Lord of The Rings Gollum Updates Cancelled

Now I’m a massive Lord of the Rings fan, but even I could see that the Lord of the Rings: Gollum was a bad idea from the start. The Middle Earth setting has no shortage of interesting events and moments to adapt to a game format. It certainly came as a surprise when Daedalic Entertainment announced plans to develop a stealth game focusing on a brief background plotline following the iconic hobbit character of Gollum/Smeagol. At most, the concept might have succeeded if the game had not been priced at 59.99 and included a few interesting gameplay features.

Upon release, Lord of the Rings: Gollum was decimated by critics and fans alike with poor scores across the board. Daedalic was forced to issue a public apology regarding the lackluster state of the game following this disastrous launch and seemed to double down on future content updates. However, this week the studio announced it will be abandoning those plans and moving their assets to other projects. To further drive the nail into the coffin they also have officially discontinued development on their planned follow-up game set within the Lord of the Rings universe.

In a statement to Polygon, Daedalic discussed that their primary focus will be shifted solely to publishing for the time being saying “eight promising releases will be launching in this financial year alone.” In closing, the studio stated, “Even though Lord of the Rings: Gollum did not live up to the expectations we had for the game, we are very grateful for the opportunity and the learning experience it brought us.”

Personally, I think this is a smart move. Sometimes it’s best to cut your losses and move onto better projects that can hopefully produce better results for both consumers and company executives. I’m holding out hope that other developers have taken note as well and future Lord of the Rings games can present a higher level of quality.