Durin's Folk Expansion Announced for The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria, Promises Deeper Endgame and New Mechanics

During a special panel at San Diego Comic-Con 2025, Free Range Games and North Beach Games unveiled the upcoming expansion for The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria, titled Durin’s Folk. Although details remain scarce, the developers confirmed the expansion will introduce an expanded endgame story, new gameplay mechanics, and a host of unrevealed surprises aimed at enhancing the survival crafting experience within the beloved Dwarven realms of Middle-earth.

The base game Return to Moria launched in October 2023 for PC and PlayStation 5, initially as a timed exclusive for the Epic Games Store and Sony’s console. In August 2024, it expanded to Steam and Xbox Series X|S, with cross-play functionality enabled across all platforms, helping the title reach a broader co-op survival audience.

Earlier this year, the developers introduced optional dedicated server support, allowing players to rent servers from third-party providers or self-host. These servers enable deep customization of gameplay parameters. Administrators can adjust combat difficulty, enemy behavior, resource drop rates, horde spawns, and more using in-game console commands.

Some of the adjustable parameters include:

• setdifficulty presets (e.g., story, solo, normal, hard, custom)

• setcustomdifficulty for fine-tuned control, with options like:

  • combatdifficulty

  • enemyaggression

  • survivaldifficulty

  • miningdrops

  • worlddrops

  • hordefrequency

  • siegefrequency

  • patrolfrequency

Values range from verylow, low, default, high, to veryhigh, although not all parameters support the full range. If unsupported values are used, the system defaults to the closest valid setting.

While no specific release date was confirmed for Durin’s Folk, the timing of the reveal hints at a potential alignment with the game's second anniversary on October 24, 2025. Given the expansion’s promise of "exciting" new features and a deeper endgame narrative, fans can expect a more expansive and refined experience set in the dark, echoing halls of Khazad-dûm.

Are you ready to return to the depths of Moria with Durin’s Folk? Let us know which features you hope to see added in the expansion.