The Lord of the Rings: Gollum poses itself as an epic quest throughout the treacherous realms of Center-earth, the place an interior battle will rage contained in the thoughts of 1 halfling. After all we confer with the split-personality of each Smeagol and Gollum, an integral character throughout each The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings tales. Filling within the blanks between each of these tales, Daedalic’s third-person stealth platformer will allow you to take management of the titular menace as he continues his unending seek for his treasured ring. Sadly, the one treasured factor about our time with Gollum was the hope that someday we might finally end the sport, uninstall it from our PS5, and by no means give it some thought once more.
As you might have been capable of surmise then, we’re not massive followers of The Lord of the Rings: Gollum. Throughout its roughly 10-hour marketing campaign, we have been subjected to among the most dated and disastrously uninteresting stealth and platforming segments that we have seen in a sport in fairly a while. In truth, we did not even get by means of all of the story chapters. 9 chapters in (out of 10), we encountered a sport breaking bug that stalled our development and left us unable to finish the sport earlier than embargo. We reached out to Daedalic Leisure for any assist on this matter, however as of writing are but to listen to again.
By the point this game-breaking bug emerged from the shadows, nevertheless, we have been hardly stunned. That is as a result of from begin to (not fairly) end, we skilled a bevy of bugs that not solely impeded our expertise, however led to a number of sport crashes and contemporary app restarts: catching on invisible objects; getting caught in dying loops; characters disappearing from the sport’s cutscenes; and being unable to work together with important mission objects. Frankly, it is a mess, and it felt like we have been getting a glimpse into what ought to have been an early, early construct of a sport with a determined want for extra time within the oven.
This made it all of the more durable to work by means of the sport’s (virtually) 10 story chapters, which severely lack any sense of selection. Every chapter, which lasts round an hour, consists of a rotation of stealth, platforming, and fetch quest ranges, the place the one actual mix-up is the situation, nevertheless it is not afraid of constructing you retread outdated floor both. No matter whether or not it took us to the fiery pits of Mount Doom, or the Elven kingdom of Mirkwood, it was troublesome to not run into some sort of subject. Typically it was the dodgy controls throughout extended climbing sections that despatched us to our dying time and time once more, and others it was the brutal but mind-numbingly dumb AI in near-instant fail stealth ranges that left us eager to throw our DualSense on the TV, like a rock geared toward Samwise Gamgee’s head. Finally, all of it turns into a fever dream of repetition, not helped by the truth that almost half of its marketing campaign is ready in the identical linear location.
Regardless of its repetition, we have been nonetheless left scratching our heads as to the place to go at occasions. The extent design feels messy in that method, by no means actually main you down a set path. This meant we have been typically leaping for ledges that induced us to double again or land again the place we began. Within the barely extra open ranges, we generally felt like we by accident occurred upon our vacation spot. Some ranges even included a hen’s eye view of the format, the place the digital camera would sweep throughout your supposed route. Now we have a sneaking suspicion this was a characteristic added in later to counter the customarily complicated degree design. Do not get us incorrect, it is by no means maze-like, we all the time usually knew the place we have been speculated to go. Nonetheless, whereas most linear video games really feel virtually pure in your discoveries, Gollum by no means feels fairly proper.
Nonetheless, that brings us onto the IP that the sport is ready inside. The world of J.R.R. Tolkien is stuffed to the brim with fantastical settings and dollops of lore that might probably break by means of even the dullest of gameplay loops. It is a disgrace, then, that Gollum isn’t involved by any means with tapping into that, and in truth does not even really feel like The Lord of the Rings. With the odd look from somebody like Gandalf, or the mere point out of Aragorn, the references inside are so vapid that it feels tailor-made to somebody that had as soon as form of watched the movies whereas they have been on within the background.
Narratively, there’s additionally nothing right here that feels remotely consequential to the broader world. As an alternative, we’re supplied affirmations on occasions that we suspected, main all of it to really feel slightly pointless, like Daedalic wasn’t actually allowed to the touch something too substantial inside the Lord of the Rings universe. Understandably, that is probably extra of a authorized/canonical restriction than one thing that Daedalic must be blamed for, however it’s a disgrace as a result of there was such potential inside this character and setting. We might have cherished to have heard Orcs talk about world occasions, spy intricate particulars referencing facets of the books, or go to locales ripped straight from the movies. However it’s all so bland that it barely feels prefer it’s set inside the similar locations that Sam and Frodo destroyed the One Ring, or a set of Dwarves made their daring barrel-based escape.
The sport does attempt to faucet into mechanics particular to the character of Gollum, just like the intermittent selections you may make which facet with both of his personalities. There’s one thing attention-grabbing there, particularly when it makes you argue your level to persuade both Smeagol or Gollum. It is helped by the efficiency which, whereas Andy Serkis-less, manages to not really feel too by-product, particularly as you compromise into the sport. Nonetheless, like virtually every part else, it does not really feel correctly developed. After a few goes you will steadily realise your selections boil all the way down to the identical end result mechanically. We additionally by no means had a time the place we misplaced an argument to the opposite facet, so the solutions we selected by no means appeared all too vital. Possibly we’re simply actually good at arguing our facet.
The graphical presentation then tops all of it off. In movement it does not look too dangerous, and the sport’s Efficiency Mode maintains a gradual 60 frames per second. Nonetheless, it could actually really be surprising how unpolished and simply outright dangerous every part can look. There are alternatives for a High quality Mode, and a High quality Mode with Ray-Tracing, however the sport crashed a number of occasions on these modes, so we did not expertise them a lot. We perceive that Daedalic won’t have the most important price range for the sport, however every part appears to be like muddy and definitively PS3 period, which is particularly disappointing contemplating how fragmented the degrees are with multitudes of loading screens. It definitely does not really feel like a sport utilising the facility of the PS5, regardless of its first rate use of DualSense haptics.
Conclusion
The Lord of the Rings: Gollum is a damaged mess of a sport. There are barely any redeeming qualities to be discovered amidst what can solely be described as a large missed alternative. There’s some severe potential in a single-player linear Lord of the Rings expertise like this, however with outrageously dated degree design, clunky controls, a extreme lack of polish, muddy and unimpressive graphics, and a uninteresting story, Gollum utterly misses the mark. As large followers of the books, movies, and video games, it is unhappy to see that there’s nothing treasured about this expertise.
