Why ‘The Lord of the Rings: Gollum’ Deserves a One-Way Ticket to Mount Doom

game reviewAlthough the film adaptation of ‘The Lord of The Rings’ is already twenty (20!) years old, the franchise continues to appeal to the imagination. For those who have been living under a rock for the past few years: the story is about the hobbit Frodo who, together with his companions, must bring the ring to Mordor to throw it into the fires of Mount Doom. They’d better have included the plans for ‘Gollum’ as well, then at least we would have been spared one of the least successful forays into the Tolkien universe.

In ‘Gollum’ you take on the unappetizing skin of – you guessed it – Gollum, the unfortunate hobbit who got hold of the Ring and then lost it again, with all the consequences for his mental and physical health. The story of the game takes place parallel to the events of ‘The Fellowship of the Ring’, but from the point of view of Gollum who is on the trail of the Ring.

Since the main character is a weak shadow of a hobbit, it wouldn’t make much sense to suddenly drop him into an action game, so developer Daedalic Entertainment chose to make Gollum a stealth adventure. So as Gollum you sneak through the shadows instead of confronting, although you also have a sneaky instant kill available to kill unsuspecting enemies. In addition, just like in the source material, Gollum is also an adept climber, so you can also look higher up if the ground floor seems too hot under your feet. It all sounds like a cool concept for a fun game, until you actually start playing it.

Crash, bang, boom

To put it straight: ‘Gollum’ doesn’t work. Or rather: ‘Gollum’ doesn’t work for long. Because every so often the game will simply crash your console for no apparent reason. It can’t possibly be the graphics that push your PS5 to its limits, as at their best they could just pass for a late PlayStation 3 title.

What’s more: if you’re a bit unlucky, the game even crashes in such a way that you immediately lose your save data and have to start all over again. Not that a sane person would do that, because there is a lot of fun even when the game does not falter and unfortunately cannot be experienced.

No variation

‘Gollum’ is an extremely linear game. That in itself is not a problem, of course, as long as there is enough variation in the missions and levels. Spoiler: there is no such variation. Everything feels like you’ve done it a hundred times before, in much better games too. And although it seemed like an interesting concept to base a game on an atypical character like Gollum, it soon becomes clear why the band opts for more athletic types: Gollum is as fragile as a wet sheet of paper and has hardly any stamina. That makes the gameplay not so much challenging, but especially frustrating.

Pros

Is there nothing positive to say about ‘Gollum’? Still, the soundtrack and voice work are excellent. Just like in the movies, Gollum/Smeagol regularly argues with his alter ego and although the voice actor is clearly not Andy Serkis, he manages to raise the level of the game a bit on his own. In the more epic scenes, the music also fits in nicely with the bombastic compositions you are used to from the ‘Lord of the Rings’ films.

Conclusion

‘Gollum’ has unfortunately become the chronicle of an announced failure. A game that has raised more and more eyebrows with every trailer since the project was revealed in 2019 with questionable graphics and gameplay that seemed stuck in the mid-2000s. Unfortunately, the end result has become even worse, because the countless bugs and crashes destroy all the fun. Maybe patches can fix this in the long run, but in its current state ‘Gollum’ is definitely not worth the asking price.