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Case Study
In The Spotlight
developed by
The only survival crafting video game set in the Fourth Age of Middle-earth™, the iconic fantasy world created by J.R.R. Tolkien. Summoned to the Misty Mountains by Lord Gimli Lockbearer, players take control of a company of Dwarves tasked to reclaim the lost spoils from the Dwarven homeland of Moria – known as Khazad-dûm or Dwarrowdelf – in the depths below their very feet. Their quest will require fortitude, delving deep into the Mines of Moria to recover its treasures.
9/10
The Goal & The Outcome
For their survival crafting title, The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria, Free Range Games partnered with MLC Studio to expand the dwarves’ customisation system – a core part of player identity and immersion. They needed support creating new hairstyles, beards, and tattoos that would work seamlessly with existing rigs while keeping player options flexible. The challenge was to expand options while preserving technical stability and authenticity within Tolkien’s world.
MLC delivered new hairstyles, beards, and tattoos built to integrate flawlessly with existing rigs and meshes, ensuring flexibility across every character variation. The result was a seamless, lore-true system that gave players greater personalisation, visual consistency and confidence that their characters would look and feel right in-game.
As huge LOTR fans, we loved contributing to a project where every detail of the dwarves mattered – from their iconic beards to their battle-worn tattoos.
Services Included
Risk Elimination
For Free Range Games, the challenge was twofold: meeting fan expectations on a globally recognised IP, while ensuring the technical side of character customisation was watertight. Hairstyles, beards, and tattoos had to feel authentic to Tolkien’s world and also function perfectly with the existing rig and head meshes. Without the right expertise, the risk was a system that felt limited, inconsistent, or unreliable. This is where MLC’s technical expertise came in – ensuring every asset was consistent, flexible, and ready to meet the expectations of both the studio and their players.
Process
How We Delivered
Working from detailed character concepts and technical specifications supplied by Free Range Games, MLC configured workflows that balanced creative quality with technical precision. Our process ran in two key phases:
Phase 1 – Hairstyles & Beards
With characters already rigged, our priority was ensuring any new assets would integrate seamlessly. We generated proxy geometry to match hair bone placement, then built high poly versions in ZBrush. Once approved, these were translated into low poly models and UVs in Maya. To allow in-game colour variation, we designed a specific Substance Painter setup that was applied consistently across all models. This phase delivered three hairstyles and beards, fully compatible with every head mesh and rig in the game.
Phase 2 – Tattoos & Technical Alignment
The second phase centred on creating 25 tattoo variations and aligning head topology and UVs across all character models. Our team developed a pipeline to transfer new topology correctly, preserving all detail when rebaking texture maps to the updated UV set. Each tattoo was traced in Adobe Illustrator and projected onto the base head mesh in Substance Painter, ensuring accuracy and consistency across the set.
Collaboration & Delivery
Throughout the project, reviews and updates were managed via Shotgrid, keeping Free Range Games fully aligned and ensuring all deliveries were made on time. The result was a set of game-ready assets built on a robust technical foundation – giving the developers confidence that customisation in Return to Moria would be both authentic and reliable.
Final Work
Why we loved this project
As huge LOTR fans, we loved contributing to a project where every detail of the dwarves mattered – from their iconic beards to their battle-worn tattoos. What a pleasure to collaborate with the Free Range Games team!
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