Return to everyone’s favourite fantasy realm in Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria. In the very first Tolkien inspired survival crafting game, embark on a thrilling adventure to reclaim your homeland and restore it to its former glory.
As a member of your fellowship, we’ve got everything you need to know before you leave for your journey, including details on gameplay, multiplayer, official PC system specification, and our top five PCs that are perfect for playing LOTR: Return to Moria.
Reclaim Your Dwarven Homeland
Summoned to the Misty Mountains, take control over a company of Dwarves and lead an expedition to reclaim the lost kingdom of Moria. You’ll need to bring plenty of courage with you in order to delve deep into the mines below, and face the Shadow hidden in the mountain.
Rebuilding Moria will require you to restore infamous Dwarven landmarks, including crafting new architectures and refiring old mines to take advantage of all the abundant resources and treasures. You can choose to build your structures completely from scratch or utilise the existing buildings around you. What Moria becomes rests in your hands.
Mine Precious Resources
The procedurally generated environment around you is consistently changing, ensuring its always packed full of resources, artefacts, mystery, and of course a danger or two. You’ll have a unique gaming experience each time you play and explore an area.
Crafting and looting legendary Dwarven armour and tools will unlock new technology and fantastical machines, allowing you to unearth further treasures. This includes magical artefacts ranging from swords that glow when Orcs are close by, maps of Mithril veins, to powerful amulets to grant you extra strength or wisdom.
Survive in the Dark
To survive this quest, you’ll need to gather and conserve precious resources such as ores, craft weaponry, hunt for food, but more importantly remain as quiet as possible. Any noise created in the darkness will awaken a far more deadly threat that lurks below your feet…
You can take advantage of dynamic light systems to clear a path in the darkness to ensure your safety. Plus, you’ll be able to shine light on any deadly hordes of Orcs waiting for you ahead.
Become Your True Dwarven Self
In addition to all of this, in Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria you can create your dream Dwarven self in the character creator. You can freely customise your Dwarf, adding your own unique touch to their identity, which you can later expand on in game.
Does Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria Feature Multiplayer?
You can choose to be a solo adventurer or experience true Dwarven fellowship by teaming up with eight friends in the dedicated online co-op multiplayer mode. You can work together to restore Moria back to its former glory, plunder its hidden treasures, and defend yourselves against the hidden threats lurking in the darkness.
As of August 27th Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria now includes crossplay. This means you’ll be able to team up with your other Dwarves regardless of their platform of choice.
Is Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria a PC Exclusive?
You can play Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria on a wide range of platforms. This includes PC, PlayStation 5, and XBOX Series X/S. The game is also officially available to purchase on Steam as of August 27th 2024.
Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria Review
Grab your pickaxes, light your torches and don your chainmail, we’re travelling under the mountain to claim Moria for the Dwarves once again.
Guest Reviewer: Liam Bould
OcUK Computer Technician and Support Assistant Liam Bould reviewed Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria on his Ryzen-based gaming PC.
| Component | Specification |
|---|---|
| CPU | AMD Ryzen 3950X |
| GPU | NVIDIA RTX 3070 (Inno3D) |
| RAM | 16GB Corsair Vengeance DDR4 3200MHz RAM |
Best game it could be, I fell in love
You’ll enter the halls that the Fellowship of the Ring traversed on their quest to destroy the One Ring. Though the Balrog was slain and most orcs as well, some still dwell deep in the crevices of Moria. You’ll need to hold them off if you want to get the treasure of the mountain out.
Gameplay
Like most survival craft games, progression is the name of the game. When first entering the mountain, you’ll need to gather materials to get some basic tools. Starting with a foraged, slung together pickaxe, you’ll make your way to using an astounding array of tools, weapons, and armour.
The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria really has the best survival aspect of the genre, in my opinion. Needing sleep, food, and even sunlight to keep your Dwarf going, there’s a lot to do. On top of renewing your hunger bar, food can also give you buffs and works better when eaten at the right time.
