LOTR: Return Of The King hailed as one of the greatest co-op games ever

It’s fair to say that over the years we’ve been cursed with more terrible movie-inspired video games than we have blessed even when it comes to rich properties such as J.R.R Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings.

Take for example 2009’s The Lord of the Rings: Conquest for PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. On paper, this game should have been a fantastic title with some levels offering “what if?” scenarios not to mention that it had multiplayer. Yet, even when playing with friends, that aspect could not save The Lord of the Rings: Conquest from earning average scores on Metacritic.

Check out The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King trailer below!

Thankfully, at least from the perspective of The Lord of the Rings: Conquest, its average review scores pale in comparison to the woeful and absolutely cursed The Lord of the Rings Gollum, a game released in 2023 which is now considered to be one of the worst titles of all time.

Yet in 20 years before the release of that Gollum game, we were graced with the exemplary The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King in 2003 for PC, PlayStation 2 and original Xbox. It even received a port for the Game Boy Advance, which was a decent title for its time. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King garnered scores as high as 85 on Metacritic with fans on Reddit labelling it as having one of the best co-op modes ever.

“The only game I desperately want to be remastered is The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King,” said Redditor Rooonaldooo99. “One of the great co-op games of the 2000s,” replied the_flandrew. To which much of the Reddit thread responded in kind to this beloved entry based upon Peter Jackon’s movie adaptations of J.R.R Tolkien’s novels.

“My dad is not into video games but we played this game together when I was a kid. Great memories,” responded EricFredNorris. “I sunk hours into this game with my best mate back then, awesome co-op,” exclaimed salimeero. “Yeah, these were surprisingly polished for movie tie-in games; I loved the live-action to game transitions,” said a Reddit user also speaking of The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers title.

Sadly, the only official way to play either The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers or The Return of the King on consoles is on retro systems. It’s unlikely that we’ll ever get remasters of these games but we can at least pray to Eru with a slim hope of our calls being answered.