Daedalic Entertainment gave us a new sneak(y) peek atThe Lord of the Rings: Gollum, the first shot of the developer at a big established franchise. The new game footage was presented during the Future Games Show and shows Sméagol moving alone in the lands of Mordor while trying to hide his presence.
Thenew footage presented by Daedalicdoesn’t add anything new to what we already knew about Gollum. Even if a first look at the gameplay was highly expected, the 48 seconds of the new footage still spend most of its time with cinematics. As a narrative-driven game, it’s to be expected that a good chunk of the play-time will be spent with cutscenes and dialogues. But at this point, it would’ve been nice to understand exactly how we’ll play as Gollum when we’ll have control of the character. Most importantly, it would be great to know howThe Lord of the Rings: Gollumdistinguishes itself from other games of the same genre.
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The footage also shows Sméagol waking in the shadows, climbing walls and hanging from the ceiling, all to avoid detection by the orcs and other creatures that wander the deadlands of Mordor. These creatures include giant spiders, which indicates Shelob should be a special guest to the game. One specific scene also shows Gollum killing an orc after grabbing it from behind, meaning that while direct combat is not the focus of the game, it’s still possible to get rid of enemies. This is exactly what we expect from a stealth adventure, bringing the title close to games such asStyx, or even the stealth section of theBatman: Arkhamfranchise.
Gollum is indeed a sneaky character and stealth mechanics help to flesh out the creature as both malicious and a coward. But, with a franchise so big asThe Lord of the Rings, every new addition should be approached with caution. Story expansions don’t usually get the same reception as Tolkien’s direct storytelling, and without a solid gameplay loop, it’s hard to imagine how can Gollum keep the player’s attention for long. Just like Sauron, we’ll have to keep our eye out to see what news Daedelic brings us next.
The Lord of the Rings: Gollumis set to be released for Xbox and PlayStation consoles, Nintendo Switch, and PC at some point in 2022. you may check out the gameplay teaser trailer right here.
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