The Lord of the Rings: Gollum

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Critics Recommend

Average Score

Total Reviews: 39

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What a letdown. The Lord of the Rings: Gollum has some interesting ideas, but it’s a messy experience with dull stealth, bad controls, terrible AI, outdated visuals, performance issues, and an utterly pointless story. This is one of the worst mainstream games of 2023.

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Critics Recommend

Critic Reviews: 39

Critics Consensus

# Reviews: 39

What a letdown. The Lord of the Rings: Gollum has some interesting ideas, but it's a messy experience with dull stealth, bad controls, terrible AI, outdated visuals, performance issues, and an utterly pointless story. This is one of the worst mainstream games of 2023.

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Critic Reviews for The Lord of the Rings: Gollum

Critic Reviews

Score Distribution

39

Reviews

Average Score - 42/100

42%

Ranges

1/10

GameCentral (Metro GameCentral)

Broken beyond belief but also a fundamentally bad idea for a video game, with inanely shallow and repetitive gameplay – Gollum is not only the worst mainstream game of the year but of the last two generations.

May 26, 2023 |

Full Review

The Lord of the Rings: Gollum is a commendable game for Daedalic’s effort to tell a totally original story in Middle-earth mixing stealth mechanics and platforming, but it makes water on almost all sides: imprecise controls, terrible AI, insipid narrative, outdated level design and graphics from another generation.

May 25, 2023 |

Full Review

55/100

Javier Escribano (Hobby Consolas)

1/5 stars

Nic Reuben (Guardian)

A derivative, uninteresting and fundamentally broken stealth action adventure that fails to capture anything interesting about Tolkien’s fiction.

May 25, 2023 |

Full Review

GameCentral (Metro GameCentral)

1/10 - (Read Review)

Javier Escribano (Hobby Consolas)

55/100 - (Read Review)

Nic Reuben (Guardian)

1/5 stars - (Read Review)

A derivative, uninteresting and fundamentally broken stealth action adventure that fails to capture anything interesting about Tolkien’s fiction.

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Read the Reviews (39 total)

