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Lord of the Rings escape room game coming this summer

Arriving precisely when it means to.

The Lord of the Rings themed entry for the Exit: The Game series is set to be released this summer.

Originally teased in March 2021, Exit: The Game – The Lord of the Rings: Shadows Over Middle-earth is based on the beloved series of fantasy novels written by JRR Tolkien, with players becoming characters in the world of Middle-earth who are desperate to help the Fellowship succeed in their quest to destroy the One Ring. As Frodo and his companions set out to put a stop to the evil tyrant Sauron’s rule once and for all, the players will be providing support in the upcoming board game by undertaking various tasks set by the wizard Gandalf. When players have successfully found and confronted the wizard, they’ll be sent to buy Frodo as much time as they can in order to complete his treacherous mission.

In the escape room game, players must work together to uncover the clues they need to solve each mystery and move onto the next task to help out the Fellowship. Using the various game components and materials – which players cannot look through until instructed to do so – the players will have to decipher the series of riddles and puzzles they come across throughout the game. If they are successful in their sleuthing, the group will be able to enter the right code into their decoder and read the corresponding answer card. If players happen to be struggling, they can use Gandalf’s clues to help them find the answer. However, the more help cards players use, the lower their final score will be when they finish the game.

Exit: The Game - Lord of the Rings: Shadows Over Middle-earth layout

Once the players managed to solve all of Gandalf’s riddles and help Frodo as much as they can, the game ends and they discover what their score was based on both how long it took them to finish and how many help cards they had to use.

Exit: The Game – The Lord of the Rings: Shadows Over Middle-earth was co-created by Inka and Markus Brand, who have previously worked together on other entries in the Exit: The Game series – including The Abandoned Cabin and The Pharaoh’s Tomb – as well as the worker-placement board game Village and the civilisation building game set in 16th century India, Rajas of the Ganges.

Kosmos Games is the studio responsible for releasing Exit: The Game – The Lord of the Rings: Shadows Over Middle-earth, as well as the other entries in the Exit: The Game series and the popular two-player board game Lost Cities.

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The Exit: The Game tabletop series has players cooperating to solve a selection of puzzles themed around different adventures and worlds. Each entry in the escape room game series can only be played by the same group once, but players can share their copy with others as they do not alter any of its components such as in legacy board games.

Exit: The Game – The Lord of the Rings: Shadows Over Middle-earth is set to be released in June at a retail price of $20 (£18).

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About the Author
Alex Meehan avatar

Alex Meehan

Senior Staff Writer

After writing for Kotaku UK, Waypoint and Official Xbox Magazine, Alex became a member of the Dicebreaker editorial family. Having been producing news, features, previews and opinion pieces for Dicebreaker for the past three years, Alex has had plenty of opportunity to indulge in her love of meaty strategy board games and gothic RPGS. Besides writing, Alex appears in Dicebreaker’s D&D actual play series Storybreakers and haunts the occasional stream on the Dicebreaker YouTube channel.
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