The Lord of the Rings: Gollum has been popping up here and there for a while but as we get closer to 2021, when the game is planned to release, we finally have more information about it.
The first is a short teaser for the game which is around a minute long and doesn’t show off too much aside from some impressive CGI and the familiar Mount Doom.
Strangely Daedalic Entertainment has been rather silent about its new title so the information we now have about it come from an interview conducted by IGN with Martin Wilkes, a game designer on The Lord of the Rings: Gollum.
The first bit of information is something that may not surprise many: a lack of combat. While Gollum really isn’t someone we’d like to run into in a dark alley, fighting your way into and out of situations isn’t the focus of the game.
“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 with big risks. We want players to carefully weigh these encounters. After all, Gollum’s strengths lie in cunning not combat,” Wilkes tells IGN.
As you may expect from that statement there will also be the full gamut of mechanics which we have grown familiar with in this genre: parkour, throwable distractions, environmental traps and even allies.
In this rather unsettling screenshot you can see two more facets of the game: the dialogue and this new design for the main character,
When you’re not sneaking about there’s narrative decisions to make dialogue choices on offer. The split personality of Sméagol / Gollum and the corruption of the One Ring will also play a part in these decisions.
Then there’s the look of Gollum himself, who seems to have taken on a less harsh aesthetic complete with more hair. This was deliberate as you wouldn’t want players to be too repulsed by the main character.
“With Gollum himself, our goal is to make him more relatable, as players have to be able to slip into his skin for the course of an entire game. That’s why our Gollum looks less creepy (and has more hair) than the movie version,” Wilkes continues.
The Lord of the Rings: Gollum is planned for release on PC and the next gen consoles – the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X – in 2021. Hopefully Daedalic Entertainment itself will reveal more in an official capacity soon.
