The Lord of the Rings: Gollum has not had a great reception and now its developer, Daedelic Entertainment has issued a formal apology.
The Lord of the Rings: Gollum casts you as the titular, ring-obsessed sneak and, after several delays, finally arrived last week. However, there’s been nothing precious about the reception it’s received. Some people have even called it the worst game of the year.
Daedelic’s apology, tweeted out on Friday, reads “We would like to sincerely apologize for the underwhelming experience many of you have had with The Lord of Ring: Gollum upon its release.”
It goes on to say that the team will be addressing the technical bugs that players have been running into. It also adds that producing a game set in Middle Earth has been one of their biggest challenges.
However, there are a couple of problems. Firstly, at one point the apology calls the game The Lord of the Ring: Gollum, which isn’t a great look.
A few words from the " The Lord of the Rings: Gollum™ " team pic.twitter.com/adPamy5EjO
— The Lord of the Rings: Gollum (@GollumGame) May 26, 2023
Secondly, The Lord of the Rings: Gollum’s problems aren’t just bug related, it’s just not a good game. We attempted to review it but its many flaws got in the way. Writing up our impressions we stated, “The Lord of the Rings: Gollum is so awful that we simply can’t bring ourselves to finish it.”
The game feels fundamentally dated and the apology does seem to be apologizing for the state of the game as a whole, not just the bugs. But other than a massive, massive overhaul The Lord of the Rings: Gollum is unlikely to overcome its shortcomings.
So what happened? The tweet is “A few words from the ‘The Lord of the Rings: Gollum’ team”. However, no-one sets out to make a bad game. We doubt the Gollum team were just left to get on, that no-one checked in on them or the game.
We’re hoping the truth will come out in the month or years to come. But for now, short of a major, major overhaul, we doubt The Lord of the Rings: Gollum can claw its way back into the light.
