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There's lots to say on the topic, but check out the AMA with Eric Cline, who wrote a book summarizing current opinions on the topic. Also, I've written several posts about the end of the Bronze Age and the "Sea Peoples."

It's always helpful to clarify what we mean by "collapse," which ancient historians (and pop history books and podcasts) do not always do. What exactly is it that collapses? What makes "collapse" different from "transformation" or "change"? There's a tendency to telescope the end of the LBA. It should always be kept in mind that the transition from the Bronze Age to Iron Age took well over a century; this was not a sudden apocalypse.

"Collapse" is often associated with notions of cultural regression - de-urbanization, an abandonment of writing, decline in artistic production/quality, disappearance of languages and religious cults, etc. - that we don't necessarily see in many parts of the eastern Mediterranean. What collapsed were political institutions, the networks of diplomatic, trade, and imperial interconnections that held together the territorial states of the Bronze Age. In fact, we should arguably refer to political fragmentation rather than "collapse," at least in some parts of the ancient Near East. Here I'll focus on two examples, Egypt and the Hittite Empire.

If we choose to consider the end of the Old Kingdom in Egypt a collapse, for example - and I think we should - we can associate it with the slow decline of royal power and the concomitant rise of the nomarchs (regional governors), whose offices were inherited by their offspring. This political shift was compounded by a drought around 2200 BCE, which greatly reduced the agricultural surplus on which the Old Kingdom economy relied. Over the course of the 6th Dynasty, Egypt slowly shifted from a unified state to a highly fragmented political landscape. Rather than a king, Egypt was ruled by competing nomarchs, each ruling his own miniature kingdom and adopting many of the trappings of royal ideology. Put another way, if one thinks of Egyptian society as a pyramid with the king at the top and the nomarchs beneath him, you've essentially removed the topmost layer of the pyramid while leaving the rest of the administrative structure relatively intact.

A similar process occurred in the New Kingdom. There was a slow decline in royal power in the latter part of the New Kingdom, whereas the wealth and power of the Amun priesthood in Thebes grew steadily. We know from administrative texts like the Great Harris Papyrus that temples gained about 15% of the arable land in Egypt in the 19th Dynasty; since temples like Karnak already had massive estates, the total amount of land held by temples was far higher than this. Although Egypt was divided in the 21st Dynasty between a northern kingdom (based at Tanis) and a southern kingdom (based at Thebes), however, there was more cooperation than competition between the kingdoms. In the Tale of Wenamun, for example, a priest sent on a mission by the High Priest of Amun encounters the king and queen of northern Egypt along the way.

On the day of my arrival at Tanis, the place where (King) Smendes and (Queen) Tentamun are, I gave them the dispatches of Amen-Re, King of the Gods. They had them read out before them and they said: "I will do! I will do as Amun-Re, King of the Gods, our lord, has said."

I stayed until the fourth month of summer in Tanis. Then Smendes and Tentamun sent me off with the ship's captain Mengebet, and I went down upon the great sea of Syria in the first month of summer, day 1.

Similarly, we should not ignore internal developments in the Hittite empire. The Hittite empire was always a rather fragile state and had nearly disappeared permanently around 1350 BCE. To make matters worse, it had been significantly weakened in the 13th century BCE by an extended epidemic and civil war.

To address plague first, according to the deeds of the Hittite king Šuppiluliuma, compiled by his son Muršili II, an unnamed widowed Egyptian queen - probably Ankhesenamun, wife of Tutankhamun - wrote to the Hittite king asking for one of his sons in marriage. Šuppiluliuma was initially suspicious but ultimately relented and sent his son Zannanza, who (probably) died en route. The cause of his death is unknown, but Šuppiluliuma believed it to be treachery on the part of the Egyptians and promptly attacked Egyptian territory. He was victorious and brought back numerous Egyptian prisoners to Ḫatti...as well as an Egyptian plague. Both Šuppiluliuma and his heir, the crown prince Arnuwanda, died of the plague, leaving Šuppiluliuma's younger son Muršili to ascend to the throne as Muršili II. The young king wrote a series of rather beautiful prayers to the gods on the topic.

O Storm God of Ḫatti, my lord! O gods, my lords! Muršili, your servant, has sent me, saying: "Go, speak to the Storm God of Ḫatti, my lord, and to the gods, my lords." What is this that you have done? You have allowed a plague into Ḫatti, so that Ḫatti has been very badly oppressed by the plague. People kept dying in the time of my father, in the time of my brother, and since I have become priest of the gods, they keep dying in my time. For twenty years now people have been dying in Ḫatti. Will the plague never be removed from Ḫatti? I cannot control the worry of my heart. I can no longer control the anguish of my soul.

The epidemic wiped out a large percentage of the labor force upon which the Hittites relied for agricultural production. This in turn forced them to engage in military activities (often unsuccessful or inconclusive ventures) in order to secure prisoners of war that could be brought back to the core of the empire as a source of cheap labor.

As for civil war, the capital of the Hittite empire was moved from Ḫattuša to Tarḫuntašša in the reign of Muwatalli II, the latter of which has not yet been found. The move was likely prompted by a focus on Hittite territory in Syria and fears of Kaška incursions from the north. There may well have been other factors at work, however, and it's noteworthy that new cities were being founded across the ancient Near East around this time, including Per-Ramesses (Egypt), Kar-Tukulti-Ninurta (Assyria), Dur-Kurigalzu (Babylonia), and Al-Untaš-Napiriša (Elam).

Muwatalli was succeeded upon the throne by his son, Urḫi-Teššub, who took the throne name Muršili III. Muršili reversed some of his father's decisions and returned the capital to Ḫattuša. Ḫattušili, a son of Muršili II and the brother of Muwatalli II, grew deeply dissatisfied with the positions to which his nephew Muršili assigned him. Ḫattušili, silently fuming at the perceived indignities perpetrated upon his person, noted in an autobiographical statement that he "submitted for seven years." Muršili III eventually stripped Ḫattušili of his rule of the cities of Ḫakpiš and Nerik, important cultic centers.

He, however, sought my destruction at divine and human behest and he took away from me Ḫakpiš and Nerik. Now I no longer complied and I became hostile to him. But when I became hostile to him, I did not commit a moral offense by revolting against him on the chariot or by revolting against him within his house. No, in a manly way I declared to him: "You opposed me. You are Great King, whereas I am king of the single fortress that you left me. So come! Ištar of Šamuḫa and the Storm God of Nerik will judge us!"