I tend to take my videogame dwarves spacefaring, but there’s something inviting about the more classical, beards-and-barrel-chested adventuring being offered by Regions of Ruin: Runegate.

An expanded and prettified sequel to 2020’s Regions of Ruin, which I also knew nothing about until this morning, Runegate casts you as a lone dwarf charged with travelling the treacherous (but attractively pixel-arty) wilds to bring about the rejuvenation of your peoples’ ruined subterranean home. Here’s the new release date trailer; not to spoil the ending, but it’s out on April 14th 2026.

While there’s naturally some resource gathering and townbuilding to be done, plus no small amount of flagons to be chugged, the trailer and Steam demo confirm that Runegate also plays out as a side-scrolling hack ‘n’ slash. Shield-charging through a crowd of goblins so hard as to immediately knock them all into unconsciousness is, notably, neither hacking nor slashing, but it does look like fun.

As does moseying around the range of forests, mountaintops, deserts, and the odd bazaar. It just looks… nice? Like, calming nice. Maybe I don’t even want to get in an axe fight. Maybe I just want to make new mates, get bladdered, and invite them to come live with my other mates in this ancient kingdom we’re renovating.

Tolkien fans – though probably not the those who are so enthusiastic that they refuse to acknowledge the existence of tie-in games – would point out that The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria already did the whole dwarf kingdom reclamation thing, and with comfortably the most well-known, Edwin-loved dwarf kingdom in all of fiction. I’ll give Regions of Ruin: Runegate a chance, though, not least because it’s purely singleplayer. And as much as I like making new pals, getting three real ones together for Return to Moria’s co-op is becoming harder with every atrophying step into adulthood.