Lord Of The Rings RPG officially announced for Xbox and Steam

The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria has been out for some time now, initially releasing exclusively on the Epic Games Store back in October 2023 and December 2023 on the PlayStation 5.

Xbox owners and Epic Games storefront-averse PC gamers will finally be able to get their hands on the LOTR game on the 27th of August this month however, as it was recently revealed that publisher North Beach Games is dropping their exclusivity contract and bringing the game to other storefronts (including Steam).

A news post on the Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria website stated that “Independent developer Free Range Games and publisher North Beach Games are excited to announce that The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria, the only survival crafting video game set in the Fourth Age of Middle-earth™, the iconic fantasy world created by J.R.R. Tolkien, will launch on PC via Steam and Xbox Series X|S on Aug. 27 at a discounted price of $19.99 for a limited time”.

This coincides with a new update for the game, titled “The Golden Update”, which is seemingly going to be free on all platforms.

The Golden Update includes a new sandbox mode (which was initially only available in beta on the Epic Games Store), crossplay on all platforms, new weapons and armour, new difficulty settings, updates to the building mechanics as well as new decorations, new music tracks, and a whole slew of bug fixes.

Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria wasn’t particularly well received on release, with average to poor reviews.

IGN’s Travis Northup was particularly scathing with their review, giving a 4/10 and concluding that it was “disappointing to see such a promising concept do little more than a barely passable impression of better games…”

User reviews were a lot more favourable however, especially on the Epic Games Store where it currently sits at a 4.4 out of 5.

Apparently this difference in score is down to the free updates that the developer Free Range Games have released, so it stands to reason that the game will be in even better shape after the new Golden Update launches.