The Lord of the Rings Online
Join the world’s greatest fellowship of players in the award-winning online re-creation of J. R. R. Tolkien’s legendary Middle-earth.
MMORPGOpen WorldRole-PlayingSurvival
Your like matters. Every heart nudges this game's GamingPickz Score and where it ranks (a small 5% of the score), so the lists get better for everyone.
- Released
- 2012
- Developer
- Standing Stone Games
- Platforms
- 1 systems
- Critics
- Not scored
- Steam Deck
- playable
- Download
- Not stated
What is The Lord of the Rings Online?
Join the world’s greatest fellowship of players in the award-winning online re-creation of J. R. R. Tolkien’s legendary Middle-earth.
Description as published by the developer on its own store page, read 30 August 2026. It is marketing copy, not our assessment.
The record
| First released | 5 June 2012 |
|---|---|
| Developer | Standing Stone Games |
| Publisher | Daybreak Game Company LLC |
| Platforms | PC |
| Genres | MMORPG, Open World, Role-Playing, Survival |
| Languages | 3 supported |
Source. Catalogue facts from Wikidata , seeded TBA. Store data from Steam, read 30 August 2026.
How was The Lord of the Rings Online received?
Method. Player figures are Steam's own totals for the PC version, read 30 August 2026. The Metacritic score is the one Steam publishes on its store page and can lag the site itself. Neither is our opinion. We have not published a review of this game.
Accessibility
Seeing
None declared
Hearing
None declared
Input
- Partial Controller Support
Difficulty
None declared
Method. Features the publisher declared on its own store page. A declaration is a floor, not a review.
What does it support?
| Capability | Support |
|---|---|
| Controller | partial support |
| Cloud saves | No |
| Cross-platform play | No |
| Mod support | No official workshop |
| Online play | Yes |
| In-game purchases | Yes |
| Steam Deck | playable |
| Download size | Not stated |
| Add-on content | None listed |
| Age gate | None |
Method. Read from the publisher's Steam listing on 30 August 2026. Describes the PC version. Console versions differ.
What does it cost?
Steam price in US dollars, read 30 August 2026. Prices move hourly and vary by region. Check the current price.
Is The Lord of the Rings Online worth it?
81% of 23,171 Steam reviews are positive, which Steam rates Very Positive. It is free to play. About 793 people were playing at once when we last checked, so it is still active.
That is the data, not a verdict for sale: whether it is worth it depends on the price you pay and what you want. We have not published our own review of this game.
How long is The Lord of the Rings Online? How long to beat it
Total play time for The Lord of the Rings Online is about 1701.7 hours to do everything, and around 124.1 hours to reach the end of the main story. These are player-submitted times from HowLongToBeat, not our own, shown with the number of players behind each.
| How you play | Hours | Players logged |
|---|---|---|
| Just the main story: straight through the critical path | 124.1h | 6 |
| Main + the extras: story plus the side content most people do | 266.9h | 9 |
| Completionist: everything: 100% the game | 1701.7h | 3 |
The Lord of the Rings Online is free to play, so the only cost is your time: about 124.1 hours to beat it.
Source: HowLongToBeat community submissions, read 2026-10-19.
Where The Lord of the Rings Online sits on the grid
Compare the whole catalogueThe Lord of the Rings Online plotted on the axes the GamingPickz Score is built from, on the full 0 to 100 scale so its position is its real one. Change either axis to see where it lands.
1 games have both
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.
- 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.
Is The Lord of the Rings Online still active? Players right now
The Lord of the Rings Online has a modest but active community: 793 people were playing at once when we last read Steam on 19 October 2026. This is a snapshot, not a live counter, and it is a recent concurrent reading rather than an all-time record. For what is trending across the catalogue right now, see the pulse.
How many people own The Lord of the Rings Online
This is an estimate, not a sales figure, and the two are not interchangeable. SteamSpy samples public profiles and publishes a range; the range here spans a factor of 2.5, and that width is the honest part of it. We show both ends rather than a midpoint, because a midpoint would look like a measurement.
Steam only. Console and storefront sales are not counted, so a game that sold heavily elsewhere reads low here. Read on 19 October 2026. Where a publisher has announced a real unit figure, that appears separately and carries its source.
The Lord of the Rings Online price & deals: is it on sale?
