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. In fact we check 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 endless seek for his treasured ring. Sadly, the one treasured factor about our time with Gollum was the hope that at some point we might finally end the sport, uninstall it from our PS5, and by no means give it some thought once more.
As you will have been in a position to surmise then, we’re not huge 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 boring stealth and platforming segments that we have seen in a recreation in fairly a while. In actual fact, we did not even get by way of all of the story chapters. 9 chapters in (out of 10), we encountered a recreation 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, nonetheless, 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 recreation 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 very 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 recreation with a determined want for extra time within the oven.
This made it all of the tougher to work by way of the sport’s (nearly) 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quest ranges, the place the one actual mix-up is the situation, but it surely is not afraid of creating you retread outdated floor both.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. Ultimately, 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 instances. The extent design feels messy in that approach, by no means actually main you down a set path. This meant we have been usually leaping for ledges that triggered us to double again or land again the place we began. Within the barely extra open ranges, we generally felt like we by chance occurred upon our vacation spot. Some ranges even included a chook’s eye view of the structure, the place the digital camera would sweep throughout your supposed route. We have now a sneaking suspicion this was a characteristic added in later to counter the usually complicated stage design. Do not get us improper, it is by no means maze-like, we all the time usually knew the place we have been alleged to go. Nevertheless, whereas most linear video games really feel nearly pure in your discoveries, Gollum by no means feels fairly proper.
Nevertheless, that brings us onto the IP that the sport is ready inside. The world of J.R.R. Tolkien is crammed to the brim with fantastical settings and dollops of lore that might probably break by way of even the dullest of gameplay loops. It is a disgrace, then, that Gollum just isn’t involved in any way with tapping into that, and in truth would 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 type 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 relatively pointless, like Daedalic wasn’t actually allowed to the touch something too substantial throughout the Lord of the Rings universe. Understandably, that is probably extra of a authorized/canonical restriction than one thing that Daedalic ought to be blamed for, however it’s a disgrace as a result of there was such potential inside this character and setting. We’d have beloved 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. Nevertheless it’s all so bland that it barely feels prefer it’s set throughout the similar locations that Sam and Frodo destroyed the One Ring, or a group 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 fascinating 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 spinoff, particularly as you agree into the sport. Nevertheless, like nearly the whole lot else, it would not really feel correctly developed. After a few goes you may steadily realise your selections boil right down to the identical consequence 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 necessary. Possibly we’re simply actually good at arguing our facet.
The graphical presentation then tops all of it off. In movement it would not look too unhealthy, and the sport’s Efficiency Mode maintains a gentle 60 frames per second. Nevertheless, it will probably really be stunning how unpolished and simply outright unhealthy the whole lot can look. There are alternatives for a High quality Mode, and a High quality Mode with Ray-Tracing, however the recreation crashed a number of instances 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 the whole lot appears to be like muddy and definitively PS3 period, which is very disappointing contemplating how fragmented the degrees are with multitudes of loading screens. It actually would not really feel like a recreation utilising the facility of the PS5, regardless of its respectable use of DualSense haptics.
Conclusion
The Lord of the Rings: Gollum is a damaged mess of a recreation. There are barely any redeeming qualities to be discovered amidst what can solely be described as a large missed alternative. There may be some critical potential in a single-player linear Lord of the Rings expertise like this, however with outrageously dated stage design, clunky controls, a extreme lack of polish, muddy and unimpressive graphics, and a boring story, Gollum fully misses the mark. As huge followers of the books, movies, and video games, it is unhappy to see that there’s nothing treasured about this expertise.
