Free Range Games and North Beach Games are truly excited to announce that our open world survival crafting game, The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria will launch worldwide on August 27 for Xbox Series X|S. And when it does, the game will be updated to version 2.0, in what we’re calling The Golden Update, with a brand new Sandbox mode included.    

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.

Open world survival crafting games generally lean towards sandbox and non-linear gameplay, where players have the freedom to explore and create their own stories. However, the world of The Lord of the Rings thrives on epic journeys and well-defined narratives. In creating Return to Moria, we faced the challenge of merging these two contrasting approaches. Our solution? Offering two distinct world types: Campaign and Sandbox.

Campaign mode delivers a rich, story-driven experience. This mode is designed to be linear, providing a structured journey with a clear beginning, middle, and end. It’s crafted to give players a traditional adventure that aligns with the grand narratives found in Tolkien’s works. Players are part of a team of Dwarves who are trying to enter the familiar gates of Moria, but are blocked by some kind of evil magic that is preventing the doors from opening.

Following a mishap, the players become trapped in the ruins of the Westgate region of Moria, and must use their craft, wits, and mighty weapons to navigate the perilous dark halls to find the exit far to the Eastern end. Featuring both solo and co-operative play, Campaign mode gives players a procedurally generated experience, connected with epic story moments and terrible bosses that must be defeated, in order to rejoin Gimli and the dwarves trapped outside.

But August 27 marks the release of Sandbox Mode on Xbox, and a whole new way to play. This non-linear mode unleashes the full potential of the procedural generation system, and the game world is generated with a wide variety of random seeds, meaning each playthrough can vary significantly in layout and difficulty. The dynamics here are vastly different: there’s no hand-holding.

From the moment you start, you make all the choices, and can face dangers that don’t necessarily match your skill level. This mode doesn’t push you forward; it lets you move at your own pace, encouraging exploration and experimentation. Players familiar with Campaign mode will immediately be delighted as the procedurally generated map in Sandbox sends them in completely different directions, often in a much more vertical direction. Navigating the many halls of Moria is never easy, but now players will face more challenge in finding the best path through (sometimes to go down, you must first go up!)  

While in Campaign mode, the player knows that they always progress from Westgate to the Elven Quarter, that is not necessarily true in Sandbox. So they may take a familiar turn and face a new vista, or end up squared off with a powerful foe in an unexpected place. Sandbox mode features unique unlockable weapons and armor, which can be taken back into any game mode once discovered in a Sandbox game.

The Golden Update brings far more than just Sandbox mode, however – Return to Moria will launch with multiple improvements we’ve made, not to mention full Crossplay between the Xbox and PC versions of the game.

Ten months of playing, observing, and reading feedback has led to a lot of iteration:

• We’ve adjusted many loot drops, crafting costs, and spawn rates! We’ve also added more items to collect and craft as you explore.
• New sound effects, visual effects, and tuning improve the previously floaty feel of combat, making it more grounded.
• We’ve also adjusted the frequency of combat encounters (it was way too often in 1.0, but also sometimes too infrequent in some regions, so patrols are still out there when you least expect it).

• No spoilers, but our first major update back in December overhauled the final boss fight to be more satisfying and less buggy.
• The game was often too hard for solo players and too easy for groups. Now, players can adjust everything from combat difficulty to resource drops. Fine-tune it for your group, or just play for the story.
• You can now sort your inventory, use ‘deposit similar,’ and hold the pickup button to grab everything you see. Auto-looting is great if you’re walking through a big area after combat or looking for materials, now you can hold the pickup button and it will suck all these items into your inventory!
• We’ve not only re-tuned stability and building part snaps, but we’ve also overhauled major sections of the world to make building easier. Both the feel of building and the creative possibilities have significantly improved.

• One of our most requested features is the ability to pause while offline. It’s a game-changer for solo players who really do need to take the trash out—no more asking twice!
• It’s not Lord of the Rings without a sweeping score. We added more music for roaming around, combat, and relaxing by the hearth. Sometimes it gets a bit TOO quiet in the depths of Moria, so a background track may play while you’re exploring.
• We added dozens of new weapons, armor variants, helmets, shields, base decorations, building parts, and lighting options. Players have asked for more gear, and we’ve delivered – from new color schemes, to finally being able to smelt and decorate with all that Gold!

Whether you choose the guided journey of the Campaign or the unpredictable adventure of the Sandbox, you’re in for an immersive experience that celebrates both the lore of Middle-earth and the thrill of survival gaming. For more info please visit our official website.