The Lord of the Rings: Gollum has naturally garnered a great deal of interest as its initial release date on other platforms approaches in May, with a Switch release scheduled for later this year. LotR and JRR Tolkien fans were excited to see how Daedalic Entertainment would build a game based on this beloved character, and lines to check out the demo at PAX East stretched for hours over the weekend.
We had a chance to play a ~30-minute demo of the game for a PC build, and it’s a classic “hybrid” – we also saw some very promising elements, as well as some obvious opportunities for improvement.
Once we finally got our hands on it after waiting we were initially turned off by a game breaking bug that happened as soon as we started playing. A little worrying. As the game went on, it was clear that a lot of resources were being put into some areas, including great voice acting, but not so much in others.
The game seemed to struggle with even the smallest of tasks, like sprinting, and had frequent lags and frame rate drops that broke some of the LotR magic we were hoping for. The game suffered from performance issues during the demo, frequently dropping frames and experiencing pop-ups with even the simplest tasks like running or jumping. While the narration was solid during the cutscenes, the character animations were often poorly timed and awkward, and felt dated to a game created with the Unreal Engine.
Although we only experienced the gameplay from the first episode – which mainly focused on tutorials and walkthroughs – it took place in a somewhat dismal environment, while feeling relatively unpolished and lacking in detail. From what we’ve seen in the past in trailers and promotions, the overall environment art looked pretty nice (check out the latest trailer above for a reminder). Unfortunately, the PAX East demo looked very different from the cinematic trailers we’ve seen in terms of performance and graphic quality:
Other classes were available for demo, and while we didn’t have time to access them, from what we saw, the environments seem to be getting more engaging and engaging as the game goes on. Hopefully, it will prove itself once the full version is released. On the other hand, if the following episodes raise the bar in the environment department and are faithful to the visual details seen in the trailers and promotional materials, we fear that the performance issues could get worse in more complex environments.
The plot is certainly interesting, and while the cinematic animation had performance issues similar to the rest of the games, we were intrigued by the writing and impressed by the solid sound throughout that was very reminiscent of the movies. Andy Serkis’ performance from the film adaptations overshadows any new interpretation of the character, of course, but the version here works well enough for us.
All in all, The Lord of the Rings: Gollum has it a lot Things that could definitely be improved upon, hopefully this will be the case before they launch. For LotR fans simply looking to try out some new storylines and beautiful environmental art, Gollum might just scratch that itch.
But even given it the benefit of the doubt and assuming its various issues are resolved before its release, Gollum still seems like a small potato compared to the vast and wonderful fantasy worlds other games have to offer in 2023. If this PC build has indeed suffered from many of the problems that often occur in Switch ports, we’re certainly curious to know exactly how it performs when and if it will finally make it to Nintendo’s console. For a game so close to release on other platforms, this beta felt incredibly unpolished.
What do you think of Lord of the Rings: Gollum? Have you been to PAX East and tried the game for yourself? Tell us in the comments.
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