The Lord of the Rings: Gollum — release date, trailers, gameplay, and more
The Lord of the Rings: Gollum is an upcoming action-adventure game from Daedalic Entertainment. The studio is well-known for its long list of critically acclaimed indie titles — including the popular Deponia series — although Gollum looks to be its most high-profile creation to date.
Because of this, Daedalic is being cautious about releasing info to the public. Despite being revealed in 2019, only bits and pieces have been shared in the years since. However, between a few trailers and developer interviews, the game has slowly taken shape. Plus, a new gameplay trailer recently dropped on July 7, giving us our best look yet at the upcoming title. Here’s everything we know about The Lord of the Rings: Gollum.
Further reading
Release date
The Lord of the Rings: Gollum is set to launch on September 1, 2022.
The game was originally intended to launch sometime in 2021, although unannounced issues during development changed those plans.
Platforms
The Lord of the Rings: Gollum is slated to launch on PC, current-gen, and last-gen platforms. It was originally revealed as a next-gen only title, although the team has since tacked on PS4, Xbox One, and Switch as launch consoles. PS5 players will also benefit from enhanced DualSense features, including a variety of haptic feedback responses based on your in-game actions.
Trailers
Several trailers exist for The Lord of the Rings: Gollummost of which are of the cinematic variety. Everything we’ve seen so far looks better than the original images released in May 2020and recent trailers have only made the wait for Gollum more difficult. You can check out all the trailers below:
A Split Personality — cinematic trailer
Released during The Game Awards 2021, the latest trailer offers a closer look at Gollum and the world he’ll be sneaking around in when the game launches.
A Unique Promise
Harald Riegler of Daedalic Entertainment sits down for a brief interview about Gollum’s world, mechanics, and overarching storyline.
Sneak Peek trailer
It’s less than a minute in length, but it’s still one of the best looks we’re yet to have of the game.
Teaser trailer
It’s a teaser trailer, so this short clip offers more questions than it does answers. It’s still worth a watch, however, as it’s one of the few official videos we have related to the upcoming title.
Gameplay trailer
The most recent trailer arrived on July 7, 2022, offering a closer look at Gollum’s gameplay. It runs for just over a minute and shows off a bit of new gameplay footage such as Gollum scaling walls overgrown with ivy and swimming underwater.
Gameplay
Unlike most other games that bear The Lord of the Rings branding, Gollum will not feature any serious combat. “The game mixes stealth with vertical climbing parkour,” said lead game designer Martin Wilkes. “If you want a reference, you might think of it as similar to Prince of Persia. It is mostly a non-combat game, but Gollum will be able to stealthily take out enemies. However, this will not be easy and always come[s] with big risks. We want players to carefully weigh these encounters. After all, Gollum’s strengths lie in cunning, not combat.”
As far as how this will translate to moment-to-moment gameplay, expect to be triggering a lot of environmental hazards. While Gollum won’t be using weapons, he can lead his foes into deadly traps — and will even benefit from the special abilities of allies he’ll meet throughout his adventure.
When not in combat, you’ll be making some pretty big decisions during tense conversations with NPCs. The Lord of the Rings: Gollum will feature a branching narrative that changes based on your decisions — will you listen to the corrupted Gollum or the slightly more innocent Smeagol? These choices will directly impact your gameplay experience, although the specifics remain murky.
The world you’ll be exploring in Gollum is a mixture of linear stages and open-world environments. “Some levels are completely open in all three dimensions and can be explored freely, while others are more linear but often with alternative routes where players can, for example, decide if they’d rather sneak around some guards or take a risky parkour route in vertiginous heights to pass the next segment,” said Wilkes.
Gollum‘s latest gameplay trailer didn’t show off too much that we didn’t already know, but we did get to see the famous anti-hero slinking around a few different maps. Gollum’s animations look pretty great in action — and the environments he’ll be exploring look even better. From dense jungles to rocky mountains, there doesn’t seem to be a shortage of gorgeous backdrops to explore. We also got a look at Gollum swimming in a first-person, underwater scene, which is likely to be a great way to evade detection by Sauron’s forces. He also appears to be throwing an object around the 40-second mark of the gameplay trailer — possibly as a way to distract guards standing in his way.
Overall, it seems that Gollum will provide a unique combination of stealth, puzzles, and narrative-driven action. It’s unlike any other Lord of the Rings game we’ve ever seen and sounds like a promising mixture of gameplay elements.
Multiplayer
Daedalic is yet to reveal any plans for multiplayer. As it stands, Gollum is a single-player experience. Multiplayer doesn’t seem like a reasonable addition, either, as much of the fun would be lost if you could no longer make your own choices during cutscenes. Still, it’s possible some form of co-op could find its way into Gollumbut we wouldn’t bet on it.
Pre-order bonuses
While we have a release date now, there are still not any pre-orders available. Several of Daedalic’s older titles received pre-order bonuses — Chaos on Deponia was offered to players who pre-ordered Goodbye Deponia — so Gollum may receive similar treatment when preorders are announced.
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