When it was announced in 2019, The Lord of the Rings: Gollum was immediately met with a curious reaction from fans. The Lord of the Rings franchise has a long and mostly great history of video game adaptations, but a game that puts players squarely in the shoes of a character like Gollum was not exactly something fans had ever envisioned happening.
After getting a chance to go hands-on with the game at PAX East 2023, it’s clear that the team at Daedalic Entertainment has taken a creative approach to telling a The Lord of the Rings story. Unfortunately, that story might be lost to players thanks to some lackluster gameplay.
Like its name suggests, The Lord of the Rings: Gollum is mainly centered around players having to sneak around as Gollum and get through various levels without being spotted by Orcs. In order to successfully do this, users have a variety of options at their disposal, including the ability to hide in tall grass, distract guards, or taking down enemies. At its core, however, is a pretty standard rotation of “run and hide, then sneak out” gameplay, with little room for more the types of complex problem-solving that the best stealth games have, at least in the early sections.
Due to the game being almost entirely focused on stealth, Daedalic has also implemented some other platforming mechanics into the game, such as giving Gollum the ability to briefly sprint, run up short walls, climb, and even wall run on certain terrain. While the added mechanics do a good enough job breaking up the monotony of crawling around, the traversal doesn’t fit the character in a few ways. Not only does running up sheer cliffs like an assassin from Assassin’s Creed seem out of place for a weak creature who has to always hide to cheat death, it makes him seem more capable than he is in the stealth parts. They are different skill sets, but they still feel unequal.
Outside of core gameplay, dialogue is very important to not only the character of Gollum, but The Lord of the Rings: Gollum, as well. Certain areas of the game will present Gollum with a variety of choices, each of which have their own consequences. In perhaps the most appealing mechanic in the demo, The Lord of the Rings: Gollum also features a morality system of sorts.
After being presented with a choice and then picking a side, players are then tasked with literally arguing the merits of the choice to themselves. Presented as Gollum’s dual personalities (Gollum and Sméagol) arguing with one another, you must essentially “convince” yourself that the choice you made is right.
It’s an unexpected feature in a game like this, and it does a fantastic job sticking to the traits of Gollum that any fan of The Lord of the Rings knows. However, it’s unclear just how often or important these moments will be. According to a member of Daedalic’s communications team, the ending of the game doesn’t allow for too much wiggle room, but the path to get there will have variance depending on what players choose.
When The Lord of the Rings: Gollum was first revealed, one thing that fans immediately noticed was how different Gollum looked compared to other iterations. Going with a seemingly more cartoonish take on the character, fans were curious what the rest of the game would look like. However, it thankfully looks a lot better in motion and when it isn’t being cut up into clips.
Unlike Gollum — who is more stylized and looks like he was put through a weird Snapchat filter — the rest of the game looks on par for a modern-day title. Daedalic has done a great job at capturing the atmosphere of The Lord of the Rings. Whether it be crawling through dimly lit caves, walking through a fortress in Mordor, or passing under the watchful Eye of Sauron, it looks as feels like a dirty and dangerous world. This is how it should be and feels like an honest translation of Tolkien’s work. Even though Gollum himself does still tend to look a bit jarring when the camera catches him just right, other characters in the game are also slightly stylized, but thankfully not to the degree that Gollum is.
Of course, a game based on author J.R.R. Tolkien’s iconic works would be nothing without its story, and this is where The Lord of the Rings: Gollum has a chance to shine. It is set somewhere in the 60-year period between The Hobbit and the beginning of The Lord of the Rings series, The Fellowship of the Ring. From the little we know of the story, the game will follow Gollum as he escapes from Orcs at the end of The Hobbit and continues on his journey looking for The One Ring, his precious. It’s a story that has gone largely untold in the greater world of The Lord of The Rings.
Because of the generally unknown nature of Gollum’s adventures, the game has the opportunity to deliver a short tale — Daedalic has said it is about 20 hours long in an effort to tell the best story possible — that’s unique and fits neatly into The Lord of the Rings canon. This includes showing off characters that were more or less unknown previously, like The Mouth of Sauron, someone who doesn’t appear much in any other adaptations, but will feature somewhat heavily in this title.
A relatively brief demo can’t provide enough context for the story, but it was clear that Daedalic had a love for the story and world of The Lord of the Rings. The atmosphere is presented beautifully, characters talk and act like you’d expect them to, and there seems to be an interesting story to be told here. However, the biggest questions plaguing the game are whether or not it will be enjoyable enough to play through in order to get to that story.
Those are big questions that have yet to be answered. Even in a limited demo, The Lord of the Rings: Gollum‘s simple stealth and traversal gameplay systems weren’t promising. But they might not have to hold up the entire experience if the intriguing premise is able to come through and provide a look into this mostly unexplored part of the fiction. It’s a lot to ask, but a game set in The Lord of the Rings‘ world deserves at least that if the gameplay doesn’t hold up.
