The dwarven engineers of The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria have officially entered Steam’s Golden Age. The game is now available on Valve’s digital store after a year of lurking in the comparatively barren underworld of the Epic Games Store. Additionally, developers Free Range Games have released a Golden Update that adds offline single-player breaks, around 100 buildable objects, and a sandbox mode that allows for non-story-led excavation and settlement of the game’s procedurally generated mountains. Plus, new hats and axes! Try not to catch dragon sickness.

I haven’t played Return To Moria since October of last year. Back then, it was a pleasantly deep survival game with a crisp torchlight aesthetic, lots of beautiful biomes to explore, and a whole lot of stuff. (To immerse yourself, there’s an image to the right with a translation of “stuff” in Khuzdûl, the ancient runic language of the dwarves, courtesy of Tengwar Transcriber.)

I’m definitely willing to try my hand at this particular part of the lore trench again, as long as they fixed the issue of all your interior decorations ending up at winding 45-degree angles to the layout. Here’s an 11-minute talkthrough video from the Game Director detailing both what’s included in the Golden Update and what they’ve added since launch on EGS.

If you don’t have time for a video, here’s my own analysis of the Golden Update. Let’s start with the Sandbox mode, which was already available in beta on EGS. It lets you generate worlds from “a variety of random numbers, meaning each playthrough can vary significantly in layout and difficulty.” There are “minimal tutorials” in Sandbox mode, and so the developers recommend that you only play if you’re familiar with the game’s campaign or with other survival sims. Sandbox mode includes crafting recipes for 14 new types of weapons and armor. These include the Wolfskin Hat and the Barôkamlut, or Mithril Battle Axe. You’ll likely find the Barôkamlut useful when trying to acquire the materials for Wolfskin Hats.

The update also adds cross-play features, so PC’s proud longbeards can meet up with PS5 and Xbox’s aspiring stone lords in sessions of up to eight players. If you’d rather dig out Khazad-dûm alone, you can now pause the game by pressing the Escape key when playing offline.

As for the new buildables, these range from rugs and banners to lamps, tavern signs, and chairs. The improvements to the building system itself are likely to be of more interest to players returning to Moria. “Restoring Moria is now easier than ever with changes to the stability system as well as improved object snapping,” the press release states. “Pre-placed buildings across Moria are now stronger than ever, expanding players’ ability to build sprawling bases wherever they want.”

They’ve also expanded the game’s difficulty settings, with options for enemy aggression, the frequency of hordes, sieges or patrols, and the abundance of mining drops. Add in the promise of Steam Deck compatibility along with new ambient music, and you have a game I’ll try to carve out a few spare hours for this weekend. It’s no Dwarf Fortress, but it has charm.