The Lord Of The Rings: Return To Moria comes out in October for some drunken dwarf looting
Releasing the same week as everything else
The Best Pitch I’ve Ever Heard award has to go to The Lord Of The Rings: Return To Moria, which sounds like it’s taking Deep Rock Galactic’s procedurally generated cave looting and squashing it into Middle-Earth’s fantasy world. Chef’s kiss, no notes. The only downside is that the co-op craft-y-survive-a-thon is coming out on October 24th, the same week as - sweatily checks calendar - everything else. I’ll find the time to raid mines with big-bellied friends anyway, though.
As Alice Bee previously explained, the game takes place in the world’s kinda peaceful fourth age (right after the films), as our dwarfs get summoned back to the cursed mines by the one and only Lord Gimli. How involved is Gimli in the actual game? Who knows!? But developer Free Range got the film’s actor, John Rhys-Davies, to voice the last trailer - good enough to make me smile and crack my recently-adult cynicism.
After you create your very own bearded angry miner, you then trek down into the depths that’s presumably been hiding gold (yay) and terrible monsters (oh no) for ages (literally). And of course, all those mined goodies can be used to make ever more powerful weapons, armour and handy structures like a bridge or watchtower. A recent press release also mentions “the Shadow that lurks within,” so I’ll be very upset if I can't scream “You! Shall! Not! Pass!” at a giant Balrog along with seven other nerdy dwarves (the game supports 8-player co-op, I should add).
Lord Of The Rings: Return To Moria hits the Epic Games Store and PlayStation 5 on October 24th - the same week as Alan Wake 2, Ghostrunner 2, Alone In The Dark, and Cities: Skyline 2. It then plans to come out on Xbox Series X|S next year.
Alice Bee and Liam recently chatted about their dream Lord Of The Rings game and I think more games should just let you live as one of the races doing what they do best. Dwarves: mine. Humans: war. Gollum: is bad. But I often have hazy but fond flashbacks to action-platformer The Hobbit, which you probably don’t remember. I played it as a youngling shorter than any hobbit, but the minute the game moved past the Shire’s tutorial level, I’d load up a new game. Put me back in the Shire with dreamlike sunrays lighting up the greenery, and let me fetch six thingamajigs for my hairy-footed, probably drunken neighbours, please. Nothing would make me happier.