"Gollum" Game Reviews Paint Ugly Picture - Dark Horizons

Daedalic Entertainment

One of the odder teased game releases of recent years has been “The Lord of the Rings: Gollum,” a stealth title exploring the character’s journey in the period leading up to the events of “The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring”.

Players have to make various decisions depending on if they side with Gollum or Smeagol. Reaction to the previews was tepid, with criticism of the graphics and not a lot of excitement.

With the game now released, the reviews are in, and the result is one of the worst-reviewed major game titles in a long time. With 25 reviews counted, the title is sitting at just 40/100 on the PS5 version on Metacritic, and 43/100 for the PC version (with 19 reviews). More tellingly, there’s not a single positive review on the site, with the best being ‘mixed’.

Whilst the title reportedly has various tech issues like many games of late, it’s the game itself that reviewers seem to have the most complaints about.

Push Square says it boasts “outrageously dated level design, clunky controls, a severe lack of polish, muddy and unimpressive graphics, and a dull story”.

Power Up Gaming gives it a 2/10 and says: “It is, without doubt, the most objectively poor and outright broken game that I have ever pushed through to completion… no amount of fixes can pave over its utterly mediocre overall design.”

Gamespot gives it a 2/10 and says: “Much like Gollum’s quest for the One Ring, my quest to complete The Lord of the Rings: Gollum was full of endless setbacks, impossible odds, and ever-increasing levels of madness.”

Finally, Digital Trends says their experience with the PS5 version was much too unstable and gave up after the game’s eleventh crash.

“The Lord of the Rings: Gollum” is out now for PC, PS5, PS4, Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S.