The Lord of the Rings: Gollum has already become the "worst-reviewed game" of 2023 - with our own sister site Push Square calling it a "broken mess of a game", so what now?
The development team has responded to players with "a few words", apologising for the "underwhelming experience" at launch and promising patches are on the way. Here's the full statement (via social media):
Although Gollum is available now on many platforms, it's not actually out on the Switch just yet. It's apparently coming at a "later" date. Maybe by then, the game will be in a more playable state.
You can get a better idea about Gollum's release state in our review round up:
Would you be interested in eventually trying out this game? Comment below.
Comments 61
Color me not shocked.
From what I've seen there's not much they could do to make the game... Y'know..good because the awful tech and controls aren't its only issues.
The gameplay itself looks awful.
Any other industry would recall something that isn't fit for purpose. Honestly, this digital age commercialism isn't that far removed from pushing drugs to addicts. The whole f2p business model is basically asking for change on the streets.
This looked terrible from the very beginning. It's surprising to me that they continued to invest in it and actually released it. Maybe they'll make some money because of the LOTR fan base? Seems unlikely.
The statement reads as if they have been taken by surprise. Surely they conducted play-tests before release? They must have known how poor it was, and yet they still released it. That's what they need to explicitly apologise for, surely? They're apologising for the "inconvenience", when that should have been quite apparent before releasing it?
We apologise for the inconvenience of making a terrible game is an odd sentiment. I mean, it is better than saying nothing at all, but it is the sort of thing a supermarket would put up a note for when having trouble stocking tomatoes due to supply problems.
@Ooyah they're not a particularly large team, not a whole lot more than 50 or so people afaik, I wouldn't be surprised if they legitimately didn't see (m)any issues with the game because the stuff I saw mentioned in reviews and in footage of the game looks like they...TRIED to translate what worked for them in their point and click games into 3D. At least if all of the puzzles are as obscure and strange as an example for early gameplay skillup (or whatever his name on YouTube is) used to showcase how odd the game plays and feels.
Just play their old adventure games and leave gollum aside. They are awesome, especially the Deponia series
Damn this game really wants to compete with Forspoken on which was the biggest pile of crap for the year.
Anyway hooray for more South Park levels of corporate “We are sorry” while counting their moneys.
Ah, the classic Finish it later™. Excellent!
I'm sure they were aiming for a whelming experience.
They're not sorry at all have you seen the state of the game? Whoever authorised it to be released should be sacked and every person buying it should be refunded, yes both of them.
Why would anyone want to play an entire game as Gollum?
Because generic copy-paste corporate apologies always make everything alright.
Why did the knuckleheads even bother releasing it then?
AAA publishers release a game without massive issues at launch challenge (impossible)
@carlos82 "both of them" made me laugh 😃
Apologie not accepted! The game isn't just a performance issue, the entire thing is utter rubbish.
The project should have been shot down the second someone said "play the whole game as gollum". How did we get to this point? Who invested in this?! They're losing their money for sure.
Do not expect this studio to be around much longer at all.
Typoing the name of their own game in the first sentence is the icing on the cake. "The Lord of Ring: Gollum".
According to the reviews, even if you look past the bugs the game itself is just rubbish. EA and WB made decent Lord of the Rings games, should have just left the licence with one of them.
Entire game Gollum , Gollum face change , Gollum Parkour , Gollum steath , Gollum 0 battle ??
But you still released it
Enough with the "release now fix later mentality." I hate a lot of things about modern gaming but that practice is the thing I loathe the most.
They can be sorry sure, but it sure doesn’t Change the fact they got paid and they got money, some things I get, maybe you just didn’t have enough time, maybe you missed a bug or two, but oh my goodness, if you have seen the game, there is no way they missed it.
It sucks because I actually was looking forward to it, but the game itself, just isn’t good.
This is why i never buy a game at launch
I'm still tempted with this but will wait for a sale. From what I've seen its not that bad, just a little simple which I guess in today's standards isn't good enough. Graphically/sounds it's ok too. I reckon it's stil worth a shout, especially if the Devs are going to improve things more.
Sad as this is and honourable as the apology might be, Daedalic are not a bunch of amateurs cooking some pie in the sky fan project up from their basement. They've been in this industry long enough to know the score, and their product was always going to be unacceptable to launch in the state it's in. I wish them every success in fixing the game, but this is wholly a mess of their own making.