We have one reading so far: Free on 30 August 2026. Prices are checked daily from here, and this becomes a chart once there is more than one point to join. A single observation is a price, not a history.
Latest The Lord of the Rings Online updates & patch notes
Pulled from The Lord of the Rings Online's own Steam feed on 5 September 2026. Posts marked as from the studio were written by the developer; the rest are articles Steam syndicated from elsewhere. Every one links to its source.
What readers say about The Lord of the Rings Online
Reviews written by people who have played it. These are separate from the GamingPickz Score and are never averaged into it: that score comes from thousands of Steam reviews with a sample-size correction, and a handful of unverified ratings would distort it rather than improve it.
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Where The Lord of the Rings Online appears
The ranked lists and finder pages The Lord of the Rings Online qualifies for, from its own genre and platform to what it takes to run.
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Games like The Lord of the Rings Online
24 games overlap with The Lord of the Rings Online on the tags Steam players applied to it, on genre, and on theme. The closest are RIFT, Old School RuneScape and Guild Wars 2.
Part of the The Lord of the Rings series
The Lord of the Rings Online is one of 4 The Lord of the Rings games we track. See the whole series ranked by the GamingPickz Score, plotted on the grid, and listed in release order:
The Lord of the Rings Online head to head
See The Lord of the Rings Online compared side by side, on score, price, specs and more:
More The Lord of the Rings Online comparisons: vs Royal Quest, vs The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, vs The Lord of the Rings: Conquest, vs The Lord of the Rings: Gollum, vs STAR WARS Battlefront II (Classic, 2005), vs FINAL FANTASY IX, vs Assassin's Creed 2, vs The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Game of the Year Edition Deluxe (2009), vs Fallout: New Vegas, vs Dragon Age: Origins - Ultimate Edition, vs DRAGON BALL FighterZ, vs Mass Effect Legendary Edition, vs Mount & Blade: Warband, vs Yakuza 0, vs ARK: Survival Evolved, vs Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered, vs Risen, vs State of Decay, vs The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, vs Torchlight II, vs Watch Dogs, vs ArcheAge, vs Divinity: Original Sin 2 - Definitive Edition, vs Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen, vs Dungeon Siege, vs ELDEN RING NIGHTREIGN, vs EverQuest II, vs Gothic 1, vs Heaven Island Life, vs Kingdom Come: Deliverance II, vs Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, vs Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, vs Might & Magic: Heroes VI, vs NARUTO SHIPPUDEN: Ultimate Ninja STORM 4, vs Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous - Enhanced Edition, vs Prototype, vs RuneScape , vs SoulWorker - Anime Action MMO, vs South Park: The Stick of Truth, vs Squad, vs The Surge 2, vs Tom Clancy’s The Division 2, vs Two Worlds Epic Edition, vs Wasteland 3, vs Z1 Battle Royale
Common questions about The Lord of the Rings Online
What platforms is The Lord of the Rings Online on?
The Lord of the Rings Online is available on PC. It first released in 2012.
Is The Lord of the Rings Online free?
Yes. The Lord of the Rings Online is free to download on Steam. It carries in-game purchases.
Do players recommend The Lord of the Rings Online?
81% of 23,171 Steam reviews are positive, which Steam rates Very Positive. That is players rating it, not our review. We have not published a review of this game.
Does The Lord of the Rings Online work on Steam Deck?
Valve rates The Lord of the Rings Online as playable on the Steam Deck, from its own testing.
Who made The Lord of the Rings Online?
The Lord of the Rings Online was developed by Standing Stone Games and published by Daybreak Game Company LLC.
Is The Lord of the Rings Online worth it in 2026?
81% of 23,171 Steam reviews are positive (Very Positive), and it is free to play. That is the strongest signal we hold; "worth it" depends on the price you pay and what you want, so weigh the sentiment against the current price above.
Is The Lord of the Rings Online dead?
No. About 793 people were in-game at once when we last read Steam's concurrent-player figure. Peak activity is higher; this is a recent snapshot, not the all-time peak.
How long does it take to beat The Lord of the Rings Online?
about 124.1 hours for the main story, 266.9 hours with the main extras, 1701.7 hours to complete everything, from HowLongToBeat's player-submitted times. These are community medians, so your own run may be shorter or longer.