What’s next for LOTR LCG?

Back when the new releases were stopped in 2019, and the game went into hiatus, many people speculated on what would happen to it. I myself even put out a special article worrying about how to continue the blog now that no new content was getting released. Luckily, the community stepped up with their own projects to fill the gap in content, and FFG soon returned in 2022 with the rerelease of the Core Set. Alongside those expansions, they informed us that they would be releasing repackaged cycles and sagas, giving new players an easier time to buy the cycles as a whole. People were pretty pleased with this. New players could get into the game more easily, and veterans had fan-made content to enjoy.

But with the rerelease, we also started the speculation train again. How long would this last? The starter decks indicated that Angmar Awakened, Dream-chaser, and Ered Mithrin would be the repackaged cycles. And the Sagas are great, but they are going to run out if Return of the King is released this year. So, what would be in store for us in 2025? To bring the possibilities into perspective, I’ve assembled a list of possible routes that FFG could take after Ered Mithrin and Return of the King are released this year. Let me just say upfront that Palantiri aren’t crystal balls; they cannot predict the future. Many of these ideas are nothing but dreams for the people looking for more content. But let’s go over the various paths that the game can take and whether or not it is probable in 2025.

New Revised Cycles

It felt weird that the revised cycles began with Angmar Awakened, though it did have all the ingredients for a solid first entry. But this was cycle 5 of 9, meaning that there are 4 cycles that have not been explored yet, and new players might not be able to enjoy. This is especially true after the announcement that the APs and Deluxes would no longer be reprinted. Players ended up buying a ton of the packs still in stock just to have access to the cards and scenarios.

I feel that revisiting some of the other cycles beyond Angmar, Dream-chaser, and Ered Mithrin will be a pretty reasonable assumption for FFG to take. This will mean that players who bought the Starter Decks will have some duplicate cards, but that just adds to their deckbuilding options and having several decks built at once. This would also be the chance for FFG to fix some of the less enjoyable scenarios with a campaign mode. This worked well for Escape from Dol Guldur and Battle of Carn Dum, so we might even see quests like Journey to Rhosgobel or Long Dark fixed in a way that makes them more enjoyable. Whether or not that can be fixed with a campaign will remain to be seen, but I’d love to see them try.

As for which cycles would be best suited for rerelease, I would hope they try to cover them all. Shadows of Mirkwood would be a smaller set, considering that the Core Set has already been revisited. Dwarrowdelf could make use of some of the artwork that was commissioned for Journeys in Middle Earth. Against the Shadow picks up the narrative slack from the previous two cycles and would finally allow players to use their copy of Prince of Dol Amroth that they got with the revised Dream-chaser set. Ringmaker would be a bit more frustrating to play, perhaps, but I think the campaign format would work well with the Time mechanic. Perhaps have a Campaign timer as well! The Haradrim cycle would span the gap between the Dream-chaser and Ered Mithrin cycle, and if they ever revise the Vengeance of Mordor cycle, people would actually get to own those cards for a change! So, there are plenty of reasons to revise the cycles; let’s hope this gets acted upon, as it would fill the calendar with enough content to last a long while.

Revised Hobbit Saga

After the Revised Return of the King Saga expansions in 2024, it would make sense that the two Hobbit Saga boxes are next on the list to combine and rerelease. But these expansions are a bit older and could use a touch-up and perhaps a campaign mode. While these boxes pioneered the campaign mode in this game, with treasures lasting several scenarios, it was not as impactful as the LOTR campaign or the revised campaigns for the cycles. Introducing a new campaign around these six scenarios would be a wonderful addition to the game and give players a chance to riddle with Gollum.

One issue with this is that players who own the Dwarves of Durin starter deck will have a lot of duplicate cards included in the repackaged saga box. It would also demand a bit more time on FFG’s part to make a campaign mode for it, which is why I don’t find it likely they’ll do that. Instead, they will probably just rerelease Over Hill and Under Hill and On the Doorstep as is. Still, it’s a nice addition for players who missed out, though I would second guess any purchase of the Dwarven starter deck when you can also get the repackaged saga. As for people asking if Battle of Lake-Town could be included, I doubt it. We didn’t see Fog on the Barrow-Downs and Old Forest included in the Fellowship of the Ring box, and those are actually part of the campaign. You will probably have to experience this quest digitally if you don’t own the POD already.

Brand new content

The community has proven that since the hiatus began, we have not yet finished exploring Middle Earth. Several projects have tackled unexplored regions on the map, from the far east of Rhun to the Blue Mountains. AleP is also busy with their second cycle set in the Shire after focusing more on Rohan. There are plenty of other gaps on the map that could be filled out if FFG chose to get a new team together and crank out more content like they used to.

