The Quest for Middle-earth: Discovering the Best Lord of the Rings Video Games on Nintendo Consoles
Excuse me, sir, may I possibly acquire some Mordor?
- by Jim Norman
It’s the year 2025, and Lord of the Rings seems remarkably popular once more. We’re not entirely certain it ever truly faded away, to be honest, but now we have The Rings of Power on our screens (and it’s actually quite good at the moment), the Battle of the Rohirrim has debuted in theaters, a ‘Hunt for Gollum‘ film is in the works, and most importantly for us, additional Middle-earth games are on the horizon.
Gollum was released on several consoles in 2023 — although the Switch version is still in limbo (something we’re sure you all were quite disappointed about) following Daedalic shutting down its internal development team. However, Tales of the Shire: A The Lord of the Rings Game — likely a strong contender for 2025’s Clunkiest Title Award — is just around the corner, bringing a taste of Hobbit life to Switch in March. And, with Embracer Group now officially controlling the IP, we would be surprised if developments stopped there.
The future is promising, but what about the past? Honestly, the franchise has seldom faced a shortage of game adaptations (two blockbuster movie trilogies will ensure that) and the ‘Mordor‘ games with their beloved Nemesis System make it easy to overlook that not every attempt to bring J.R.R. Tolkien’s universe into gaming has succeeded. “All that is gold does not glitter,” as the man himself remarked.
If you need reminding, we Nintendo fans have never been fortunate enough to see a port of either Shadow of Mordor or Shadow of War, something that also feels like a wound from a Morgul blade. What we do have is enough movie tie-ins to last a lifetime (the early 2000s were quite a wild time, lest we forget), a scattering of LEGO games, and the rare Arkenstone that dares to break the tie-in mold — here’s to the Fire Emblem-like GBA gem, The Third Age.
The quantity certainly isn’t a problem, but what about the quality? We have lamented the absence of Lord of the Rings RPGs on Nintendo consoles before, but now we want to broaden the search. Are there any truly good Lord of the Rings games on a Nintendo system, and what might be the best among them?
Rate each and every Lord of the Rings game you’ve played on a Nintendo console — who knows, we might even be crafting One ring to rule them all based on your choices. The list contains all 19 Middle-earth-themed games available on Nintendo consoles, categorized by platform where necessary (because let’s not pretend that Aragorn’s Quest on DS is the same title you can find on Wii).
We’ve lit the beacons; now it’s time for you to respond!
Rate each Lord of the Rings game you have played:
Click on the stars below to rate each Lord of the Rings game out of 10