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Epic Games Summer Showcase offers new Lord of the Rings title, Ghostbusters, more

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Epic Games held its own showcase earlier today as a part of Summer Game Fest 2022. While there weren’t any major announcements to satisfy gamers left wanting by the previous day’s slightly disappointing Summer Game Fest Kickoff event, there were plenty of interesting trailers, including a new Lord of the Rings co-op crafting title reveal, a closer look at the upcoming Ghostbusters: Spirits Unleashed, and new season announcements for fan-favorites Splitgate, Rocket League and Fall Guys.

Check out our breakdown of everything revealed by Epic Games today below and keep an eye on upcoming streams for more gaming news.

Check out our Summer Gaming Marathon hub

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The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria

The dwarves are returning to the mines of Moria in a new Lord of the Rings title that takes place during the Fourth Age of Middle-earth.

The Lord of the Rings™: Return to Moria™ - Official Announcement Trailer 4K

“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,” reads the official description. “Summoned to the Misty Mountains by Lord Gimli Lockbearer, players take control of 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.

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“Their quest will require fortitude, delving deep into the Mines of Moria to recover its treasures. Players will join forces to survive, craft, build, and explore the iconic, sprawling mines. Courageous expeditioners will need to be vigilant as mysterious dangers await.”

Billed as a survival crafting game, The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria will have a lot of mining and crafting, base-building, and exploration that can be experienced solo or in co-op multiplayer.

At launch, The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria will be available exclusively on PC via the Epic Games Store.

Ghostbusters: Spirits Unleashed

Viewers got a new look at some of the playable ghosts in the upcoming Ghostbusters game.

Ghostbusters: Spirits Unleashed is an asymmetrical multiplayer game where four Ghostbusters try to capture one ghost that’s haunting a specific map. They must track the ghost down before capturing it with customizable versions of tools like the Proton Pack, Particle Thrower, and P.K.E. meter. Four players control Ghostbusters while another controls the ghost causing mayhem.

Ectoplast Showcase - Epic Games Store Summer Showcase

PC Building Simulator 2 open beta

A custom PC in PC Building Simulator 2.

PC Building Simulator 2 is now in open beta on the Epic Games Store. This sim is essentially Guitar Hero for nerds — and we love it.

The game launches exclusively on the Epic Games Store later this year. You can wish list it now for access to the free open beta.

Shoulders of Giants

Shoulders of Giants is a sci-fi roguelike where players control a sword-wielding robot and a gunslinging space frog trying to save the world. What’s not to like?

Shoulders of Giants - Gameplay Reveal Trailer

Goat Simulator 3

Goat Simulator 3, the second game in the chaotic physics sandbox series, got a second trailer at the Epic Games showcase. We still don’t know a lot about the recently revealed title, but it looks gorgeous.

Goat Simulator 3 Gameplay Trailer | Epic Games Showcase

Gigabash

From developer Passion Republic Games, GigaBash is coming to Epic Games Store, Steam, PS4, & PS5 on August 5, 2022. This 4-player arena brawler pits monsters against titans in a completely destructible environment.

GigaBash - Rawa Official Reveal Trailer

TCHIA

We got a little peek at TCHIA, a physics-driven sandbox title set to launch early next year. A new gameplay trailer highlights the game’s “soul-jumping” mechanic that allows players to become one with nature and take control of any animal or object they can find.

TCHIA - Soul-jumping Mini-Feature

Rawmen

Rawmen is a hilarious-looking, food-centric multiplayer arena shooter. An open beta is launching on July 1.

RAWMEN | Sign Up For EGS Beta on July 1

Splitgate is coming to Epic Games

The next season of Splitgate will be coming to the Epic Games Store sometime in Q3 and will feature new modes, a new battle pass, and remastered maps.

Splitgate Epic Games Store Announce Trailer

Rocket League season 7

A new season of Rocket League will be here on June 15 and the new Rocket Pass will bring “glitz and glamour” to the field.

Rocket League Season 7 Gameplay Trailer

Fall Guys season 1

Fall Guys is going free-to-play on June 21 with the start of the title’s first official season. The new cinematic trailer shows off new cosmetics and arenas.

Fall Guys - Free For All Cinematic Trailer

Everything else

  • Disney Speedstorm got a new trailer featuring a brand new track.

  • Sifu is getting a summer update that includes gameplay modifiers, ranging from faster enemies, unbreakable weapons, a bullet-time slow-motion mode, and even a low gravity option that will allow players to customize the rules for their runs.

