The Lord of the Rings worldbuilding is as dense as they come, with Middle Earth having its own intricate histories, complicated languages to master, and involved geopolitics.
Between that core trilogy, The Hobbit and the imposing tome that is The Silmarillion, creator J.R.R. Tolkien really thought it all through. Yet even he left some wiggle room for expansion.
As such, video games have been trying for decades to plug existing gaps in the mythos, and to put their own authorial stamp on this rich saga. Indeed, we’ve had developers fleshing out everything from the backstory of Gollum to the afterlife of Celebrimbor and the various conflicts that occurred on the sidelines while Frodo & Sam were journeying to Mount Doom.
Although these spin-offs have, to varying degrees of success, enriched our knowledge of what happened before and during The War of the Ring, we know comparatively little of its aftermath. You see, the Tolkien estate is notoriously protective of this particular epoch in the universe (known as The Fourth Age), as they don’t want to run the risk of undermining the source material’s original ending.
It’s therefore quite a big deal for Free Range Games to have been entrusted with their own little slice of this time period. With their upcoming release The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria, the team will be exploring what happened to the titular kingdom following Sauron’s defeat and how the dwarves went about reclaiming their homeland under the Misty Mountains.
Either alone or as part of a wider expedition party (in 8-player co-op), you will be able to roam a procedurally generated world, excavate its treasures and face off against a mysterious new threat.
Functioning as a survival game at heart, Return to Moria also has all of the usual fixings that you’d expect from that genre. You’ll need to mine resources in order to craft better gear and build up defences. There are survival meters that you’ll want to bear in mind as you stray further from safety. And, of course, there are terrible monsters lurking in the shadows.
To learn more about what’s in store, we sat down for a special presentation at Gamescom 2023, where we were treated to a live session demo and also had a chance to chat with both Game Director, Jon-Paul Dumont, and Christopher Scholz, CEO of Free Range Games.
Among other things, we spoke about how the title evolved into an “accidental” horror experience over the course of its development, the unique co-op mechanics that have been incorporated, and whether or not a certain Balrog will be making an appearance. Here’s everything we learned.
Bloody Disgusting: A lot of the iconography here, from the creature design of the orcs right through to the architecture of the mines themselves, will look familiar to those who have seen Peter Jackson’s movie trilogy. However, am I right in thinking that your game is based purely on the original Lord of the Rings novels and not any of the other preexisting adaptations?
Jon-Paul: That’s correct. The licensing rights with The Lord of the Rings are very complicated. Those movies certainly have their own distinct style, but that’s owned by New Line Cinema. And we only have access to the books here.
However, because all the various interpretations of Middle Earth that we’ve seen over the years are derived from the exact same source material, there is inevitably going to be some overlap.
I mean, for example, we watched that Amazon show [The Rings of Power], a good deal of which also happened to take place in Khazad-dûm, just like our game. And we quickly realised that it looked almost identical to our concept art. But the thing is, no one stole from anybody else here. It’s just a case of we’ve all been drawing upon the same influences, and so naturally arrived at some of the same places.
Likewise, we also have areas that you might recognise from the [Peter Jackson movie trilogy] — such as the Tomb of Balin — but again, that’s just because we’ve been studying Tolkien’s books. So, you’ll get to go to all of the same areas that The Fellowship visited and, in fact, will even be able to find collectable [mementos] that remind you of their adventures. Once you’ve unlocked the sandbox mode, you’ll be able to retrace their steps chronologically, all the way from the West Gate to the Bridge of Khazad-dûm.
So, to answer your initial question, we are strictly adapting the original books here. However, that doesn’t mean that there won’t be fun little details for movie and TV fans to discover, as there is inevitably some crossover with those other adaptations.
Bloody Disgusting: And when it came to fleshing out your version of Moria, how much of the work was already done for you in those books? Were you given a prescriptive outline of what you could and couldn’t do by the Tolkien estate, or was there a lot of blank space that you had to fill?
Jon-Paul: For sure, there was a lot of blank space. Where possible, we’ve tried to stick to Tolkien’s descriptions of Moria itself, but that only got us so far and eventually we had to commit to making some of our own decisions.
