Last year, Parker Brothers / Hasbro released Lord of the Rings Risk in the United States. This year, they plan to release an entirely new LotR Risk game with an expanded board and other new features.

In Europe, gamers will be able to purchase an expansion to the existing game. But in the United States, the new release will be a new, self-contained game.

"The new game will replace the [2002] game on [the] shelf," according to Hasbro's Rob Daviau, who posted information on the newsgroup rec.games.board.

"It will have two more panels to the game to incorporate Gondor and Mordor. It will have a third deck of territory/adventure cards. It has a totally rewritten rulebook. It has new rules for 'Alliance Play' and 'Team Play.' It cleans up confusion on the cards. It clarifies rules in the game. It contains more pieces to account for the larger number of spaces."

According to Daviau, the game -- which, like last year's, will be for 2 to 4 players -- should be available in December 2003.

Daviau indicated that U.S. players not interested in buying the complete new game might be able to use the expansion from the United Kingdom, but he was somewhat concerned that variations in manufacturing would make that option unworkable. He also added that, "I made great progress yesterday [August 15] into devising a way for people to get the additional parts necessary to play the full game without having to buy it again." Daviau promised an update on this possibility as soon as possible.