Every The Lord of the Rings game, ranked
All 4 The Lord of the Rings games we hold, spanning 2003 to 2023: 2 ranked by the GamingPickz Score and plotted below, the rest listed in release order so nothing in the series is missing. Together they carry 24,692 Steam reviews.
Where to start
- For the best-reviewed: The Lord of the Rings Online (GamingPickz Score 7.1), the highest-rated entry we can score.
- For canon order: begin with The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003) and follow the release-order timeline below.
- For the money: The Lord of the Rings: Gollum gives the most score per dollar right now.
The The Lord of the Rings games on the grid
Compare the whole catalogueThe same 2 games, plotted rather than listed. The two axes below are the ones the ranking is built from, so a game sitting high and right is a game the formula placed near the top. Change either axis to see the field a different way. Where we hold a publisher wordmark, the game is drawn as its mark rather than a dot.
2 games have both
Axes are fitted to these 2 games rather than the full 0 to 100 scale, because a filtered list shares a narrow band and would otherwise sit in one corner. End values are marked. A point on the left edge is the lowest of thesegames, not a low score.
Players. The share of Steam reviews marked positive, pulled toward the catalogue average in proportion to how few reviews stand behind it. A game with 200 reviews moves a long way toward the average; one with 200,000 barely moves at all. Without this a title sitting at 100 percent on nine reviews outranks Half-Life 2 at 98 percent on 278,000.
Popularity. A blend of two things that are not the same. Audience is how many people wrote a Steam review, which is a floor on how many played it. Reach is how many language editions of Wikipedia document the game, which is cultural footprint rather than sales. A game can score high on one and low on the other: a huge free-to-play title has audience without reach, and a landmark console exclusive has reach without a Steam audience at all. Where both exist they are averaged; where only one does, that one carries it.
- Multi-platform
- PC
Every point links to that game's entry. The value map and the reception map are fixed views of the same data.
How positions are decided
No paid placement, no favouritism, live third-party data
- Placed by the published method, not by us. Every coordinate is computed from the axis definitions and weights printed on this site. Nobody moves a point. See the axes.
- Nothing here is paid for. No sponsored placements, no promoted slots, no arrangement of any kind affects a position. If that ever changes it will be labelled and sit outside the ranking.
- No favouritism, including our own. The 16 games we have written full reviews of are scored by exactly the same formula as the other 1,510, from the same third-party inputs, and they land where it puts them. Our own opinion of a game does not enter its coordinates.
- A position is not an endorsement. It says how a game was received and what it costs, not that we recommend it. Where we do recommend something, it carries a written review with a name on it.
- Fetched from live third-party data. Player sentiment from Steam, critic aggregates as published on store pages, prices checked hourly, attention from Wikipedia. Each figure carries its source and the date it was read, and we do not adjust any of them.
Every game by critic score
The grid above is built from Steam data, so it can only place the The Lord of the Rings games that were on Steam. This one uses the Metacritic critic aggregate, which the older console-only entries have too, so the whole series lands on a single chart: critic score against release year.
On Steam (also has a GamingPickz Score) Console-only (Metacritic only)
2 best The Lord of the Rings games, ranked
Ordered by GamingPickz Score. Every figure links back to the source that produced it.
- 1
The Lord of the Rings Online
Best for: Trying the genre without spending anything
7.1GamingPickz Scoremedium confidenceThe Lord of the Rings Online at a glance Released 2012 Studio Standing Stone Games Player sentiment 81% positive of 23,171 Critics No aggregate Price Free Steam Deck playable Install size Not stated Accessibility 1 declared feature Raw 81% shrinks to 81.0 on 23,171 reviews, giving 7.1. No critics data, so that weight was redistributed across the rest rather than counted as zero.
What the data supports- Free to download, so trying it costs only time.
Worth checking first- Carries in-game purchases. Check what they cost before committing.
- Multiplayer only. There is no solo mode to fall back on.
