Summary
ValheimandThe Lord Of The Rings: Return To Moriaare multiplayer survival-crafting games that share a lot of similarities. However, the subtle differences ultimately amount to unique experiences between the two games.
WhereValheimmostly focuses on combating the world bosses as a main means of progression,The Lord of The Rings: Return to Morialeans more into survival mechanics, like hunger, and sleep. It’s likely though that both games have previously had and will continue to influence each other, especially considering thatValheimis still in early access.
The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria and Valheim Are Two Sides of the Same Coin
Even thoughThe Lord of the Rings: Return to Moriatakes place underground, the game still features a prominent day/night cycle.Valheimalso has this feature, although it isn’t mandatory to sleep through the night in the game. On the other hand,the day/night cycle inThe Lord of the Rings: Return to Moriawill negatively affect players who skip out on sleeping. This is a recurring theme between the two games:Return to Moriagenerally puts more emphasis on managing the game’s survival mechanics, while these same mechanics in Valheim are technically optional.
In general,Valheimhas more of a focus on combat and epic boss battles, whileReturn to Morialeans more into survival mechanics and building to explore and restore the environment.
The culmination ofReturn To Moria’s survival mechanics is the Morale system. This includes sleep, hunger, and avoiding dark areas for extended durations. Skipping out on regularly maintaining these mechanics will limit the player’s available health and stamina, and kill the player slowly. Buffs fromfood sources inValheimare still a central gameplay mechanic, but going long periods without eating inValheimisn’t fatal on its own.
Building is a much more common part of exploration inReturn to Moria. Oftentimes, in order to reach resources in the mines and abandoned structures throughout Moria, players have to build platforms to safely navigate up and down the walls of the mines, whereas inValheim, most of the natural resources are at ground level.
Valheim
WHERE TO PLAY
Valheimis a brutal exploration and survival game for 1-10 players set in a procedurally-generated world inspired by Norse mythology. Craft powerful weapons, construct longhouses, and slay mighty foes to prove yourself to Odin!EXPLORE THE TENTH WORLDExplore a world shrouded in mystery. Discover distinct environments with unique enemies to battle, resources to gather and secrets to uncover! Be a viking, sail the open seas in search of lands unknown, and fight bloodthirsty monsters.BUILD MIGHTY HALLSRaise viking longhouses and build bases that offer reprieve from the dangers ahead. Customise buildings, both inside and out, with a detailed building system. Progress through building tiers to upgrade, expand and defend your base.GATHER, CRAFT AND SURVIVEStruggle to survive as you gather materials and craft weapons, armor, tools, ships, and defenses. Decorate your hearths and sharpen your blades, grow crops and vegetables, prepare food, brew meads and potions, and progress as you defeat more difficult bosses and discover new recipes and blueprints.
While there aremagic weapons inValheimand generally a larger selection of weapons overall, combat in both games is essentially identical. In some ways,Return to Moria’s combat almost feels like the state of combat inValheimwhen the game was first released in early access, before the weapon selection was expanded to what’s currently available.
The main overarching story ofValheimtasks players with gearing up and defeatingValheim’s world bosses. WhileReturn to Moriahas a fair share of major boss enemies, the main goal is to restore ancient Dwarf artifacts throughout Moria, such as forges and statues.
Aside from crafting new tiers of armor, tools, and weapons to progress in both games,Valheimhas a bit more depth to its progression systems. Specifically, the character skill proficiencies inValheimallow players to upgrade their character without having to make concrete world progression.Return to Moriastill has a few boss fights, but the game’s progression is much more focused on restoring Moria to its former glory, and it lacks an overall skill progression system.
It’s also important to note thatValheimis still in early access, with ongoing support and content updates still coming. Since it was first released, past updates forValheimhave overhauled some of the core gameplay mechanics like the combat and the way that cooked food sources function, so while the game remains in early access it may still see some major reworks to its existing gameplay mechanics and features. Any new updates forValheimcan potentially draw inspiration from recent games within the survival-crafting genre, likeReturn to Moria, and more.
The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria
Reclaim the Dwarven homeland of MoriaSummoned to the Misty Mountains by Lord Gimli Lockbearer, players take control of a company of Dwarves tasked to reclaim the lost spoils from the Dwarven homeland of Moria—known as Khazad-dûm or Dwarrowdelf—in the depths below their very feet. Their quest will require fortitude, delving deep into the Mines of Moria to recover its treasures. Set in a procedurally generated Dwarven realm of Moria, no two adventures will be alike, and every expedition is traversable either solo or online with companions. Players can mine to craft greater gear and resources, but beware mining makes noise, and noise created in the quiet deep threatens to awaken the dangers below: where there’s clatter, there’s combat. Excavate the mysteries of three legendary mountains, extract precious metals, scrape to survive, and battle unspeakable forces to learn the secret of the Shadow that lurks within.
