The Lord of the Rings: Gollum | Review Thread

[John Elden Ring]

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Game Information​

Game Title: The Lord of the Rings: Gollum

Platforms:

• PC (May 25, 2023)
• Xbox Series X/S (May 25, 2023)
• PlayStation 5 (May 25, 2023)
• PlayStation 4 (May 25, 2023)
• Xbox One (May 25, 2023)
• Nintendo Switch (May 25, 2023)

Trailers:

• The Lord of the Rings: Gollum | A Split Personality - Cinematic Trailer
• The Lord of the Rings: Gollum | A Unique Promise
• The Lord of the Rings: Gollum - Sneak Peek Trailer

Developer: Daedalic Entertainment

Publisher: Nacon

Review Aggregator:

OpenCritic - 40 average - 4% recommended - 29 reviews

MetaCritic - 38 average - PlayStation 5 - 21 reviews

Critic Reviews​

But Why Tho? - Kyle Foley - 5 / 10

The Lord of the Rings: Gollum is a love letter to a flawed character that shares some flaws of its own. The care and love of Tolkien lore are quite obvious, but it doesn’t always mesh well with the disappointing mechanics and less-than-stellar gameplay.

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CGMagazine - Philip Watson - 5 / 10

The Lord of the Rings: Gollum is a great idea, but a frustrating experience. Non-Tolkien fans should not play this game, and none but the most hardened fans should.

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GGRecon - Dani Cross - 2 / 5

It was always going to be tough to pull off a Gollum game, but there’s simply nothing precious about this amateur stealth adventure.
A general lack of refinement lurks in every shadowy corner of LotR: Gollum, a game disappointingly barren of interesting ideas or substantial gameplay. Even the most loyal Lord of the Rings fans will struggle through it. If you value your time, do yourself a favour and avoid it like the Eye of Sauron.

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GRYOnline.pl - Dariusz Matusiak - Polish - 5.5 / 10

The Lord of the Rings: Gollum has the features of a solid „middle of the road” game. Unfortunately, that’s not the case here. The game is tiring, and I really wish this Gollum had a chance to return – with all his dialog lines, sarcasm, and the Smeagol persona – in a different, much better game.

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GameSpot - Sam Pape - 2 / 10

Daedalic's long-delayed Tolkienian adventure is just as unlikeable and tragic as its namesake protagonist.

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Gameblog - French - 4 / 10

The game is not very good and unfortunately quite boring. We would have liked something more epic on a saga like the Lord of the Rings. It's a pity, especially since the game is full of bugs as it is.

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Gamer Escape - Justin Mercer - 4 / 10

Lord of the Rings: Gollum struggles under its own weight from the word go. Any benefit from a grimmer, more unvarnished look at the characters of Middle-earth from an atypical perspective is immediately undercut by a bevy of technical issues, clunky controls, unexciting game design, and stilted presentation at constant odds with the player.

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GamesRadar+ - Alex Avard - 2 / 5

Much like its title character, The Lord of the Rings: Gollum is compromised, inelegant, and a bit of an eyesore. To everyone except the most fervent of Tolkienites; you shall pass.

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God is a Geek - Chris White - 5 / 10

The Lord of the Rings: Gollum is littered with technical and gameplay issues that dampen the fact that there's a great story at its heart.

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Guardian - Nic Reuben - 1 / 5

A derivative, uninteresting and fundamentally broken stealth action adventure that fails to capture anything interesting about Tolkien's fiction

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Hardcore Gamer - Kevin Dunsmore - 2 / 5

The Lord of the Rings: Gollum could have ushered in a new era of The Lord of the Rings-based games. One that had the daring to fill in Tolkien’s gaps, but still showed respect for the source material. The Lord of the Rings: Gollum isn’t that game. While the story is compelling with a great performance from Smeagol/Gollum, the remainder of the game is a woeful mess. While Daedalic’s vision for Middle-earth is filled with artistic beauty, it’s altogether let down by a terrible technical presentation that’s far behind today’s standards. Ultimately, though, it’s the lack of polish and jankiness that is its undoing. From the myriad gameplay issues that bog down the simple mechanics to the mind-numbing crashes capable of hampering progression, there is little about The Lord of the Rings: Gollum that’s polished or enjoyable. The Lord of the Rings: Gollum crafts a compelling story around Gollum and Smeagol, but it fails to craft a polished, stable or enjoyable gameplay experience. Unfortunately, The Lord of the Rings: Gollum isn’t the Precious we’ve been searching for.

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IGN Italy - Angelo Bianco - Italian - 5.5 / 10

Plagued by several problems and with gameplay far from modern standards, The Lord of the Rings: Gollum is not the third-person adventure that we would have expected from Daedalic Entertainment. Except for the good characterization of the main character and for an overall appreciable plot, the new game of the German software house fails to be convincing and represents a wasted opportunity to offer the right amount of entertainment to all Tolkien fans who have a good passion for video games.

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IGN Spain - David Oña - Spanish - 4 / 10

The Lord of the Rings: Gollum is a stealth, action and platform adventure that has some interesting ideas, but lacks cooking. A video game of classic structure whose gaps are evident both in the narrative, as in the playable, technical and aesthetic.

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Inverse - Joseph Yaden - 3 / 10

The Lord of the Rings: Gollum is a messy and frustrating action platformer set in Middle-earth. ... Most of the gameplay involves platforming and stealth, though neither works very well. Gollum is full of technical problems that make an otherwise unpleasant experience even worse, and the game’s boring story makes it hard to recommend, even to the most hardcore Lord of the Rings fans.