  • Epic released new information on the first FNCS Invitational 2022 being hosted on November 12 and 13 in Raleigh, North Carolina. The best Fortnite duos from around the world will be competing for a chunk of a $1 million prize pool.

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Sam Hill
Sam Hill
Gaming Guides Editor
Sam Hill is a journalist and the gaming guides editor at Digital Trends. He's also written tech guides for Input and has…
Everything announced at Summer Game Fest kickoff 2023
Key art for Mortal Kombat 1 shows Liu Kang.

Geoff Keighley returned today with his third Summer Game Fest kickoff showcase. This showcase featured titles big and small from all corners of the video game industry. We got new looks at games like Mortal Kombat 1, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, and Alan Wake 2, trailers for the new seasons of Fortnite and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, and even the announcement of games like Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown and Sonic Superstars.

Like previous Summer Game Fest kickoff showcases, this live stream was quite dense, with lots of games to keep track of. Don't worry if you think you missed some featured games, though, as we've rounded up every announcement made during the Summer Game Fest kickoff showcase.
Prince of Persia returns with The Lost Crown next January
Prince of Persia The Lost Crown - Reveal Gameplay Trailer

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Summer Game Fest Kickoff 2023: how to watch and what to expect
The official artwork confirming Summer Game Fest's return on June 8, 2023.

With no E3 happening this year, there's a massive void to fill. Developers have tons of video games to reveal, but nowhere to show them. That's where Summer Game Fest comes in.

Organized by Game Awards creator Geoff Keighley, Summer Game Fest essentially acts as a modern replacement for E3. It's a series of live streams and in-person events that loosely mimic the idea of a standard E3 season, giving gaming fans plenty of news to chew on. It all starts with the Summer Game Fest Kickoff stream today, where Keighley will showcase tons of new games from most of gaming's biggest players.

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Heroes of Middle-Earth isn’t afraid to play with Lord of the Rings canon
An evil Galadriel in Heroes of Middle-Earth

The Lord of the Rings franchise has a storied history in almost every entertainment medium, and we are entering a new era for its film and gaming efforts. As Amazon continues to produce The Rings of Power, Middle-Earth Enterprises has been acquired by Embracer Group. Instead of all of The Lord of Rings' games being made by Warner Bros., which had been the case for some time, we are now seeing lots of studios make games in the Lord of the Rings universe, providing their own spin on the idea. While The Lord of the Rings: Gollum is doing that on consoles this month, mobile game players are also getting a brand new game.
The Lord of the Rings: Heroes of Middle-Earth is on the way from Capital Games and EA, and I attended a preview event for the game ahead of its launch on May 10. This game takes the character-collecting RPG approach established through its previous game Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes and gives it a Middle-Earth makeover. What’s most intriguing about the title, though, is that it’s not afraid to ask “What if?” while playing around in the world of this long-running franchise.
What if?
When it comes to gameplay, my brief playtime with Heroes of Middle-Earth didn’t surprise me. It’s exactly what you’d expect from a mobile character-collecting RPG set in The Lord of the Rings universe. Still, the character-based approach allows Capital Games to play in The Lord of the Rings sandbox in ways few creatives have been able to. It has more freedom to craft more experimental scenarios with the franchise's iconic characters, as it’s not as concerned with falling in line with lore.

The premise is that players have discovered a new Ring of Power, which they must use to keep The Lord of the Rings timeline intact as a mysterious enemy is trying to throw it in disarray. That setup means that the game can create scenarios that don’t necessarily align with the Middle-Earth canon. Players can make characters from different time periods, races, and allegiances team up in a way that wouldn’t work anywhere else. They’ll encounter a Galadriel who was corrupted by the Ring and other characters who may have strayed from the path laid for them in the books and films. Post-launch, some of these alternate versions of characters will eventually become playable as well.
In the age of the multiverse story in media, these kinds of “What if?” scenarios make for a novel The Lord of the Rings game set pieces and give the developers plenty of room to come up with future characters for players to collect. In a press roundtable, Heroes of Middle-Earth Design Director Jay Ambrosini was undoubtedly enthusiastic about these concepts but said the team is also making sure any of these ideas and alternate timelines that they do pursue feeling respectful toward the world J.R.R. Tolkien established.
“There are so many characters that you look at and see the small little decisions that happen and affect them, and it’s so fun to think about what happens if they made the other decision,” Ambrosini says. “They are fun things to explore and talk about, but the most important thing to us is that we’re telling a genuine Tolkien story and that we’re very faithful to the laws of the world that exist. Good deeds are rewarded with goodness; bad deeds are rewarded with bad things happening. We’re making sure that we’re appreciating and celebrating those pieces of Tolkien’s work.”

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