Lord of the Rings Video Games, Ranked Worst to Best
J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy book series The Lord of the Rings has long been an inspiration for videogame designers, with the first game adaptation (of The Hobbit) arriving in 1982, to be followed by dozens of additional game adaptations over the next four decades. The arrival of Peter Jackson's film trilogy in the early 2000s only accelerated the game industry's rush to put Middle-earth on consoles, PCs, and mobile devices. And the games are still coming, with two new titles released during the first half of 2023 alone.
Some of those games have been well received by critics and gamers alike, while others were far from precious. In the gallery on this page, we rank every Lord of the Rings video game adaptation (of both the books and the films) released in the modern era of gaming, starting in 2002. The games are ranked from worst to best by their Metascores, which reflect the consensus views of professional game critics.
Note that titles must have at least four reviews from professional critics in order to have a Metascore. (That four-review cutoff means that many mobile-only games, including the recently released The Lord of the Rings: Heroes of Middle-earth, are not listed here.) If a game was released on multiple platforms, only the version receiving the highest quantity of critic reviews was eligible for inclusion.
PlayStation 4, 2014
also on
Xbox One, Xbox 360, PC, Nintendo 3DS, PlayStation Vita, Wii U
Released on every then-current platform, the second LEGO-fied take on Peter Jackson's films adapted the first two parts of The Hobbit prequel trilogy—but not the concluding film. (That third Hobbit film, The Battle of the Five Armies, had yet to come out, and plans to add content from that film to the LEGO game via DLC never came to fruition, though a separately developed Five Armies mobile game was released to little fanfare in late 2014.) Developed, like all recent LEGO games, by TT Games, Hobbit is a humorous, family-friendly action-adventure game set in a semi-open world (specifically, Middle-earth). Many critics were charmed by the game despite finding it flawed in both pacing and endpoint—exactly like the two films it is based on.
“LEGO: The Hobbit is a fun game with a huge, sprawling world, but in the end it's a bittersweet experience, mostly because of the story that's missing.” —Gamer.no
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