The Lord Of The Rings: Gollum has been delayed to next year
Precious time
It looks like we'll be waiting a little longer than expected to crawl around as everyone's favourite little cave gremlin, because The Lord Of The Rings: Gollum has been delayed to 2022. When it was first announced back in 2019, developers Daedalic Entertainment had planned on releasing the game later this year. However, the devs have managed to bag a new publishing deal with Nacon, which seems to have pushed back their plans.
In a press release, Nacon and Daedalic announced that they've signed a new co-publishing and distribution agreement, adding that LOTR: Gollum would arrive on PC, Nintendo Switch, and PlayStation and Xbox consoles sometime in 2022.
They don't give a clear reason for the delay, but hell we've seen a lot of game delays over the last few months. I wouldn't be surprised if it was pandemic related.
While the devs have been pretty light on the game's details so far, they have shown a few titbits over the last year, including a bunch of screenshots with various locations players might get to explore. Daedalic have also mentioned before that the game won't look like the movies, and will have a focus on stealth and "vertical climbing parkour."
"It is mostly a non-combat game, but Gollum will be able to stealthily take out enemies," lead game designer Martin Wilkes said in an interview last year. "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."
In that same interview they add that LOTR: Gollum will have some sort of branching narrative, which they've suggested previously could involve the character's two personalities. I think this is the bit that interests me most, purely because I'm curious how much the player can influence a story that's already pretty well-known.
So, The Lord Of The Rings: Gollum should be out sometime in 2022. I hope we hear more about it soon.