One of the biggest challenges was actually figuring out what happened next in the Fourth Age because there’s quite a bit of uncharted territory in that era of the canon. We had to think about things like: “What would the new threat be? Where did all of the orcs go after Mordor fell? How would the dwarves go about retaking Moria?”
And then, once we made those creative decisions, we had to ensure that they felt authentically Lord of the Rings. As if our contributions to the lore could have feasibly been written by Professor Tolkien himself.
Some of that was obviously about returning to his books, but we also went a little deeper with our research. A great deal of what Professor Tolkien wrote was inspired by poems that he had translated from Old English and Norse mythology. You know, the names of all the dwarves come from Elder Edda, for instance.
And so, we went back to [the very same well] and tried to use those stories as inspiration ourselves. The thinking was: “If they were good enough for Tolkien then maybe they will inspire us too.”
We’ve taken [cues] from Beowulf, other Nordic translations, and even weirder places. I mean, there’s one moment in the game — I don’t want to spoil it — where I got really stuck for ideas and I was listening to Led Zeppelin at the time. So many of their tracks were based on Middle Earth and their experiences with Tolkien, and they had this one lyric in a particular song that was exactly what I needed. Robert Plant cleared up my writer’s block!
Bloody Disgusting: Moving onto gameplay now: you’ve got all of the usual survival meters here — monitoring needs such as hunger and sleep levels — but we noticed that players will also have to manage the mines’ lighting. Is that just so that you’ve got clear visibility and can see what’s going on, or is there a horror angle to that?
Jon-Paul: Yeah, there’s a little more to it than just being able to see. If you stay in the darkness for too long in our game, then you put yourself at risk of falling into despair. Your morale will start dropping and before long you will even begin taking damage.
The best way to counteract this and to restore your morale is, of course, by drinking a pint of ale [Return to Moria’s substitute for potions].
Christopher Scholz: As in real life!
Jon-Paul: In terms of the light mechanics, we also have a day-night cycle that you need to keep on top of. Because, just like in the books, the orcs will become way more active after dark.
Bloody Disgusting: But how do you have a day-night cycle when you’re underground? Are there not places where it’s impossible to get natural light?
Jon-Paul: Well, we do have places like The Upper Hauls, which Gandalf describes in the books as having these great windows. That piece of lore gave us an opportunity to have areas where the day-night cycle is a lot more evident, and you can even use it to your advantage by luring trolls into the sunbeams that are pouring through the windows, turning them to stone!
Bloody Disgusting: That’s such a cool detail!
Jon-Paul: But there are also places deeper down where, as you pointed out, the sun can’t be glimpsed at all. The cycle is still in effect while you’re in those areas, but you kind of have to use your own internal clock. We did take a few [artistic liberties] too, by introducing bioluminescence, complicated light-shaft mechanisms and mushrooms that glow in the dark. Just to help you see your environs. We don’t want you to be stumbling around completely blind in pitch-black conditions.
Bloody Disgusting: I guess it’s about striking a balance between making it feel dark and intense, but also not going overboard. Do you want the game to be scary when you’re in the dark?
Jon-Paul: Exactly. We never intended for the game to be overtly scary, but we found that it ended up that way almost by accident.
Sure, when you’re playing in multiplayer the tone is a bit more light-hearted. I mean, you’re jumping around on tables, joking together and taking on enemy hordes in these big epic battles.
When you’re playing alone, however, there really is no one to keep you company in the mines. You could turn a dark corner and suddenly be faced with a bloodthirsty orc that catches you totally off guard. We didn’t build code specifically for those jump scares, but they do happen organically from time to time.
In fact, we’ve learned on the dev team that you should always check that you’ve closed the door to your base. Because if you don’t, the goblins will sneak in while you’re busy tinkering with your armour or whatever and give you a nasty jolt. It might not be Dead Space, but it’s enough to make you yelp out.
We also have a noise system that can be quite panic-inducing. So, the louder you are in combat or mining, the more you inadvertently draw attention to yourself.
In order for that heat to die down, you must return to your base. Should you push your luck or stay out too long, however, then you will end up triggering “the drums in the deep.” At this point the enemy will lock onto your location and start hunting you down, which can be a pretty stressful moment as well.
