Gollum: a miserable, wretched creature from the works of J.R.R. Tolkien who’s easy to hate, and just as easy to pity. After playing bit parts in Bilbo and Frodo’s journeys and all the adaptations of them, he’s now going to be the main character in his own game: The Lord of the Rings: Gollum.
As GameSpot’s certified Lord of the Rings expert, I recently attended a hands-off presentation where we saw a chunk of the game and had our questions answered by the development team at Daedalic. Here are seven things we learned.
Plot
The Lord of the Rings: Gollum takes place roughly parallel to the events of the early chapters of The Fellowship of the Ring. As a little recap, in The Hobbit, Gollum loses The One Ring, or The One Ring loses Gollum, I should say, only for it to be picked up by Bilbo Baggins and his handses. In the time between The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings, Gollum is desperate to find the ring once again, and so he eventually leaves the cave which he’s called home for a couple of hundred years to try and track down Bilbo through Mirkwood, but the trail had gone cold. He eventually turned to go to Mordor, where he was captured by Sauron's forces and tortured into giving up the name of the One Ring’s new carrier, and where they could be found.
After leaving Mordor, Aragorn captured Gollum, and Gandalf interrogated him to find out what Sauron knows. There’s a lot to play around with here in terms of story, but it won’t cross over with the Fellowship’s quest too much, allegedly ending somewhere around the Mines of Moria. The dev team confirmed that there wouldn’t be flashbacks to before he found the Ring. This is very much Gollum’s game, so who knows if we’ll even get to meet Frodo and the rest of the Fellowship.
Gollum’s abilities
But speaking of Gollum, let’s go over his abilities. True to Tolkien’s description, he’s a sneaky, stealthy boy who prefers to avoid head-on confrontation but can still do some damage when cornered.
As a stealth-action game, prepare to do a lot of sneaking, as well as a lot of climbing. The levels of the game that I saw in action, Cirith Ungol and Mirkwood, were both filled to the brim with climbing and platforming puzzles. Gollum can leap over large gaps, as well as climb various formations in the environment like vines and rock faces, but he has a stamina bar that begins to run out when he’s just hanging on by his arms.
When it comes to stealth, just like practically every modern game with stealth elements… there’s a kind of Detective mode that you can activate. It’s called Gollum vision, I don’t think that’s canon, but there was a sequence in Cirith Ungol where Gollum was avoiding two orcs and used Gollum vision to highlight hiding spots, the enemies in the environment, and even lead towards your objective.
You can knock out enemies, but it’s incredibly risky: First of all, unlike most modern stealth games, enemies make noise when attacked, and taking them down takes a while, so you really need to be sure that the coast is clear. You also need to make sure you even have enough stamina to finish the job, so honestly, sneaking might just be your best bet. Gollum doesn’t have a huge weapon wheel of tools at his disposal, but you can pick up rocks and other small items to throw to create a distraction. There will be boss-like encounters, but they’ll be more puzzle-driven than combat.
Gollum versus Smeagol
We’ve talked a lot about Gollum, but we haven’t really talked about Smeagol, the other main character in this game, so to speak. Before being corrupted by the One Ring, Gollum was a Hobbit-like creature called Smeagol. His hundreds of years with the Ring changed him into the figure we know of him today, but over that time his personality cracked, for lack of a better word. The Gollum personality is full of hatred: hatred for the Elves, himself, and despite craving its return, even the Ring. Smeagol on the other hand is the more optimistic, naive side, who remembers what it was like to feel emotions like happiness and love.
As a result, they argue, and in the game, this is presented as a choice-driven gameplay mechanic: either side with Gollum, or Smeagol. Siding with one strengthens that persona, affecting other things in the game, such as the fate of some characters, as well as certain situations you stumble across, but it doesn’t give either side unique abilities. The team at Daedalic said that it wouldn’t make sense lore-wise, as the two personalities are within the same body.
The choice I saw in action was Gollum arguing with Smeagol over whether or not to eat a beetle, which granted, isn’t a huge decision, but it did offer a nice character moment, where Smeagol delicately tried to befriend the bug. It had huge “It was pity that stayed Bilbo’s hand” energy.
Familiar faces
We know that Gollum is going to be in the game, obviously, but which other recognisable faces from Tolkien’s vast Middle-earth can we expect? A good few, as it turns out. In Cirith Ungol, there are numerous references to Shelob, from webbing everywhere, to Gollum mentioning her name outright. There was also a sequence with a Fell Beast, the winged creatures ridden by the Ringwraiths, so I wouldn’t be surprised if they showed up too.
Throughout the gameplay I saw, Gollum was having audio flashbacks to the interrogation with Gandalf, but later in the demo when the location changed to Mirkwood, both Gandalf and Thranduil were there, discussing Gollum and the Ring. Aragorn is the one who takes Gollum to Mirkwood, so I’d bet money that he’ll show up too.
The development team has also introduced new characters, in the Mirkwood sequence I heard one, an elf named Mell who has become a friendly figure to Gollum, so much so that he decides to rescue her from imprisonment in Thranduil’s halls.
If you’re on the hunt for more references and Easter Eggs, there will be collectables to find that will apparently appeal to fans.
Locations
In terms of locations, I’ve mentioned a few already: We’ll definitely be exploring Cirith Ungol and Mirkwood. The devs also name-dropped Barad-dur during the presentation, which makes a lot of sense given that that’s where Gollum is taken when he’s captured by Sauron. You can also explore Gollum’s cave, where he has a number of drawings on the rocks of events in his life. If you choose to interact with them, both Gollum and Smeagol will weigh in with their thoughts.
Is it canon?
A big question when it comes to tie-in media: Is The Lord of the Rings: Gollum canon? It is! Daedalic struck a deal with Middle-earth Enterprises who ultimately have to approve everything to make sure it’s accurate to what J.R.R. Tolkien wrote. While we know a little about Gollum’s journey at this point in the story, there’s still plenty that’s been left unwritten, which is where the development team have created their own story.
In terms of the aesthetic, Gollum obviously doesn’t look like the model from the films, nor is he played by Andy Serkis. He’s voiced by a British actor named Wayne Forester who has appeared in a number of video games, most recently as one of the protagonist voices in Elden Ring. Whoever plays Gandalf was definitely doing their best Ian McKellan voice, though.
Release date info
We actually don’t have that long to wait until The Lord of the Rings: Gollum launches. It’ll be hitting PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X and S, and PC on September 1st, a whole day before the new Lord of the Rings TV series The Rings of Power premieres on Amazon Prime. The game is confirmed to be coming to Nintendo Switch later this year, but there’s no release date just yet. There won’t be a collector’s edition, but there’ll be a Digital Deluxe Edition with some more bells and whistles if that’s your kinda thing. And as someone with the Extended Editions of every movie… that’s me.
So that’s everything we learned about The Lord of the Rings: Gollum, for more on the game, make sure you subscribe to GameSpot on YouTube and check out GameSpot.com. I’m on Twitter @lucyjamesgames, catch you next time, Precious.