Fight with anything you can get your hands on – orcs and other foes that have found their way into the decaying halls of Moria can descend at any moment!
As you travel further into the mountain, you’ll find new materials and recipes to make new armour, tools, food, and more. This will help keep yourself safe from whatever lurks in the darkest corners of these caves.
A key part of survival crafting games is the building and The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria has it in spades! With beautiful Dwarven-designed architecture to Elven furniture, making your home base a comfortable spot to rest until your next delve into the mines is easy.
My absolute favourite feature, however, comes when mining for stone, coal, and ores. Your Dwarf will begin singing some Dwarven work songs, which can be joined by anyone on your crew! Almost like the feeling of the companionship from the Hobbit (it also changes depending on your chosen voice and there are a lot of them).
Lore
Set after the events of the Lord of the Rings, you’ll be working alongside Gimli (voiced by John-Rhys Davies himself) to get Dwarves back under the Misty Mountains and into the depths of Moria.
Choose your Dwarven homeland from many of the mountains of Middle-Earth, each with interesting backstories on why you have come on this journey.
Whilst down in Moria, you will find so many documents relating to the game, the Lord of the Rings, or just Tolkein’s universe, as a whole. From following in the footsteps of the Fellowship to finding ancient Elven sections hidden deep below ground, there are treasures aplenty!
Official PC System Specification
| Minimum | Recommended | |
|---|---|---|
| OS | Windows 10 – 11 | Windows 10 – 11 |
| Processor | Intel Core i5 or equivalent | Intel Core i7 or equivalent |
| Memory | 8GB RAM | 16GB RAM |
| Graphics | NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 or equivalent | NVIDIA GeForce GTX 2060 or equivalent |
| DirectX | Version 12 | Version 12 |
| Network | Internet Connection required | Internet Connection required |
| Storage | 20GB available space | 20GB available space |
| Additional | SSD recommended | SSD recommended |
Top Five PCs to Play Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria
At Overclockers UK, you can find a huge range of PCs and laptops that come packed with all the necessary tools you need to survive, reclaim, and rebuild Moria. From pre-built, configurable systems, and even laptops, our range has been designed to suit every type of budget and gamer.
In fact, we’ve included a few of our favourites below that we think our perfect for playing Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria. However, if none of these meet the demands of your expedition, you can click the button below to shop all our PC systems.
Refract Gaming Jade Pre-Built PC:
Armed with the Refract Gaming Jade, you’ll have everything you need in your arsenal to reclaim your long lost Dwarven homeland. This pre built system has been crafted utilising only high-quality cherry-picked hardware, including an AMD Ryzen 7 7700 CPU. Harness the Zen 4 architecture to unlock fast processing speeds and enhanced efficiency. You can customise your character, mine the mountain, or venture further into the darkness, all whilst chatting away to the rest of your fellowship. What’s more, thanks to the NVIDIA RTX 4060 Ti GPU with support for AI DLSS and Ray Tracing, become immersed in the stunning Misty Mountains and dangerous Mines of Moria.
As part of the Refract Gaming range, the Jade also comes equipped with a three-year warranty which also covers parts and labour. However, any damage or lost limbs caused by Orcs or a deadly Balrog aren’t covered.
Refract Gaming Jade
- Pre built gaming PC
- AMD Ryzen 7 7700 CPU
- NVIDIA RTX 4060 Ti GPU
- 32GB DDR5 RAM
- Includes a three-year warranty which covers parts and labour
ASUS ROG Strix G16 Gaming Laptop:
Take Middle Earth with you wherever you explore with the ASUS ROG Strix G16 Gaming Laptop. The Intel Core i7 13650HX has been fine-tuned to deliver ultra-fast performance in both single- and multi-threaded tasks for seamless on-the-go gaming or work. Plus, the 16GB of DDR5 RAM and 1TB SSD ensure your gameplay remains uninterrupted by slow loading times or input lag. You can traverse the mountains or dive deep into the mines with ease. What’s more, the NVIDIA RTX 4060 will render Moria in incredible photo-realistic quality, for next-level immersion.
