[1] Based on The Lord of the Rings film trilogy, the game follows the original but spoofed storylines of The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King, taking players through the epic story events, "re-imagined with the humour and endless variety of Lego play".

Developer Traveller's Tales has stated they toned down the slapstick humour found in other Lego-licensed titles.

[4] Throughout the game, players can collect and use numerous magical items, including the Light of Eärendil, Elven rope and a wide variety of swords, bows and other such weaponry and armour familiar to the films.

New character abilities include the lighting up of dark places (Frodo, Gandalf, Radagast and Saruman) and being thrown at objects and to locations (Gimli and Gloin).

Combat involves the player attacking enemies either through basic melee combos or firing projectiles, either through aiming or pressing the shoot button.

Throughout the game, some parts of both the story and the open world can only be traversed or completed by using special items or abilities.

These abilities include fishing, shooting, collecting water, explosive, invisibility, breaking Mordor bricks, light, and jumping high.

Throughout the map, there are several notable locations, including the Custom Character creator at Bag End in the Shire which allows players to create custom characters and the Blacksmith in Bree, who creates items using the player's Mithril Bricks and Blueprints.

The characters can also add new items and weapons to their inventory as the story advances, thus adding role-playing elements to the traditional Lego gameplay.

Additional voices were provided by Eric Artell, Steven Blum, Cam Clarke, Chris Edgerly, Kieren Elliott, Gideon Emery, Crispin Freeman, Bob Joles, Tom Kane, Jennifer Taylor Lawrence, Yuri Lowenthal, Jim Meskimen, Nolan North, Liam O'Brien, Jon Olson, Jim Piddock, Eliza Schneider, Keith Szarabajka, Fred Tatasciore, Anna Vocino and Hynden Walch.

Upon release, the Xbox 360 version had been potentially recalled for being shipped with demo discs rather than the full retail copy.