The Lord of the Rings’ current state in video games isn’t great. Fans still remember how 2023’s Gollum game became the internet’s punching bag, as it was something no one asked for. We’ve seen minor improvements with the license’s use, as Tales of the Shire looks like a decent Animal Crossing-style game.
Even with all that, fans yearn for the days when games like The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King blew away all our expectations. It was far from a revolutionary game, but it was hard to complain about a good beat-em-up that faithfully told the movie’s story.
Return of the King started with a bang, using Gandalf’s amazing entrance from the end of The Two Towers to kick off this superlative movie tie-in. For someone who’s over a hundred years old, Gandalf the White kicks all kinds of Orc butt, using sword skills and spells to destroy everything in his path. It’s a solid way to teach fans about the game’s controls.
After that thrilling intro, Lord of the Rings: Return of the King gives players three story paths to follow. They can keep following Gandalf, as he aids in the war to give Frodo more time. Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli also have their path, as they try to convince an undead army to join their cause. Finally, there’s poor Samwise Gamgee, who has to help Frodo go through Mount Doom and battle countless spiders while there.
These three paths offer some decent variety, as you can go from orc-filled battlefields to haunted dungeons. Gameplay-wise, you’re still mostly killing things with additional objectives. Some valid arguments can be made that the gameplay can get repetitive pretty quickly, but with numerous combos to unlock and fun combat, most fans didn’t mind.
It also helped that The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King had a pretty simple control system. Players had two buttons for quick and heavy attacks, another for some crowd-controlling kicks, one more to impale fallen foes, and an easy combination for bow and arrows. Because of this simplicity, anyone could come in for some couch co-op gameplay.
Couch co-op was another great reason to keep playing Return of the King, though that was better for the post-game. While you could do couch co-op for some of the levels, others start as single-player only, at least in the beginning. After beating the game, couch co-op is announced for all levels and any character can crossover, ignoring their story paths.
What made the Return of the King post-game co-op better was the number of new characters added after beating the game. After being limited to Gandalf, Sam, Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli, players would have access to Merry, Pippin, Frodo, and Faramir for all these levels. That means more characters to level up and unlock combos for. Granted, they were just reskins of the other characters but visual differences can be enough to add replayability.
Because of all the content, it’s easy to see why Lord of the Rings: Return of the King is considered one of the best games in this franchise. It’s a shame that these games haven’t received re-releases, as they would be great for couch co-op sessions. There are ways to play these games, we just can’t tell you how.
Shadow of Mordor might be at the top of this mountain when it comes to this franchise’s video games, but The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King comes in at a princely second.