2023 has already given us some bad flops. Between postponed releases, huge day-one patches and questionable monetization systems, many gamers are frustrated. With The Lord of the Rings: Gollum (PC, PS, Xbox) there is now a game that can eclipse the previous disappointments.
What kind of game is this? The Lord of the Rings: Gollum is an action game by the Hamburg developer studio Daedalic Entertainment. Adventure fans know them mainly from point’n’click titles like the Edna duology, The Whispered World or the Deponia series.
Gollum was announced in 2019 and was supposed to be released in 2021. After a postponement, the release took place today, May 25, 2023. And it’s already secured a spot as the worst-rated game of the year — so far, at least, as the year still has quite a few releases ahead of it.
The Lord of the Ring: Gollum – Sneak Peek Trailer
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Broken and full of bugs
What’s up with the new Lord of the Rings game? 2023 hasn’t necessarily been the gaming year par excellence so far: From the questionable humor in Forspoken to the performance at the launch of Star Wars: Jedi Survivor to pretty much everything about Redfall, quite a few games crash-landed at launch.
But Gollum can once again undercut the devastating Metacritic scores of the titles mentioned. It’s currently in the red with a rating of 38 for PS5 and 43 for PC. And that in an industry where a score of 60 is already considered pretty bad.
What are the ratings like? Reviews on Metacritic range from 20 to 70, with the latter standing pretty much alone so far. We’ve rounded up some of the worst reviews for you:
Our colleagues from GameStar even had such big technical problems that they couldn’t even write a review. The GamePro was able to bite through, it says: Fans don’t deserve that.
The only exception is IGN Adria with a score of 70 points:
Surprisingly competent 3D stealth platformer that has managed to accurately portray one of the most famous anti-heroes in the world of fantasy entertainment. Despite its underdeveloped visual presentation, it’s still one of those rare Lord of the Rings games worth playing.
IGN Adria via Metacritic
It remains to be seen whether the ratings can recover once some of the bugs are fixed. However, given the criticism of almost every important element such as mechanics, story and graphics, it seems rather unlikely that Gollum will develop into a success.
The price shouldn’t exactly help to improve sentiment either. Finally, while Gollum could be conceded that it doesn’t have the budget of an AAA title, at €50 (€60 for the Collector’s Edition) the new LotR game isn’t exactly an indie bargain either.
It doesn’t help much that the developers did everything right, at least with the name of the special edition:
German developers find only right name for Collector’s Edition of their new Lord of the Rings game