Outlet	Author	Score	Date	Quote	Read
ACG	Jeremy Penter	Not Recommended	05-25-2023	“A mess from start to finish. This is truly tators.”	Read review
But Why Tho?	Kyle Foley	5 / 10	05-25-2023	The Lord of the Rings: Gollum is a love letter to a flawed character that shares some flaws of its own. The care and love of Tolkien lore are quite obvious, but it doesn’t always mesh well with the disappointing mechanics and less-than-stellar gameplay.	Read review
CGMagazine	Philip Watson	5 / 10	05-25-2023	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.	Read review
Checkpoint Gaming	Bree Maybe	2 / 10	05-26-2023	The Lord of the Rings: Gollum is a buggy mess, even disregarding the constant crashes. Not only that, but it is a game void of any personality, originality, or bravery. It attempts nothing new and falls back on tropes that started falling out of style years ago, while somehow still managing to replicate them poorly. It disappoints me not just as a fan of the Lord of the Rings, but also as a fan of video games in general.	Read review
Digitally Downloaded	Matt Sainsbury	2.5 / 5 stars	05-26-2023	This is a problem across the entire games industry and far too much of the work it produces. What makes Gollum stand out is that most other developers and publishers then use their creative teams to try and hide the crass cynicism and capitalism. Daedalic didn’t bother with Gollum. This game represents the games industry with its mask off.	Read review
Eurogamer	Christian Donlan	Not Recommended	05-25-2023	A strong sense of character is let down by poor controls, fiddly implementation, and bugs.	Read review
Gameblog	Camille Allard	4 / 10	05-25-2023	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.	Read review
GamePro	Dennis Michel	60 / 100	05-25-2023	The Lord of the Rings: Gollum is often a nasty fried potato, even for great Lord of the Rings fans.	Read review
Gamer Escape	Justin Mercer	4 / 10	05-25-2023	Lord of the Rings: Gollum struggles under its own weight from the word go. Any benefit from a grimmer, more unvarnished look at the characters of Middle-earth from an atypical perspective is immediately undercut by a bevy of technical issues, clunky controls, unexciting game design, and stilted presentation at constant odds with the player.	Read review
GameSpot	Sam Pape	2 / 10	05-25-2023	Daedalic’s long-delayed Tolkienian adventure is just as unlikeable and tragic as its namesake protagonist.	Read review
GamesRadar+	Alex Avard	2 / 5 stars	05-25-2023	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.	Read review
GamingBolt	Chris Hinton	5 / 10	05-25-2023	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.	Read review
GamingTrend	David Burdette	70 / 100	05-25-2023	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.	Read review
God is a Geek	Chris White	5 / 10	05-25-2023	The Lord of the Rings: Gollum is littered with technical and gameplay issues that dampen the fact that there’s a great story at its heart.	Read review
GRYOnline.pl	Dariusz Matusiak	5.5 / 10	05-25-2023	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.	Read review
Guardian	Nic Reuben	1 / 5 stars	05-25-2023	A derivative, uninteresting and fundamentally broken stealth action adventure that fails to capture anything interesting about Tolkien’s fiction	Read review
Hardcore Gamer	Kevin Dunsmore	2 / 5 stars	05-25-2023	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.	Read review
Hobby Consolas	Javier Escribano	55 / 100	05-25-2023	The Lord of the Rings: Gollum is a commendable game for Daedalic’s effort to tell a totally original story in Middle-earth mixing stealth mechanics and platforming, but it makes water on almost all sides: imprecise controls, terrible AI, insipid narrative, outdated level design and graphics from another generation.	Read review
IGN	Justin Koreis	4 / 10	05-25-2023	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.	Read review
IGN Italy	Angelo Bianco	5.5 / 10	05-25-2023	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.	Read review
IGN Spain	David Oña	4 / 10	05-25-2023	The Lord of the Rings: Gollum is a stealth, action and platform adventure that has some interesting ideas, but lacks cooking. A video game of classic structure whose gaps are evident both in the narrative, as in the playable, technical and aesthetic.	Read review
Metro GameCentral	GameCentral	1 / 10	05-26-2023	Broken beyond belief but also a fundamentally bad idea for a video game, with inanely shallow and repetitive gameplay	Read review
PC Gamer	Dominic Tarason	64 / 100	05-25-2023	For all its many flaws, LOTR: Gollum is an oft-beautiful and oddly endearing adventure.	Read review
PCGamesN	Anna Koselke	3 / 10	05-25-2023	The Lord of the Rings: Gollum fails to live up to both the Tolkien name and its own potential. From exhausting, repetitive gameplay to a poorly constructed narrative, this is a piece of Middle-earth you should never explore.	Read review
PowerUp!	Jam Walker	2 / 10	05-25-2023	The Lord of The Rings	Read review
Press Start	Steven Impson	3 / 10	05-25-2023	I struggle to think of a positive experience over the thirteen-odd hours I spent playing this game. Gollum is uninspired and dated and The Lord of the Rings fans deserve better than this.	Read review
PSX Brasil	Paulo Roberto Montanaro	45 / 100	05-25-2023	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.	Read review
Push Square	Aaron Bayne	2 / 10	05-25-2023	The Lord of the Rings: Gollum is a broken mess of a game. There are barely any redeeming qualities to be found amidst what can only be described as a massive missed opportunity. There is some serious potential in a single-player linear Lord of the Rings experience like this, but with outrageously dated level design, clunky controls, a severe lack of polish, muddy and unimpressive graphics, and a dull story, Gollum completely misses the mark. As massive fans of the books, films, and games, it’s sad to see that there is nothing precious about this experience.	Read review
Rock, Paper, Shotgun	Rachel Watts	Not Recommended	05-25-2023	It’s unfortunate, but The Lord Of The Rings: Gollum fails to expand the world of Middle-earth in any meaningful way. There are glimmers of something good(ish) in there, but it’s suffocated by a disjointed story, awkward controls and dull stealth.	Read review
Shacknews	Donovan Erskine	6 / 10	05-25-2023	There’s no doubt in my mind that Lord of the Rings fans will appreciate a lot of what Gollum is offering. It’s genuinely cool seeing such a fascinating side character step into the protagonist role in a story that further expands on a universe teeming with secrets to discover. It’s a bummer that there isn’t much else to write home about. A dull gameplay experience and technical hiccups make The Lord of the Rings: Gollum just as much of a polarizing experience as its main character.	Read review
SpazioGames	Nicolò Bicego	5 / 10	05-25-2023	The Lord of the Rings: Gollum was a bad idea on paper and is an even worse as a game now that we can play it, with a dull and boring plot and a gameplay formula that feels too old to be real in 2023.	Read review
TechRaptor	Brittany Alva	6.5 / 10	05-25-2023	The Lord of the Rings: Gollum is a great game for hardcore Middle-earth fans, but an experience that didn’t do Gollum’s character justice.	Read review
The Games Machine	Gabriele Barducci	5 / 10	05-25-2023	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.	Read review
TheSixthAxis	Gareth Chadwick	1 / 10	05-25-2023	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.	Read review
Twinfinite	Cameron Waldrop	1.5 / 5 stars	05-25-2023	The Lord of the Rings: Gollum doesn’t do anything fun or interesting like similar (better) games like A Plague Tale: Innocence and Requiem. It’s hard to say if even the most loyal Lord of the Rings fans would actually find something worthwhile here. Considering good Lord of the Rings games exist, this one feels incredibly out of place.	Read review
Wccftech	Ule Lopez	6.5 / 10	05-25-2023	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.	Read review
We Got This Covered	Dwayne Jenkins	2 / 5 stars	05-25-2023	The Lord of the Rings: Gollum has the ghost of good ideas sprinkled throughout, but they’re woefully hindered by dated graphics; stiff, wonky controls; endless bugs, glitches, and crashes; and in-game gimmicks that fail to live up to their lofty ambitions. King Theoden sums it up best: “You have no power here.”	Read review
WellPlayed	Zach Jackson	3 / 10	05-25-2023	With dated design, LotR: Gollum is a slow and tedious slog through Middle Earth that even the staunchest LotR fans will struggle to enjoy.	Read review
Worth Playing	Chris “Atom” DeAngelus	5 / 10	05-26-2023	Like the character itself, Gollum is an ugly, depressing, pitiable mess that’s destined for a bad end and with little to recommend it. With a stronger design behind it, this title could’ve perhaps been redeemed, but the version we got isn’t that. It’s not good, it’s not entertainingly bad, and it’s not even interestingly broken. It’s just a lackluster, licensed game that doesn’t seem to have a point, and it focuses on a character that even die-hard fans don’t want to play as.	Read review

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Game Info

Game Description / Storyline:

The Lord of the Rings: Gollum is a story-driven action adventure. Take on a perilous journey as Gollum, chasing the only thing that is precious to him. Gollum is skillful and cunning, but also torn by his split personality. One mind, two egos – you decide!

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