Don your horned helmet and furry armor and prepare to step back into Middle-Earth as German studio, Daedalic Entertainment, work hard behind the scenes to bring us a vastly promising title from the Lord of the Rings universe.
Reveal trailers, despite their namesake, don’t really reveal too much. What immediately does become apparent, however, is that we will finally have the opportunity to play as the strange little fella, whom we all know -and occasionally love) as Gollum.
Stealth seems to be Key
Anyone that has had the pleasure of sitting down to enjoy the Lord of the Rings movies will know about Gollum/Smeagol. His tendency to hide in the shadows, muttering to himself is “his thing”. Knowing this, tells us that a whole game dedicated to the confused cretin will heavily feature on the stealth side of things. Gollum (or Smeagol, dependent on his current mood), will also open-up the character and hopefully show a little more of his backstory to his many fans.
Daedalic Entertainment is Treading Unfamiliar Waters
Made famous by The Dark Eye point-and-click series, Daedalic Entertainment are taking bold leaps into the relatively unknown abyss of AAA games. That isn’t to say that they haven’t stepped from their comfort zone in the past. As late as early 2020, Daedalic released to the gaming public, The Suicide of Rachel Foster, which went on to garner masses of PC-gaming fans.
With this in mind, we shouldn’t worry too much about the absence of industry giants, Warner Bros, in the light of this release. Daedalic Entertainment have indeed proven themselves competent in the past, and I’m more than confident that they will pull something special out of the bag; after all, all eyes are on them. After all, there is a huge fan base to make happy.
The Lord of the Rings: Gollum will Support Ray Tracing and DualSense 5 Features
Keeping in with the times and making the most of up-to-date technology, Daedalic Entertainment will be pulling out all the stops in a bid to make TLotR: Gollum a truly immersive experience. With ray-tracing featuring in all supporting versions (PS5, Xbox Series X and the Xbox Series S), new-generation gamers are in for a treat. Furthermore, the soon-to-be gargantuan team are set to make the most of the PlayStation 5’s DualSense features. It will be interesting to see how they will integrate such technology into the game. Speaking to PlayStation Magazine back in 2020, Daedical Entertainment developer, Jonas Husges, hinted that the haptic triggers will be used to amplify the fatigue of Gollum as he progresses through the game; becoming less responsive the more tired Gollum becomes; quite an interesting approach and it will be interesting to see how this translates to actual gameplay.
Release Date and Platforms
Daedical Entertainment first announced The Lord of the Rings: Gollum as far back as 2019. Despite this, we still don’t have a solid release date, although I would expect it to be as far in the future as 2022. The game is a confirmed current-generation title; meaning it will only be released on the PC, the PlayStation 5 and the Xbox Series X/S. While this doesn’t sound too promising for owners of the older consoles, it does tell us that DE are looking to use as much hardware as possible; and when has that ever been a bad thing?
Conclusion
As a massive fan of the Lord of the Rings franchise, I’m really looking forward to the release of this title. Past LotR games have always left a lasting impression on me and to finally get to play as Gollum is a huge carrot to dangle for me. I just hope they don’t take a premise that’s bursting with so much opportunity and cast the whole franchise into the fiery pits of Mordor.