So, we didn’t intentionally script any horror scenarios or design the experience with that feeling in mind, but it kind of just happened anyway.
Bloody Disgusting: The idea of an accidental horror title is really interesting! You mentioned just then that the game has quite a different tone depending on whether you’re alone or with friends. Could you maybe expand upon that?
Jon-Paul: We always wanted Return to Moria to work for both solo and co-op players. We didn’t set out to design it in a way that meant those two experiences would be so vastly different from each other. Again, it was just sort of another happy accident!
You definitely feel safer when you are part of a larger party. I suppose it can be a little scary if you separate from the group in multiplayer, as there’s no leashing to speak of here, and you can easily get picked off. It’s kind of like Left 4 Dead.
But the real intensity comes in solo play. The spawn system doesn’t check if you’re playing with others and I once had this really frightening experience where I was digging a hole and ended up breaching through to the other side, only to be confronted with 15 orcs all [huddled] around a fire. We’ve got a dynamic kind of horror in that sense.
Bloody Disgusting: On a related note, what kind of cooperative actions are there in this game? How can people work together to alleviate those stresses you’ve mentioned?
Jon-Paul: One good example is that we have two different kinds of cookbooks here. There are rations, which you can quickly bake in the oven and take with you on your adventures, but then we also allow you to prepare [communal] meals over in your base. So, if you have a group of friends, then you can set the table and all enjoy a nice feast together.
Elsewhere, when you are digging for ore, it’s possible that inspiration might strike for your character. If it does, then you will have the option to begin singing while you work, which in turn gives you a stamina buff.
Christopher Scholz: Yeah, that mechanic really shines in multiplayer too, because one of the options you have when creating your character is how you want them to sound. We have 8 different voices to choose from and so, if you have several people mining together, they will automatically harmonize. They might even have call-and-response bits in the lyrics, like you’d get in a sea shanty.
Some of the songs are entirely in the Dwarven language, which is pretty neat to hear as well. In fact, when we presented them to the guys at Middle-earth Enterprises — with actual Opera singers performing for us — they got goosebumps. One of them even started welling up with tears because they found it so beautiful.
On the other hand, you can also sing when you’re drinking with friends. That will obviously be a bit slurred, and the harmonies won’t be working quite so well. For those recordings, we ended up asking the Opera guys to sing a little worse than usual, and to go against their professional instincts [laughs]!
But yeah, there are lots of fun things players can do in co-op.
Bloody Disgusting: Finally, we’ve seen giant rats, cave trolls and orcs in the gameplay today, but there is one notable absence from the bestiary as far as I can tell. It might be a bit of a cheeky question, but I’ve got to ask: Are we going to see a Balrog?
Jon-Paul: No, there’s not a Balrog. We actually had quite a bit of controversy about that internally.
From my point of view, the game being set in The Fourth Age meant that we had to tell a new story. There are plenty of Lord of the Rings games out there, and a good number of them already recount the events of Tolkien’s work, including that iconic encounter with The Balrog. This was our chance to do something different!
We felt that the Balrog was very much Gandalf’s obstacle to overcome, and that Tolkien wouldn’t have [rehashed] the idea. He certainly wouldn’t have done “Son of Balrog” or anything like that [Laughs].
But, yeah, it was a fierce debate within the team. We did go back and forth on whether we should just do the easy fan service thing. In the end, though, we decided to try and create something of our own that would be just as fearsome as a Balrog.
We know that a contingent of fans will be disappointed that there isn’t one here. It’s a double-edged sword when you’re trying to be authentic and I think, ultimately, as an independent team, we could afford to take that risk.
You know, we’re not on a big AAA budget and there’s a reason that we’re priced at $39.99 instead of $70. It allows us to make some bolder decisions like not having a Balrog. I think if we were a $100 million blockbuster there would definitely be an obligation to include it, because you’d have to appeal to as many people as possible to [recoup that investment]. We on the other hand have a little more freedom.
Developed by Free Range Games and Published by North Beach Games, The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria will launch on the 14th of October for Windows PC via the Epic Game Store and on PlayStation 5. It will then later be released on Xbox Series X|S in 2024.
The post ‘The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria’ Gamescom Report – How Upcoming Game Became an Accidental Horror Experience appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.