The Lord of the Rings: Gollumhas hardly been out for 24 hours, and the developer is already apologising for its faults. On Twitter, Daedalic Entertainment has released a statement on Gollum’s disastrous launch, “sincerely apologising” to players for its technical issues and overall poor quality, promising patches to address some of the complaints.
This comes after Gollum launched to negative reviews from both critics and players alike, even becomingthe worst-reviewed game of 2023 so far. Some of the morewidespread complaints centre around the game’s visuals, which many feel are significantly worse than the footage we were shown in trailers. Others are encountering serious bugs, getting in the way of progress and taking players out of the experience.
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“We would like to sincerely apologize for the underwhelming experience many of you have had with The Lord of Ring [sic]: Gollum upon its release,” reads the statement from Daedalic. “We acknowledge and deeply regret that the game did not meet the expectations we set for ourselves or for our dedicated community.
“We genuinely value your feedback and have been actively listening to your voices,” it continues.
“Our development team has been working diligently to address the bugs and technical issues many of you experienced. We are committed to providing you with patches that will allow you to enjoy the game to its fullest potential.”
While Daedalic isn’t getting into the nitty gritty on what went wrong, it does admit that Gollum was “the biggest challenge” it had ever faced. A challenge which isn’t over just yet.
“We will continue to keep you updated on our progress and provide transparent communication regarding the upcoming patches and improvements,” the developer continues. “Your passion and dedication as players have been the driving force behind our determination to make things right.”
While patches could go a long way in alleviating some of the performance issues that players have been encountering, not all of the complaints have been technical.In his 1.5/5 review, TheGamer’s Ben Sledge criticised Gollum’s “archaic stealth gameplay”, “dull narrative”, and “poor characterisation”. Overall, he described Gollum as “boring”, only praising the character design - even if that can get lost in the game’s overall poor visuals.
If, despite all of this, you’re interested in trying Gollum out yourself, it’s out now on PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, and PS5. A port for Nintendo Switch is planned for later this year, but it’s possible that this tentative release window will be affected by the rough launch on other platforms.
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