You might have to worry about creating noise in the dungeons, but definitely not overheating as you explore the mines. The cooling system features high-powered fans, intelligent self-cleaning, and six heat pipes to effectively dissipate heat from vital components.
ASUS ROG Strix G16
- 16.0” WUXGA display
- 165Hz refresh rates
- Intel i7 13650HX CPU and NVIDIA RTX 4060
- 16GB DDR5 RAM
- Windows 11 Home
OcUK Gaming Sabre Configurable PC:
Defend Moria against the darkness lurking in the shadows with the OcUK Gaming Sabre. Harness the Intel i7 13700FF CPU to unlock ultra-fast processing speeds and seamless multitasking which is perfect for both work and play. Plus, take advantage of the NVIDIA RTX 4070 Super, crafted utilising Ada Lovelace architecture, and enjoy hyper-realistic visuals and smooth frame rates. Lastly, with a 1TB M.2 SSD and optional secondary drive, you’ll never need to worry about precious storage space for all your other LOTR inspired games.
In addition to this, the OcUK Gaming Sabre is a configurable system, meaning you can configure the base hardware specification to suit your individual preferences. This includes customising the case, upgrading the processor, memory, or graphics card, along with flexible storage options.
OcUK Gaming Sabre
- Configurable gaming PC
- Intel i7 13700F CPU
- NVIDIA RTX 4070 Super
- 32GB DDR5 RAM
- Flexible storage options
MSI Pulse 17 Gaming Laptop:
Equipped with the MSI Pulse 17 Gaming Laptop in your travel pack, you’ll have everything you need to reclaim your Dwarven homeland. Thanks to the Intel Core Ultra 9 185H CPU, you can freely mine, hunt for resources, and defend Moria against forces of darkness with ease. Harness the NVIDIA RTX 4060 with next-gen RT and Tensor cores, to unlock stunning immersive visuals and AI-powered frame rates. This is enhanced even further courtesy of the 17.3’’ QHD display and up to 240Hz refresh rates. Enjoy stunning high-definition graphics, vivid colours, and fast response times.
MSI Stealth 17
- 17.0” QHD+ display
- 240Hz refresh rates
- Intel Core Ultra 9 185H CPU
- NVIDIA RTX 4060
- 16GB DDR5 RAM
OcUK Gaming Radiance Ember Configurable PC:
The OcUK Gaming Firefly Enthusiast is the perfect for any LOTR enthusiast looking to play Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria. Both the Intel Core i5-12600 CPU and 32GB of DDR4 RAM deliver you ultra-fast processing speeds with near-zero latency, for an optimised gaming experience. What’s more, the NVIDIA RTX 4070 Ti will render Middle Earth and all your other favourite fantasy worlds in hyper-realistic visuals for next-level immersion.
As a configurable gaming PC, you can choose to customise the case, upgrade the memory and graphics card, along with opting for additional storage drives should your expanding gaming library need them.
OcUK Gaming Radiance Ember
- Configurable gaming PC
- Intel Core i5-12600 CPU
- NVIDIA RTX 4070 Ti GPU
- 32GB DDR4 RAM
- Flexible storage options
Looking for More Great Games to Play?
Do You Have What It Takes to Reclaim Moria?
Have you already played or will be playing LOTR: Return to Moria? Be sure to let us know your thoughts on the first Lord of the Rings survival game in the comments below.
*Prices correct at time of writing and PC specs are subject to change.
- 11 min read
Ruth Rowley
Author
Ruth has been with Overclockers UK for over a year and has gone on to write about everything ranging from in-depth hardware guides to monthly game releases.
Outside of writing blog posts, she can be found wrapped in a blanket with her black cat, engrossed in a book or playing life-simulation games such as The Sims, Stardew Valley, and Animal Crossing.
Read More >>