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Nexus Hub - Ryan Pretorius - 6.5 / 10

When I say I did not have a great time roaming around Middle-earth, it’s coming from a place of genuine disappointment and frustration – rather than as a result of any preconceived notions.

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PCGamesN - Anna Koselke - 3 / 10

The Lord of the Rings: Gollum fails to live up to both the Tolkien name and its own potential. From exhausting, repetitive gameplay to a poorly constructed narrative, this is a piece of Middle-earth you should never explore.

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PowerUp! - Jam Walker - 2 / 10

The Lord of The Rings - Gollum is every bit as twisted, nasty, broken and miserable as its protagonist. It is without doubt the most objectively poor and outright broken game that I have ever pushed through to completion. A patch has been promised for launch that may well alleviate some of the technical woes that plague the game, but no amount of fixes can pave over its utterly mediocre overall design. Spend your money on a second breakfast instead.

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Press Start - Steven Impson - 3 / 10

I struggle to think of a positive experience over the thirteen-odd hours I spent playing this game. Gollum is uninspired and dated and The Lord of the Rings fans deserve better than this.

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Push Square - Aaron Bayne - 2 / 10

The Lord of the Rings: Gollum is a broken mess of a game. There are barely any redeeming qualities to be found amidst what can only be described as a massive missed opportunity. There is some serious potential in a single-player linear Lord of the Rings experience like this, but with outrageously dated level design, clunky controls, a severe lack of polish, muddy and unimpressive graphics, and a dull story, Gollum completely misses the mark. As massive fans of the books, films, and games, it's sad to see that there is nothing precious about this experience.

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Rock, Paper, Shotgun - Unscored

It's unfortunate, but The Lord Of The Rings: Gollum fails to expand the world of Middle-earth in any meaningful way. There are glimmers of something good(ish) in there, but it's suffocated by a disjointed story, awkward controls and dull stealth.

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Shacknews - Donovan Erskine - 6 / 10

There’s no doubt in my mind that Lord of the Rings fans will appreciate a lot of what Gollum is offering. It’s genuinely cool seeing such a fascinating side character step into the protagonist role in a story that further expands on a universe teeming with secrets to discover. It’s a bummer that there isn’t much else to write home about. A dull gameplay experience and technical hiccups make The Lord of the Rings: Gollum just as much of a polarizing experience as its main character.

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Spaziogames - Italian - 5 / 10

The Lord of the Rings: Gollum was a bad idea on paper and is an even worse as a game now that we can play it, with a dull and boring plot and a gameplay formula that feels too old to be real in 2023.

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TechRaptor - Brittany Alva - 6.5 / 10

The Lord of the Rings: Gollum is a great game for hardcore Middle-earth fans, but an experience that didn't do Gollum's character justice.

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Tom's Guide - Rory Mellon - 1 / 5

The Lord of the Rings: Gollum is an unwelcome throwback to the era of truly awful licensed games. It looks and plays like a movie tie-in game rushed out to meet a tight deadline. This is baffling as it was one of the first ‘next-gen’ games announced in 2019, and seemingly had a long production period. But even so, it’s a game that conceptually, visually, and technically screams out for additional development time. Patches and updates may squash the bugs. But with core gameplay so dull and lacking, I can't see a saving grace for Gollum.

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Try Hard Guides - Christian Harrison - 5.5 / 10

While LotR: Gollum seems to get all the important names and locations right, the feel and look of the Middle-Earth that many have come to expect isn’t there. The few short entertaining moments aren’t going to be enough to keep anyone’s interest beyond the first hour, with much of the game’s activities after that feeling like an ever-increasing chore.

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Twinfinite - Cameron Waldrop - 1.5 / 5

The Lord of the Rings: Gollum doesn’t do anything fun or interesting like similar (better) games like A Plague Tale: Innocence and Requiem. It’s hard to say if even the most loyal Lord of the Rings fans would actually find something worthwhile here. Considering good Lord of the Rings games exist, this one feels incredibly out of place.

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Wccftech - Ule Lopez - 6.5 / 10

The Lord of the Rings Gollum is a game that has a lot of technical issues that also ultimately drag its presentation back. However, it still is a charming game in its own way with its setting, writing, and some incredible environment design that can catch your breath at times. This game is a cautious recommendation for players that aren't Lord of the Rings enthusiasts.

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We Got This Covered - Dwayne Jenkins - 2 / 5

The Lord of the Rings: Gollum has the ghost of good ideas sprinkled throughout, but they're woefully hindered by dated graphics; stiff, wonky controls; endless bugs, glitches, and crashes; and in-game gimmicks that fail to live up to their lofty ambitions. King Theoden sums it up best: “You have no power here.”

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WellPlayed - Zach Jackson - 3 / 10

With dated design, LotR: Gollum is a slow and tedious slog through Middle Earth that even the staunchest LotR fans will struggle to enjoy.

 

[Satoru]

 

[Vertigo]

Surpasses Redfall for “turd of the year” looks like.

People were actually hyped for this… for years

 

[ethomaz]

What a fail...

 

[Nhomnhom]

Always looked like unredeemable trash. Someone in that company should've watched Cerny talk about the "Method" and the importance of canceling games at the right time.

 

[Satoru]

Always looked like unredeemable trash. Someone in that company should've watched Cerny talk about the "Method" and the importance to cancel games.

They should have offered it to Sony, we'd get a live service game with cartoonish graphics, social commentary, and gollum being environmentally responsible saying that Mordor emits too much CO2.

 

[Systemshock2023]

Looking forward to the EGS giveaway in a couple of months then.