One Lord of the Rings superfan has recreated Frodo’s exact journey from Bag End to Mount Doom in a 10-hour virtual trek through Lord of the Rings Online, an 18-year-old MMO.
Despite Boromir’s iconic warning, it turns out you can, in fact, simply walk into Mordor. It’ll just take roughly 10 hours on a perfectly mapped-out course in an online video game that took months to put together. Simple, really.
A YouTube channel called ‘Emulated Vintage Gaming’ is enjoying virality on the back of a mammoth effort doing just that, taking Frodo on foot from the vibrant village of Bag End to the fiery peaks of Mount Doom.
As they told PCGamer, it took months of work before they were ready to share their seamless walk that took nine hours and 46 minutes all up.
Lord of the Rings Online player walks from Bag End to Mount Doom
The video, titled ‘Frodo walks from the Shire to Mordor,” has been gaining traction as hundreds of thousands learn of the player’s dedication. They faithfully recreated “every step” of Frodo’s journey, as depicted in the books and in the films.
Following as closely as possible, they incorporated voiceover from Gollum’s actor Andy Serkis, as he narrated the three audiobooks. These snippets paint the MMO’s environments with vivid detail, describing Frodo’s struggles in each distinct area.
As for why the player opted to pull it off in an 18-year-old MMO, they claim the game provides the most authentic recreation of Tolkien’s universe.
“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,” the YouTuber told PCGamer.
Starting fresh on a brand new account, they disabled most of the game’s UI as to avoid pop-ups and even other player names along the road to Mount Doom.
Before that, however, came a ton of planning as they mapped out the path not only by playing, but by closely studying Tolkien’s literature.
The creator began work in May, 2025, and the finished video made it to YouTube on October 31, 2025.
On the back of its immense success, they’re hopeful to make similar videos with other characters in focus, be it Aragorn or Pippin, as “their adventures cover a much wider area, which is all available to explore in LOTRO.”
