Sean Bean once famously said that “one does not simply walk into Mordor,” and hoo boy was he ever wrong on that one. Demonstrating his utter wrongness yet again is the Emulated Vintage Gaming YouTube channel, which recently posted a 10 hour long video of a lore-accurate recreation of Frodo’s epic journey from Bag End to Mordor in Lord of the Rings Online.
‘Frodo walks from the Shire to Mordor,’ as it’s called, is not as dramatic or exciting as Peter Jackson’s famed film trilogy: It is literally a recording of Frodo walking—walking, take note, not running, although he does get to ride here and there when the books say so—along the route originally followed by the Fellowship. At various spots along the way, Andy Serkis chimes in to describe the scene via audio clips taken from the Lord of the Rings audiobooks, which as chosen line up remarkably well with the events happening on screen.
But even though it lacks the cinematic oomph of an Oscar-winning Hollywood film trilogy, the video is an undeniably impressive undertaking, and I dropped a line to EVG to ask what inspired him to do such a thing.
“Escapism, mainly,” the channel owner, who asked to go unnamed, replied. “Like anyone who’s read the books or seen the movies, it’s impossible not to want to inhabit Middle-earth in some way. Lord of the Rings Online is the closest one can get to experiencing Tolkien’s realm the way countless works of art, games, music and entertainment have attempted over the past half-century.
“For me, and many other players, you find yourself wandering and wondering at the beauty of the world around you. ‘I remember that bit from the book!’ is a common thought as you stroll through the Shire, or explore Rivendell, or Lòrien. You notice the attention and love the devs put into every little detail—an impressive feat for such a sprawling universe. So I thought I would try to see just how close I could follow Frodo’s journey, using the Fellowship of the Ring as a guide, as I wended my way from Hobbiton to Bree. When I saw just how perfectly the game design followed Tolkien’s imagination, I decided then and there to do it properly, beginning to end.”
EVG’s video immediately brought to mind LOTRO’s Great Hobbit Run, a fan-organized annual event that sees a mob of low-level players attempt to haul ass directly to Mount Doom. EVG said the Hobbit Run “totally embodies the spirit of the LOTRO community, and is why I love the game and those who play it so much,” but added that his own journey was different in a number of ways.
Rather than charging straight to the end, they followed Frodo’s path in the Lord of the Rings books as closely as they could, and it was entirely a solo trip: EVG created a brand-new anonymous account for the adventure, and while other players would occasionally follow him for a bit to see what he was up to, he had the game interface switched off so he couldn’t see their names or messages, or otherwise interact with them.
The video was also “meticulously planned,” unlike the Great Hobbit Run, which you’ll recall came to an end in 2025 when everyone got lost and decided that “Mount Doom adjacent” was close enough. EVG said they’d first scout an area with their main LOTRO character and then read through relevant chapters of Tolkien’s book, highlighting landmarks and especially vivid descriptions of places or events. After they were confident of the route, they’d head out as Frodo and record that section of the trip.
“Every single step you see in the video is a first take,” EVG explained. “You’ll notice that Frodo gets notifications along the way, [like] ‘Discovered: The Trollshaws!’ That’s because it’s the first time the character has set foot in that region. I felt that was an important part to maintain.”
The scouting took around five hours in total, EVG added, roughly half the time required to actually walk the route, while the reading for narrative details to drop in along the way ate up considerably more time. The project overall took “months of shooting and editing,” EVG said: They began work on the adventure in May 2025 and uploaded the final video on Halloween.
The video actually shifts perspective a couple times, most notably at the very end when the POV moves to Gollum as he takes his final shot at the ring and—spoiler alert—ultimately meets his doom. Not familiar with LOTRO myself, I asked EVG how they were able to put that together within the confines of an MMO, and it turns out that it was “pure accidental serendipity.”
“Part of the ‘gateway’ quests that you need to complete to get access to Mordor involve ‘session play’ instances, where you get to play briefly as other characters (ie. Gollum), witnessing the events that unfold in the books,” they explained. “Then you switch back to your character upon completion. As soon as these instances started, I was like, I need to record this, as you only get one chance to play through, and I was lucky I did, as it filled in the gaps so perfectly.”
EVG said it’s the first time they’ve done something like this, but it won’t be the last: “I’ve had hundreds of requests asking me to do the same for other characters: Gandalf, Aragorn, Merry and Pippin—their adventures cover a much wider area (Rohan! Helm’s Deep! Minas Tirith!), which are all available to explore in LOTRO.” They’ve since set up a Patreon to support future work, and while it hadn’t attracted any supporters when we chatted, “even so I know I’m going to make another one, someday.” I’m looking forward to it.
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