Developer Free Range Games and publisher North Beach Games have announced that The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria will finally arrive on Steam and Xbox Series X/S on August 27, 2024. This launch will coincide with The Golden Update, which adds crossplay, a sandbox mode, and so much more.
I played The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria at launch and am excited to dive into the game anew on Xbox Series X/S, especially with crossplay functionality. It’s The Golden Update that should draw fans new and old to the game, though, because it packs in a treasure trove of new content for you to dig your pickaxes into, including a slew of bug fixes and improvements that will make the game a lot more stable.
A mine!
The Golden Update for The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria allows players on all platforms to host up to 8 players in a single session. This means you can max out your mining potential and build and craft like never before. This is great because more than 100 new building objects will also be added to the game alongside additional weapons and armor sets for you to use to keep the Goblins and other nasties at bay.
Building parts should snap together more easily as part of the game’s stability improvements, and you solo players will be pleased to hear that the game now features a single player pause option. This is for offline players only, allowing you to take a break when you need it because you’re not beholden to anyone in this mode.
Perhaps the biggest chunk of The Golden Update for The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria is its Sandbox Mode. The mode is now out of beta and doesn’t hold your hand with minimal tutorials in place to give you a tiny bit of help as you delve into the full potential of the procedural generation system. You’ll be handed a random mountain seed and can dig your way through it as you see fit.
This non-linear mode is much more free and gives you the chance to explore the mountain without being hemmed in by the natural progression system of the standard game mode that requires you to upgrade and craft new gear to mine through each layer. This is the mode recommended for those familiar with other survival games, and I’m intrigued to see what the community makes of it.
The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria was initially released in October 2023 exclusively on the Epic Game Store, followed swiftly by a PS5 version. While it had a few issues at launch, the game is fairly solid and has an engaging gameplay loop that, like all good survival crafting games, revolves around mining resources and crafting better gear to get out there and mine some more.
Published: Aug 7, 2024 10:27 am