@GrailUK
i think one of the closest things i can remember is when Cyberpunk (or even outright removed) from the PlayStation store for a while, Normally im not a fan of delisting but when a game is broken i can see the benefit of having it unavailable to purchase until its in a decent enough state.
This is why I still haven't started Pokemon scarlet🤣. On a serious note they should honestly just leave the game as is cancel the switch version and move on with their lives. Although I can't help but feel there about to go under after this...
@Arawn93 I actually enjoyed Forspoken, it reminded me a lot of BotW where there was very little story but loads of cool powers you could mess around with in an open world setting.
Did I eventually get bored, yep. But I also got bored of the Switch Zeldas for the same reason.
It's just too little too late
A little too wrong, and I can't wait
But you know all the right things to say
They weren't sorry enough not to release it as a full-priced unfinished product though, just remember that.
Wouldnt surprise me in the slightest if the Switch release was cancelled, depending how far along they are
It's not the bugs, it's a poorly made game. As the saying goes; You can't polish a turd. The biggest offence for me is Gollums horrible voice actor.
@Arawn93 I don't they even made much money with this game. It must be an even bigger flop than Forspoken.
Germans can't do good Movies nor Games, they have a really strange Mindset in those Industries and i guess Gatekeeping People.
I honestly never had much excitement for this game once gameplay footage emerged. No loss IMO if the Switch version never happens.
@Azuris Thats not true at all. There are a lot of fantastic german movies and games. For example, one of the best games out there at all: Anno 1800.
It’s too bad. A 10 hour adventure game would’ve been a better take with Gollum, I think.
The countless delays makes it obvious they had no good way to turn this ship around.
Should’ve figured this out during pre production.
Never really thought the existence of this game was all that great of an idea to begin with.
This is getting ridiculous… isn’t that like, three studios apologising for the state of games within what, a month?
A few thoughts: I’m not sure this is a good example for the stereotypical “corporates” and their “greed”, simply because it’s actually a small and inexperienced developer. The game does not look lazy or like a cash-in. I think they just bit off more than they could chew.
And on the gameplay and how it’s being reviewed as being behind the times: I think there still is an audience for old school, linear, slow-paced adventure games.
BUT I haven’t played it. And if the controls are awkward it’s not going to be fun, that’s for sure.
This is why modern gaming really sucks. You really have to wait until the game finally is playable, even if the game is on the market for months.
No one is checking for this game on Switch. Not that it would look or run any better. Might as well just cancel it and cut their loses and focus on fixing what they already put out.
@Reaast Downfall, Lives of others, M. What a foolish comment. And I love hating on Germans.
The state of the game is a problem sure, but the game itself seems to be the real problem. According to reviews it is based on outdated design and that isn't something you can just simply patch. I think we all saw this coming when it comes to this game though.
They spelt the title wrong in the apology note lol. The Lord of ring: gollum
@Azuris
Dude Stalingrad and Der Untergang are two of the best World War II movies ever made. And they were both German productions.
would be nice if they made a lotr game where we play as sauron to conquer middle earth.
having seen the ps5 disaster i think they should cancel the switch port or re name it troll 2 lol
Everyone was telling you all it was a bad idea from conception, but you plowed forward anyway for some reason. We all warned you.
When companies do this with games (including those that have day 1 patches) we should be treated as testers… we are unpaid testers.
@Ooyah Game dev "crunch" sometimes dooms games because while the devs were probably fans of the property and excited to make something good, the release date is set too early - most devs probably knew it wasn't up to their standards and some probably pushed to try and get the release date delayed, but that doesn't happen, the devs are pushed to work ungodly hours and nothing great can be made in that environment.
The way IP licenses work, they may have had their backs against the wall. The license could have a condition that they release a title by a set time period or they face a penalty, or worse, lose the license completely. If that was the case, they had to release the game no matter how bad it was. Yes, it's still a horrible practice to release and patch later. They are also likely under an NDA so they can't disclose this either.
Company: Takes your money for a crap product.
Also company: Thanks for the cash. No refunds. Soz lolz.
Other words would require a more powerful Switch with 4k/dlss to handle the graphics demand.
Trying my best not to be cynical on this one. The Tolkien fan in me is crying out for Gollum on Switch. The realist wants to kill it with fire.
Update - it got 0/10 in Digitally Downloaded
Our sunday evening win
Theres no way the devs didnt know the game wasnt ready for release, they thought they could be sneaky and release an unfinished game.
Was that wrong? Should I not have done that?
They misspelled "awful"
Patches won't fix bad gameplay.
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