The MMORPG The Lord of the Rings Online launched in 2007 and has maintained itself thanks to a loyal community until today. Even though the release was so long ago, there are now even queues again.
The Lord of the Rings Online was released in 2007 and has undergone many changes since then. Over 15 years ago, it was decided to make the game free for all players and switch to a Free2Play model.
Especially the strong community carried the MMORPG through the competitive 2010s to its current state. This year, players were able to enjoy new 64-bit servers that have technically improved the MMORPG.
Even though October 2025 is a good month for MMORPGs, hardly anyone believed that queues would be experienced again, yet they returned to the European servers last weekend.
Here you can watch the teaser trailer for the new expansion “The Kingdoms of Harad”:
Full Servers and Queues
How high is the demand? Not only the queues, but also the daily logins on the European servers are impressive. According to the fansite gefallenehelden.de, players logged in over 250,000 times on the servers between Sunday and Tuesday.
While every login counts, so there aren’t as many players as one might initially think, these numbers depict a better picture than the weak peak player count of about 1,600 (via SteamDB).
Why is HdRO popular again? The reasons for the success lie in several events over the last few months and the current announcement. The developers laid the foundation in 2025 with the 64-bit servers, bringing the community even closer together, which revived the MMORPG.
Following this was a coupon code that is still available until November 3rd, giving away a lot of content and making it much easier for new players to connect with the veterans. The latest announcement probably caused the final increase in players, the new expansion.
What will the expansion bring? The expansion “The Kingdoms of Harad” adds a new area to the MMORPG. Here heroes can level up to level 160 and complete over 400 new quests. In addition to fierce enemies, the expansion will also conclude the story “Song of Waves and Wind”, thus wrapping up an important story chapter of the MMORPG.
The Lord of the Rings Online has managed to compete against many prettier, faster, and technically optimized MMORPGs. This is mainly due to the active community, which keeps the MMORPG alive and vibrant even after so many years. A group of players followed the Hobbits’ example: A fan of The Lord of the Rings Online walks through Middle-earth, showcasing one of the MMORPG’s greatest strengths
