The Lord Of The Rings: Gollum – how is it worse than Crime Boss: Rockay City? (Picture: Nacon)



Now that the internet’s torn it a new one, the studio behind the recent Lord Of The Rings game has pledged to fix all its problems.



After the overstated failings of Redfall , the internet has found a new punching bag in the form of The Lord Of The Rings: Gollum , and in this case the vitriol is entirely deserved.



We’d feel bad for it and developer Daedelic Entertainment if the criticisms and mockery wasn’t justified. Even the Metacritic score of 40 feels too high for it, with not a single green positive review in sight.



Easily the biggest issue the game suffers is its cavalcade of bugs and glitches, rendering it near unplayable. As such, Daedelic has publicly apologised for the state it launched in and pledged to fix them with patches.



‘We would like to sincerely apologise for the underwhelming experience many of you have had with The Lord Of The Rings: Gollum upon its release,’ it reads.



‘We acknowledge and deeply regret that the game did not meet the expectations we set for ourselves or for our dedicated community.



It also describes the project as ‘the greatest honour – and the biggest challenge we have faced so far,’ which isn’t inaccurate. Daedelic is only a small studio that’s primarily worked on niche point ‘n’ click games.



This is its first time working with such a globally recognised IP, and it is rather sad that this is how it turned out.





A few words from the ” The Lord of the Rings: Gollumâ„¢ ” team pic.twitter.com/adPamy5EjO — The Lord of the Rings: Gollum (@GollumGame) May 26, 2023





The studio promises transparent communication on further updates and patches, telling Eurogamer , in a separate statement, that the first one should arrive tomorrow.



Unfortunately, no amount of patches will fix the shallow and repetitive gameplay, which highlights that its very concept was flawed to begin with.



Shockingly, according to German website Games Wirtschaft , Daedalic has already received funds – €2 million (over £1,700,000) to be exact – from Germany’s Ministry of Economic Affairs for a second Lord Of The Rings title.



No details were shared, but it’s currently codenamed *It’s Magic* and development is expected to be complete by the second half of 2024.



The project was obviously commissioned long before the Gollum game came out, so it remains to be seen if Daedalic still has the go ahead to finish its next project. If so, we can only pray it’s an improvement. It could hardly be worse.









mail  [email protected] , leave a comment below,  follow us on Twitter , and  sign-up to our newsletter .





MORE : Redfall is being review bombed because of bugs and performance issues







MORE : Crime Boss: Rockay City review – the worst game of 2023







MORE : Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom had a year of polish to remove bugs reveals Nintendo





Follow Metro Gaming on  Twitter  and email us at  [email protected]



To submit Inbox letters and Reader’s Features more easily, without the need to send an email, just use our  Submit Stuff page here .



For more stories like this,  check our Gaming page .
Sign up to all the exclusive gaming content, latest releases before they're seen on the site. Sign up Privacy Policy »