The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King


⤏ Go to series page
The Hobbit	1982
The Fellowship of the Ring	1985
The Shadows of Mordor	1987
J.R.R. Tolkien's War in Middle Earth	1988
The Crack of Doom	1989
J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, Vol. I	1990
J.R.R. Tolkien's Riders of Rohan	1990
J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, Vol. II	1992
The Fellowship of the Ring (2002)	2002
The Return of the King	2003
War of the Ring	2003
The Hobbit (2003)	2003
The Battle for Middle-earth (series)
The Lord of the Rings Online	2007
The Lord of the Rings: Conquest	2009
The Lord of the Rings: War in the North	2011
Lego Middle-earth (series)
Guardians of Middle-earth	2012
Middle-earth: Shadow (series)
Journeys in Middle-earth	2019
The Lord of the Rings: Adventure Card Game	2019
The Lord of the Rings: Gollum	2023
The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria	2023

Warnings

SafeDisc retail DRM does not work on Windows Vista and later (see Availability for affected versions).

The Mac OS X version of this game does not work on Mac OS X Lion (version 10.7) or later due to the removal of support for PowerPC apps.

Info

Controller doesn't work fully.

Improved graphics over console version.

Availability

Source	DRM	Notes	Keys	OS
Retail		SafeDisc v3 DRM^{[Note 1]}.

SafeDisc retail DRM does not work on Windows Vista and later (see above for affected versions).

Demo

The Windows version has both a CD-ROM and a DVD-ROM release, the DVD edition features additional bonus content.

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System	Location
Windows	%USERPROFILE%\Documents\<Localized LOTR Return of the King Data>\ROTK.ini
macOS (OS X)

Folder LOTR Return of the King Data may be named differently, based on the system language.

Save game data location

System	Location
Windows	%USERPROFILE%\Documents\<Localized LOTR Return of the King Data>\
macOS (OS X)

Video

Video settings.

Graphics feature	State	Notes
Widescreen resolution		See Widescreen resolution.
Multi-monitor
Ultra-widescreen
4K Ultra HD		See Widescreen resolution. Cutscenes & menu backgrounds are not in 4k
Field of view (FOV)
Windowed		See Windowed.
Borderless fullscreen windowed
Anisotropic filtering (AF)		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Anti-aliasing (AA)		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Vertical sync (Vsync)		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
60 FPS
120+ FPS		Frame rate is capped at 62 FPS.

Widescreen resolution

Widescreen fix^{[citation needed]}

Download Widescreen fix by nemesis2000.
Extract lotr.7z files to the installation folder (password: lotr).
Edit lotr.ini to set the resolution.

Notes

Supported exe size: 2 874 232 bytes.

Windowed

Use DxWnd^{[citation needed]}

Download and extract DxWnd.
Start DxWnd.
Click Edit and Add.
Type in the name of the game.
In Path type in a path to your ROTK.EXE file.
Check fields: Hook enabled, Run in a Window, Hook all DLLs and Remap Client Rect.
Go to a Video tab and check the field: Prevent Win Maximize.
Go to a DirectX tab and check: DirectX8.
Click OK and start the game without closing DxWnd.

Input

Input settings.

Keyboard and mouse	State	Notes
Remapping
Mouse acceleration
Mouse sensitivity
Mouse input in menus		Extreme mouse declaration applied to a cursor.
Mouse Y-axis inversion
Controller
Controller support
Full controller support		Triggers not recognized.
Controller remapping
Controller sensitivity
Controller Y-axis inversion

Controller types

XInput-compatible controllers

PlayStation controllers

Generic/other controllers

Additional information
Controller hotplugging
Haptic feedback
Digital movement supported
Simultaneous controller+KB/M

Audio

Audio settings.

Audio feature	State	Notes
Separate volume controls
Surround sound		Shown as "3D" sound.
Subtitles
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost		No option to disable it.
EAX support

Localizations

Language	UI	Audio	Sub	Notes
English
French
Italian
Spanish
Dutch
Polish
Portuguese
Swedish
German
Russian				Fan translation by «ENPY Studio/Spirit Team»

Network

Multiplayer types

Type	Players	Notes
Local play	2	Co-op Requires a controller.
LAN play
Online play

VR support

3D modes	State	Notes
vorpX		G3D User created game profile, requires D3D8to9 wrapper, see vorpx forum profile introduction.

Other information

API

Executable	PPC	32-bit	64-bit	Notes
Windows
macOS (OS X)

System requirements

Windows
	Minimum	Recommended
Operating system (OS)	98, 2000, ME, XP
Processor (CPU)	Intel Pentium III 700 MHz AMD Athlon 700 MHz	Intel Pentium 4 1.0 GHz AMD Athlon XP 1.0 GHz
System memory (RAM)	128 MB	256 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD)	2.0 GB
Video card (GPU)	32 MB of VRAM DirectX 8.1 compatible	64 MB of VRAM

macOS (OS X)
	Minimum
Operating system (OS)	10.2.6
Processor (CPU)	PowerPC 74xx PowerPC G4
System memory (RAM)	256 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD)	2 GB
Video card (GPU)	3D accelerator 32 MB of VRAM

Notes

↑ SafeDisc retail DRM does not work on Windows 10^[1] or Windows 11 and is disabled by default on Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, and Windows 8.1 when the KB3086255 update is installed.^[2]

References

↑ Not Loading in Windows 10; this will break thousands of - Microsoft Community - last accessed on 2017-01-16
↑ Microsoft - MS15-097: Description of the security update for the graphics component in Windows: September 8, 2015 - last accessed on 2018-02-16

[3] SafeDisc retail DRM does not work on Windows 10^[1] or Windows 11 and is disabled by default on Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, and Windows 8.1 when the KB3086255 update is installed.^[2]

[1] Not Loading in Windows 10; this will break thousands of - Microsoft Community - last accessed on 2017-01-16

[2] Microsoft - MS15-097: Description of the security update for the graphics component in Windows: September 8, 2015 - last accessed on 2018-02-16

[Note 1]

[1]

[2]

Developers

	EA Redwood Shores
macOS (OS X)	Beenox Shift
Publishers
	Electronic Arts
Release dates
Windows	October 31, 2003
macOS (OS X)	March 30, 2004
Reception
Metacritic	78
Taxonomy
Series	Middle-earth