night, targeting your current camp. Be prepared to fight them off before they break everything. I learned the hard way to build a wall to keep out the orcs. The first time I came under siege in the night, they just walked in and wrecked my stuff.

Fortunately, you can make a hammer that will restore damage to structures; both your own constructions and to the ruins of Moria. If you spent enough time, you could technically fix up all of the ruins, single-handedly restoring Moria!

If you find damaged statues, be sure to rebuild them. You’ll get recipes from some of them which will expand your crafting capabilities. I’ve mostly received improved armor and weapons from them so far.

Of course, what would a game about dwarves in a mine be without some mining? You need to mine ore in order to smelt various types of metals for armor and weapons, as well as some fancy furniture and structures later on. While mining, you get the option to sing an inspirational tune, which will give you a buff. There are various songs that may be sung and your character may comment on the songs too! They put some serious effort into this detail instead of just designating one mining song that you always sing.

I once found a barrel of ale in the ruins of an old tavern, and it was still good! I drank and sang merrily for a bit, which gave me a little buff.

There are more than just endless dark ruins in the deep. You can find other places, such as an Elven Quarter to explore, and the Great Forge of Narvi, which you can repair to gain more forging abilities.

Keep pressing deeper into the mines to find more advanced crafting and building options, and be sure to move your camp forward as you go. I learned the hard way that sticking with my original camp meant hoofing it a long ways back to drop off supplies or forge new supplies. Eventually, I learned that I need to make a new hearth and rebuild my camp, then move my supplies forward so I’m not spending 90% of my game time running back and forth.

This would probably be easier with multiple players, as you can move all your resources quickly. I had built up my original camp so much, I had to make at least 3 trips to collect everything. I was also stockpiling resources instead of using them, so that made it more difficult to move.

This was a very fun game! It just released in August, so it’s relatively new and still being tweaked by the developers. I haven’t had any issues with it yet, besides my beefy desktop computer overheating for the first time ever. But that was after 7 hours of continuous gameplay, and I maxed out all graphics settings, so I may have been pushing it a bit on this one.

Otherwise, it was very enjoyable, not only exploring Moria, but getting to fix it up and restore it as I go. Definitely scratched that itch for a good crafting game that Satisfactory gave me. And like I said, mining resources, tunneling through caved-in halls, and fighting occasional roaming enemies felt like a medieval fantasy version of Deep Rock Galactic, another game I thoroughly enjoy. I give The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria top marks!