- 2
The Lord of the Rings: Gollum
Best for: Sinking a long time into one world
4.3GamingPickz Scoremedium confidenceThe Lord of the Rings: Gollum at a glance Released 2023 Studio Daedalic Entertainment Player sentiment 40% positive of 1,521 Critics No aggregate Price $9.99 Steam Deck playable Install size 45 GB Accessibility 1 declared feature Raw 40% shrinks to 49.1 on 1,521 reviews, giving 4.3. No critics data, so that weight was redistributed across the rest rather than counted as zero.
Worth checking first- Flagged for mature content on its store page.
Only the 2 The Lord of the Rings games with Steam review data can be scored and ranked. The complete series, scored or not, is charted in order below.
Best and worst entry
The best-received The Lord of the Rings game we can score is The Lord of the Rings Online at 7.1. The lowest is The Lord of the Rings: Gollum at 4.3, a 2.8-point spread across the series. The GamingPickz Score is a composite of player sentiment, critics and popularity, computed the same way for every game.
Cheapest way in, and best value
- Cheapest right now: The Lord of the Rings Online at Free. Prices are read live from Steam and move.
- Best value: The Lord of the Rings: Gollum, the most GamingPickz Score per dollar in the series at its current price.
On a Steam Deck
Valve's own Deck compatibility rating for the The Lord of the Rings entries on Steam:
- Playable: The Lord of the Rings Online, The Lord of the Rings: Gollum
Platforms across the series
Where the 4 The Lord of the Rings games have landed, counting every entry we hold:
| Platform family | Entries |
|---|---|
| PC | 2 of 4 |
| PlayStation | 1 of 4 |
| Xbox | 2 of 4 |
| Nintendo | 2 of 4 |
The The Lord of the Rings series, game by game
Every The Lord of the Rings game we hold, in release order. Each description is the game's own, from Steam where it has a listing and Wikipedia for the older entries, never ours.
- 2003
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
Metacritic 77The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King is a 2003 hack and slash game developed by EA Redwood Shores for the PlayStation 2 and Windows. It was ported to the GameCube and Xbox by Hypnos Entertainment, to the Game Boy Advance by Griptonite Games, to mobile by ImaginEngine, and to Mac OS X by Beenox. The game was… (Wikipedia)
Plot
Todd Arnold, senior producer of The Return of the King , stated that the game was not intended to re-tell the story of the film, but to allow the player to come as close as possible to experiencing the critical parts of the film for themselves. Levels were designed with this goal in mind, with just enough plot to give context to the player's actions. Liberties were thus taken with the plot, and critics noted there was little footage which could spoil the… (Wikipedia)
Reception
Reception The Return of the King received "generally favorable" reviews across all systems; the Game Boy Advance version holds an aggregate score of 77 out of 100 on Metacritic , based on 13 reviews; the GameCube version 84 out of 100, based on 23 reviews; the PC version 78 out of 100, based on 18 reviews; the PlayStation 2 version 85 out of 100, based on 31 reviews; and the Xbox version 84 out of 100, based on 31 reviews. As an adaptation, the game was… (Wikipedia)
- 2009
The Lord of the Rings: Conquest
Metacritic 61The Lord of the Rings: Conquest is a 2009 action game developed by Pandemic Studios and published by Electronic Arts. It is derived from The Lord of the Rings film trilogy, and borrows many gameplay mechanics from Pandemic's Star Wars: Battlefront games. The game allows the player to play as both the forces of good and… (Wikipedia)
Reception
Reception The game received "mixed" reviews on all platforms according to the review aggregation website Metacritic . Critics unfavorably compared the game to Star Wars: Battlefront . IGN UK felt the game "offers much sound and fury but little substance [... (Wikipedia)
- 2012
