The Lord of the Rings: Gollum Reviews
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.
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.
Review in Italian | Read full review
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.
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.
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.
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.
A derivative, uninteresting and fundamentally broken stealth action adventure that fails to capture anything interesting about Tolkien's fiction
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.
Review in Polish | Read full review
For all its many flaws, LOTR: Gollum is an oft-beautiful and oddly endearing adventure.
A strong sense of character is let down by poor controls, fiddly implementation, and bugs.
The Lord of the Rings: Gollum manages to appropriate the best features of one of the best and most complex characters created within an unquestioned mythology, but a limited aesthetic representation of the world surrounding it and sloppy movement systems prevent the the game from being as precious as it should be.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
The Lord of the Rings: Gollum is a confusing and unfocused experience. The game tries to be an adventure title with stealth mechanics but attempts to mix in a variety of other features that simply do not go together very well. This is a pity because Daedalic Entertainment tried, but failed to build a Gollum faithful to Tolkien's works, placing him in a narrative context that struggles to pick up pace, being really interesting only in the first few hours of play. Between a visual impact anchored to two generations ago and various technical issues, Nacon's ambitious video game is unfortunately a bitter disappointment that does not offer the proper value to the prestigious Lord of the Rings license.
Review in Italian | Read full review
The Lord of the Rings Gollum is a game that came out of time. the title almost never convinces in any of its aspects, resulting in many parts frustrating. the game optimization itself never manages to be stable making it difficult to play.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Just like Gollum, I'm a bit split. The Lord of the Rings: Gollum features a great story that adds to the lore, along with a terrific stealth system, but it misses the mark in other areas. A finicky and redundant platforming system, mixed with a dialogue system that lacks bite makes for a combination that drags the rest down. Gollum is always so close to The Ring, but ever so far.
Despite being presented as a lonely creature, Gollum gets more attention than he might deserve in The Lord of the Rings: Gollum. With average by-the-books platforming and stealth gameplay, there actually is a thoughtful and engaging story at the heart of Gollum. It's up to fans of the genre to decide whether time spent on ordinary gameplay is worth experiencing Gollum's history.
The Lord of the Rings: Gollum was conceptually a game with some promise, but from what I've seen so far, it's a mediocre and messy experience that doesn't really come together into a cohesive whole. That is, of course, before coming to the bugs, the crashes and the game-breaking progression issues that make it impossible to complete at this time. Considering that I was actually looking forward to this, this one really stings.
The Lord of the Rings: Gollum is filled with dull stealth, bad platforming, and a pointless story, and does little to justify why anyone should take the time to play it.
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.
Review in French | Read full review
The Lord of the Rings: Gollum is often a nasty fried potato, even for great Lord of the Rings fans.
Review in German | Read full review