Obviously, this is the least likely scenario, though it would be the one that I favor the most! More player cards and scenarios means a restart to many blogs, podcasts, and video series. Progression series would have a new finish line, and new decks could bring about brand-new archetypes. On a smaller scale, FFG could keep making scenario packs to release during GenCon in order to drip-feed us some new stuff. If we got more packs like Hunt for the Dreadnaught, we could see a spike of excitement every now and again, with players getting together again for the brand-new scenario. Returning to Fellowship events seems a bit too far-fetched, as it would require Organized Play to get their things together again, but never say never.

This would be the scenario where FFG realizes it is sitting on a fantastic IP and cares enough to give something to the veteran players. It’s far more likely we will see reused cards and artwork than getting everything brand new like we used to in the past. If we were getting new stuff in 2025, development would be underway already in order to give enough time to playtest and balance stuff. But since no rumors on anything have come out since, I think it is safe to say that we are unlikely to get brand-new scenarios and player cards outside of campaign modes added to other cycles.

More Custom Scenario Packs

When there was a restricted budget for the game, the developers did something pretty special for that year’s GenCon and Fellowship events. They gave us two sets of cards to create our own encounter deck with. These cards were based on the Shadows of Mirkwood cycle, though artwork from other cycles and Sagas was included to pad out the decks a bit. They also introduced a competitive format for the game, where players attempt to beat a quest faster than another team can beat theirs. This worked pretty well, and the next year saw this repeated with two sets set in Moria.

Now, with most of the artwork already commissioned, we could see a return to this format. Perhaps based on some of the other cycles, giving more variety in the encounter decks you could make. While some of the cycles do not lend themselves to it (Against the Shadow has vastly different enemy types that could otherwise be mixed), we could see this format return for cycles like Angmar Awakened and Ered Mithrin. Create some reworked textboxes for it, add some quest variety, and let the players forge their own encounter decks. This would be great at giving players more quests to play, as they could vary the encounter decks and make things harder or easier depending on the deck they play.

It would be cool to see this format return, as I have grown to like the four packs we got in this format over the last year. It would be something different, but as a relatively cheap way to expand the game to newer players, it wouldn’t be so bad. It might even be worth picking up by veteran players and revitalizing this competitive side of the game.

Repackaged Nightmare scenarios

The Nightmare scenarios are tougher variants of the regular quests, and with the completion of two repackaged cycles that have Nightmare content (on top of 2 repackaged Sagas with NM stuff as well), it would be nice to have a third expansion for each cycle that introduces more of a challenge to the players. Having a smaller Nightmare expansion for each cycle will add replayability to the quests and be a chance for FFG to get more of the rare packs out in the world. NM decks are no longer being printed, so it will be rare to experience a physical Nightmare game. With the release of this third set on top of the Campaign and Hero box for the cycle, we might actually get to enjoy the challenge again and admire the fantastic artwork on some of these cards!

With that said, there might be a few reasons why this is wishful thinking. If Nightmare content was rereleased for Angmar, Dream-chaser, and the first two Saga expansions, there would be none for Ered Mithrin or the Return of the King boxes. The Nightmare project stopped before those expansions were released. While I don’t think it is such a loss, it would create an imbalance between the cycles. A solution to this would be to make new Nightmare expansions for those quests, but that’s never happening. Not that we need NM Mount Doom anyways. I feel that new players should at least be able to get a taste of what Nightmare mode plays like, so if revised NM stuff is released, at least my NM articles will get some views again 🙂

Nothing at all

It’s nice to have dreams of 20 more cycles and all the APs available to players again, but you have to be realistic sometimes. The effort that FFG has been putting into LOTR LCG has been dwindling for a long time. Examples range from the FFI Digital Game that got dropped, the half-assed 10th-anniversary celebration, and nothing new for the repackaged Saga boxes. Perhaps there is just no revenue to be made with this IP anymore, and FFG wants to explore other projects. It has helped them a lot in the past, with Marvel being a pretty big game by now, though it took away resources from LOTR. I fear that this is the most likely route, but also the one I hope does not come to pass.

Should the worst happen, and the game officially sail into the west without another revitalization effort, we will find ourselves in the same situation as 2019. But we’ve gone through this before and have been shown how close this community got. We will likely still have years ahead of us where players create their own variants and scenarios and hold community events. The blog still has a few more years to go before we’ve covered all the content, and if we leave, it will likely not be the last community outlet out there. So, while this realistic scenario might be a bit disheartening, it will not be the end of the game for us.

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I hope that covered many of the possible ways that the game can continue to expand after this rerun we’ve had since 2022. I’m very much looking forward to rereading the article in a few years to see which point actually proved correct. Until then, we will at least have another year of revised content ahead of us, and hopefully, fan-made content will last us a good while longer until any future projects are released.