Join the world’s greatest fellowship of players in the award-winning online re-creation of J. R. R. Tolkien’s legendary Middle-earth. (Steam)
Plot
The main or "Epic" storyline is told across "Volumes", which are released in "Books" consisting of a series of quests called "Chapters". Volume I: Shadows of Angmar The first Epic Volume starts shortly after Frodo and his friends have left the Shire . The player arrive at Bree , where they become acquainted with Aragorn and Gandalf and get involved in the larger affairs of Middle-Earth . (Wikipedia)
Reception
Reception The Lord of the Rings Online received "generally favorable" reviews, according to review aggregator Metacritic . GameDaily awarded the game 9/10, praising its rich, fantasy-themed universe, well-integrated trait and title system, and a story that remains true to the works of Tolkien. Yahoo! (Wikipedia)
- 2023
Play as Gollum on his quest to retrieve his Precious. You will need to climb the mountains of Mordor, sneak around Mirkwood and make difficult choices. Who will gain the upper hand: the cunning Gollum or the innocent Smeagol? (Steam)
Plot
Setting and characters The Lord of the Rings: Gollum occurs between the events of J. R. R. (Wikipedia)
Reception
Reception The Lord of the Rings: Gollum "was panned by critics and players and met with low sales". On Metacritic , the game received "generally unfavorable reviews", and 4% of critics recommended the game on OpenCritic . Metacritic listed the PlayStation 5 version the worst game of 2023, attributing this to its gameplay, controls, visuals, bugs, and requirement for extensive knowledge of Tolkien's literature. (Wikipedia)
The Lord of the Rings, head to head
Two entries side by side on score, price, specs and reception:
The Lord of the Rings vs other series
How The Lord of the Rings stacks up against other series in the same genre, as a whole:
Also: The Lord of the Rings vs DRAGON BALL, The Lord of the Rings vs Mass Effect, The Lord of the Rings vs Mount & Blade, The Lord of the Rings vs Yakuza, The Lord of the Rings vs ARK, The Lord of the Rings vs Risen, The Lord of the Rings vs State of Decay, The Lord of the Rings vs The Witcher, The Lord of the Rings vs Torchlight, The Lord of the Rings vs Watch, The Lord of the Rings vs ArcheAge, The Lord of the Rings vs Divinity, The Lord of the Rings vs Dragon's Dogma, The Lord of the Rings vs Dungeon Siege, The Lord of the Rings vs ELDEN RING, The Lord of the Rings vs EverQuest, The Lord of the Rings vs Gothic, The Lord of the Rings vs Heaven Island, The Lord of the Rings vs Kingdom Come, The Lord of the Rings vs Kingdoms of Amalur, The Lord of the Rings vs Marvel’s Spider-Man, The Lord of the Rings vs Middle-earth, The Lord of the Rings vs Might & Magic, The Lord of the Rings vs NARUTO SHIPPUDEN, The Lord of the Rings vs Pathfinder, The Lord of the Rings vs Prototype, The Lord of the Rings vs SoulWorker, The Lord of the Rings vs South Park, The Lord of the Rings vs Squad, The Lord of the Rings vs The Surge, The Lord of the Rings vs Tom Clancy’s The Division, The Lord of the Rings vs Two Worlds, The Lord of the Rings vs Wasteland, The Lord of the Rings vs Z1 Battle Royale
Common questions
How many The Lord of the Rings games are there?
We hold 4 The Lord of the Rings games in the catalogue, released between 2003 and 2023. 2 of them carry enough Steam data to rank; the rest are listed in release order below, including console-only entries with no Steam listing.
Which The Lord of the Rings game is best?
By the GamingPickz Score, The Lord of the Rings Online rates highest at 7.1. That is a composite of player sentiment, the critic aggregate and popularity, computed the same way for every game, not our opinion. The full ranking is above.
What order should I play the The Lord of the Rings games in?
Release order is listed below, from 2003 to 2023. For most series that is also story order, but we list dates rather than telling you a canon; the timeline is read from Wikidata.
More franchises
Browse every game franchise ranked the same way, or head to the full grid.