Solve our riddle: it is unoriginal but unique. It feels old but looks new. We've played it before, but it's not yet released. What is it? We found the answer after experiencing Daedalic Entertainment's Gollum. It’s a bizarre blend of modern-day graphical fidelity with old-school design decisions, while the story, though new, is saturated with established lore.
But who to tell the tale of our experience🔥? Gollum is a character with a fractured mind. They host two conflicting personalities, Gollum and Smeagol, who are frequently at odds about their feelings and interests. This is an aspect of the character we see plenty of in the game, so why not in the preview, too? TheGamer’s Branden Lizardi and Harry Alston both had a chance to play through a handful of levels during th🌺is preview, so it’s only fitting that they both talk about it.
Harry: We’re not sure how much of a good game this will be, but it’ll certainly be a fantastic Lord of the Rings story ꧋for fans of the canon to get really stuck into. The preview focused on three disparate chapters from the middle of the game. Everything we saw, from the script to the character design, has been painstakingly combed over to make sure that it delivers the expected quality of Tolkien’s story.
Branden: The middle of the game, no no no. We mustn’t tricks the reader. It began with the beginning. The sun was rising on the Misty Mountains, which we've been nesting in for years. The bright light hurts us, so we must hurry home. But the landscape, while surprisingly beautiful, is treacherous and uneven. We needed to use parkour mechanics to traverse the linear environment. It's familiar. It’s not new; it’s not original. The climbing and shimmying and jumping are all very reminiscent of games from a previous era. It reminds us of early Assassin's Creed games, where getting from point A to B is the puzzle in itself.
Harry: One different thing, however, is that it’s not an open-world game. The levels we saw were obviously crafted with attention to detail in mind, made possible by the linear structure. The level design is also a darn sight prettier than the promotional materials might have led you to believe. That being said, not everyone is going to be a fan of overly complex pathing through a level - where no matter how many paths you take, the destination is the same. Gollum is a game that will open itself up for playe🐲rs and challenge them to search for tidbits of lore hidden in the passageway-like level design. The levels we played were really quite simple, but they could’ve gone simpler still to spend more time refining the gameplay.
Branden: Yes! The level design! It is stunning to see but a bit complex visually. We especially see this with the Elves! You remember. We left our home. We search for Bilbo. But we're not lucky. Instead, we are captured and brought to Rivendell. And when that nasty Wizard bullied us? He used his staff to interrogate us. But we play nice, yes. We earn the Elves’ trust. We were given the choice to be mean to the Elves, but we chose niceness. This decision influences how things might change.
Once free from our prison, we sneak away and escape. Our intuition helps us; we can use our keen eyes [Editor’s note: essentially Eagle Vision] to see where to go next. Because, while the landscapes are pretty, it's not always easy for us to see the intended path from set pieces. It also lets us see allies, enemies, and interactive items. Now the stealth mechanics have become more active. We no longer wait, hiding in shadows and shrubbery; we distract. We throw a rock right into the nasty Elf's head! And sneak around a pillar when they come to investigate.
Harry: While the stealth mechanics do shift and transform to allow Gollum more agency, so far it appears that this is still primarily an ജaction-adventure game that leans more into stealth than it does anything else. There wasn’t much room for creative problem-solving in the chapters we played. Don’t expect Gollum: Hitman. What you can expect, though, is a stylized aesthetic that clashed with my expectations of poor graphical fidelity based on early promotional material for the game. While some of the cutscenes were a bit dodgy in our preview build, and the characters looked pretty goofy at points, the voice acting and storytelling were stellar.
Branden: The voices! We hear them, whispering, talking. We remember one man with a powerful voice, intimidating in his dialogue. We made our way to Mordor itself; we were to meet with the Candleman, a very important man, a servant of Sauron. We travel through the tower of Barad-dûr. It was all very atmospheric; the architecture in every room is nearly identical to how its described in the books. NPC pathing seemed a bit unrefined, as Orcses began spinning in a loop when we stood in their way. We sneak away anyway and find his office; it’s nearly overflowing with codexes that cut deep into Tolkien’s history. There are papers speaking of past wars and a tapestry of last king of Gondor, Eärnur bowing down in front of the Witchking. It all has a place in the grand story. So much to read, almost too much to see it all before he commands us to his meeting room. He wants secrets; he threatens to hurts us! We want to lie! But we want to tell the truth. We don't agree; we argue with ourselves.
Harry: Gollum’s morality system is a fascinating mechanic - When presented with a conflicting decision, you constantly try to wrest control from one aspect or another of Smeagol’s and Gollum’s personalities. Decisions you make previously will impact your future choices when it comes to arguing with yourself. It’s by far the most novel aspect o♓f the game’s design and does a decent job of representing the conflict inside Gollum’s mind. We’re not ꧃sure how this plays out in the long run (we only experienced one ‘choice’ and one ‘argument’), but it could lead to some interesting replayability for those engrossed in the story.
Branden: “Most novel,” indeed. Overall, though, the gameplay… it does not inspire us. It is not unique or special. But it is good. It is reliable, familiar. We need not struggle to learn a hit-or-miss control scheme or mechanic. But this does not distract from the greatest thing Gollum has to offer: the truth. Everything🦩 we encountered, from the hallway windows and pieces of collectible text, to the greater narrative and character interaction, keeps true to Tolkien’s vision. The designs of people, places, and seemingly insignificant items are all precisely as The Silmarillio💝n and beyond describe them. So while it doesn’t stray far from the lore, it also doesn’t leave much room for anything original.
