The Lord of the Rings: Living Card Game gives a raspberry to random card packs

The lootbox monetization model is coming under attack. The biggest beefs are coming from players disgruntled about in-game items in Star Wars: Battlefront II. But when it comes to games, this model goes all the way back to Magic: The Gathering (and if we go further in time, we’re looking at good ol’ baseball cards).

Fantasy Flight Interactive’s first game ditches random packs for sets and expansions of specific cards in The Lord of the Rings: Living Card Game, which is coming to Steam’s Early Access program for PC games later this quarter. It’s an adaptation of the Fantasy Flight tabletop company’s card game, which pioneered the narrative experience, ditching the collectible model of Magic: The Gathering, Yu-Gi-Oh, and Pokémon and pitting players against the game itself, not another person.