Free Range Games' survival crafting game The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria is coming to Xbox Series X|S and PC via Steam later this month. Publisher North Beach Games announced that the survival crafting game set in the Fourth Age of Middle-earth, will arrive on these new platforms on August 27th. It will be available for a discounted price of $19.99 for a limited time.
The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria was previously released for Windows PC via the Epic Games store on October 24, 2023, followed by a PS5 launch on December 5, 2023.
The game's arrival on new platforms coincides with the launch of The Golden Update. This new update will include crossplay between all platforms, Sandbox Mode, and a slew of additional content and improvements made since the game's original release.
Previously available in beta via the Epic Games Store version of Return to Moria, the full launch of Sandbox Mode will allow players to experience independent exploration and experimentation throughout the mountain. In this nonlinear game mode, players will drop into a game world procedurally generated with a wide variety of random seeds, resulting in a significantly varied layout and difficulty. Because of the minimal tutorials and unpredictable nature of this procedurally generated world, this mode is recommended for those who are familiar with Return to Moria and other survival games.
With Sandbox Mode also comes recipes for 14 new weapons and armor, including a Wolf Skin Hat, Gondorian Shield, Khazad Halberd, and Barôkamlut. These recipes are only discoverable in Sandbox Mode, bu players can bring these new objects into Campaign Mode as long as their Dwarf is equipped with them when transferring over.
the update also features over 100 new building objects, including new cosmetic decorations such as light fixtures, rugs, banners, home furnishings, tables, chairs, and more. There have also been tremendous improvements to building in general thanks to improved object snapping.
Other notable improvements and features coming with the update include the ability to pause the game when playing single-player offline, the addition of an ambient music track, and difficulty settings for various aspects of the game such as enemy aggression, combat, mining drops, and more.
The story of The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria takes players beyond the books and into the Fourth Age of Middle-earth, the fantastical world created by J.R.R. Tolkien. Summoned to the Misty Mountains by Lord Gimli Lockbearer (voiced in-game by actor John Rhys-Davies), players band together as 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 and teamwork, delving deep into the mines of Moria to recover its treasures in the hopes of one day restoring them to their former glory.
The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria is currently available for PC via the Epic Games Store and PlayStation 5 for $24.99. It's unclear if these versions will also be discounted or if the aforementioned special pricing of $19.99 is only fo the Xbox Series X|S and Steam versions.