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The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

From PCGamingWiki, the wiki about fixing PC games
The Return of the King
The Return of the King cover
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
Monetization One-time game purchase
Modes Singleplayer
Pacing Real-time
Perspectives Bird's-eye view, Third-person
Controls Direct control
Genres Action, Hack and slash, RPG
Art styles Realistic
Themes Fantasy
Series Middle-earth
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King on HowLongToBeat
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King on IGDB
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King guide on StrategyWiki
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King on MobyGames
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King on Wikipedia
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.

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King is a singleplayer bird's-eye view and third-person action, hack and slash and RPG game in the Middle-earth series.

Availability

Source DRM Notes Keys OS
Retail
Disc check (requires the CD/DVD in the drive to play)
SafeDisc v3 DRM[Note 1].
Windows
macOS (OS X)
SafeDisc retail DRM does not work on Windows Vista and later (see above for affected versions).
The Windows version has both a CD-ROM and a DVD-ROM release, the DVD edition features additional bonus content.
Demo

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 installed localization.

Save game data location

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

Video

Video settings.
Video settings.

Widescreen resolution

Widescreen fix[citation needed]
  1. Download Widescreen fix by nemesis2000.
  2. Extract lotr.7z files to the installation folder (password: lotr).
  3. Edit lotr.ini to set the resolution.

Notes

Supported exe size: 2 874 232 bytes.

Windowed

Use DxWnd[citation needed]
  1. Download and extract DxWnd.
  2. Start DxWnd.
  3. Click Edit and Add.
  4. Type in the name of the game.
  5. In Path type in a path to your ROTK.EXE file.
  6. Check fields: Hook enabled, Run in a Window, Hook all DLLs and Remap Client Rect.
  7. Go to a Video tab and check the field: Prevent Win Maximize.
  8. Go to a DirectX tab and check: DirectX8.
  9. Click OK and start the game without closing DxWnd.

Input

Input settings.
Input settings.

Audio

Audio settings.
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
EAX 3.0
Royalty free audio

Localizations

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

Network

Multiplayer types

Type Native 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

Technical specs Supported Notes
Direct3D 8
ExecutablePPC 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
System memory (RAM) 128 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD) 2.0 GB
Video card (GPU) Nvidia GeForce 2
ATI Radeo 7500
32 MB of VRAM
DirectX 8.1 compatible
Other 8X CD/DVD-ROM
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

  1. 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