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The Lord of the Rings: Gollum has officially been unveiled by Daedalic as a next-gen game for PS5 and Xbox Series X

IbizaPocholo

NeoGAFs Kent Brockman

German developer Daedalic Entertainment describes the game as a "stealth-action adventure with an intriguing dual-personality mechanic, gigantic levels, and a densely wrought aesthetic inspired by Tolkien’s own drawings," according to an exclusive new preview from Edge 341, on sale now.

The Lord of the Rings: Gollum was first announced last year, originally slated for PC "and all relevant console platforms at that time". It's also due to launch in 2021, so it'll be a little while before we see what Daedalic do with Tolkien's precious(ssss) creation.

Gollum will see, uh, Gollum start in Barad-dûr, a fortress in Mordor where the corrupted creature is being held prisoner, but you can expect to see plenty more of Middle-Earth beyond that, as the game promises "giant, persistent environments, each harbouring several questlines and a range of friendly or unfriendly faces."

On top of that, Daedalic also briefly delves into the potential of the next-gen consoles. "I’ve only heard rumours about the [Xbox Series X] specs, and it’s huge – very fast Flash memory", developer Martin Wilkes tells Edge. "Which excites me, of course, but I don’t think that’s relevant to this project, because we’re aiming for PC as well. Especially for level designers, though, that’s a dream come true, because we don’t have to concern ourselves with streaming corridors any more."
 

Dory16

Banned
Only heard rumours => still haven’t received the dev kits? I thought Phil already had the console in his living room. I wonder what’s preventing MS from sending out dev kits? Still holding back for last minute tune ups?
 

trikster40

Member
Yeah, a game where you play as Gollum sounds like it’ll get boring really quick. I don’t recall Gollum being trained in combat. So tons of stealth. Yeah no thanks. Taking a wait and see approach to this one.

Ive played some of their games. How the heck did they get the LotR license?
 
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xool

Member
No screenshots - here fixed :


BYZfwjJ.jpg


/s announced a year maybe their PR should release something other than text.

I suppose we can expect a lot PC ports early next gen, as it seems near zero effort for them to do.

[edit] rights to the books, not the films - must be worth nearly nothing - with all due respect - Daedelic Entertainment is tiny.
 
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D

Deleted member 471617

Unconfirmed Member
Nice. Hoping they show a trailer soon.
 

Rest

All these years later I still chuckle at what a fucking moron that guy is.
I don't know what the appeal of this is supposed to be. Gollum is a miserable piece of shit that the reader is supposed to look down on and hate. I don't know why someone would make a game where you play as him. I don't know how you could make that game and portray the character as originally written.

This is a case where I'd like to be surprised.
 
I don't know what the appeal of this is supposed to be. Gollum is a miserable piece of shit that the reader is supposed to look down on and hate. I don't know why someone would make a game where you play as him. I don't know how you could make that game and portray the character as originally written.

This is a case where I'd like to be surprised.
Maybe you start as a hobbit and slowly get twisted. He also can swap between two dimensions with the ring.
 

MoreJRPG

Suffers from extreme PDS
I’m really interested to see how they do with an IP as big as this one. It could really propel the studio forward or crash and burn it. I thought Blackguards 2 was decent at the time so I have faith they can put together a serviceable RPG.
 

Dacon

Banned
Maybe you start as a hobbit and slowly get twisted. He also can swap between two dimensions with the ring.

Gollum will see, uh, Gollum start in Barad-dûr, a fortress in Mordor where the corrupted creature is being held prisoner, but you can expect to see plenty more of Middle-Earth beyond that, as the game promises "giant, persistent environments, each harbouring several questlines and a range of friendly or unfriendly faces."

Reading is fundamental.

This game sounds like it's gonna blow tbh.

Give me a survival horror game set in middle earth during the War of the Ring where a regular peasant tries to survive the onslaught of monsters and soldiers brought upon their home in gondor or rohan.
 
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Armorian

Banned
Who asked for this? Just make Shadow of Something (3), but I don't know how since they fucked the story in SOW DLC.
 

Scopa

The Tribe Has Spoken
I love LotR, so crossing fingers and toes that this’ll be good. Interesting angle to focus on Gollum.
 
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GymWolf

Member
I expect something like styx saga but with bigger budget.

Gollum is not exactly a full fledged warrior...
 

Saruhashi

Banned
The concept of this just sounds like someone was throwing ideas against a wall.

We want to make an LotR game but it as to feature a character that people know from the movies... probably a CGI character is preferable...

Shadow of War was just ridiculous with what it did regarding the LotR lore. I don't know what the hell they were thinking at times.
This already sounds like it'll be more of the same farting around with well established stuff.

Middle Earth games are likely to be popular anyway so why not look at setting a game in that world but WELL away from the main LotR and Hobbit stories?
 

Herr Edgy

Member
This is going to be interesting. It's a game that sounds like it requires a decent amount of production value, and Daedalic isn't exactly the most prolific when it comes to ambitious 3D games.

I know a junior games designer working at Daedalic from university.
Not sure if she is working on Gollum. Can't really ask her either as I think she dislikes me as we had a booth once together and had to share the equipment, where my team got the big screen and hers got the small one lmao
 

Mista

Banned
Not interesting enough. And since it’s stealth then the mechanics should be decent at least or it’ll never work
 
F

Foamy

Unconfirmed Member
Making a LoTR game centered around the most annoying character in the series. Brilliant!
 

Fbh

Member
Of all the things you could focus on when making a LOTR game, Gollum is probably the one that interest me the least.

But maybe it ends up being surprisingly good.
 
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I mean... It actually doesn't look that bad.

Setting aside the art style, as it seams to be going for more of a... realistic story book theme here and I know style is going to be subjective, I'm pleasantly pleased at how dense everything looks. Also, nicely varied textures and objects.

med_c31cf383-aa7f-4af7-aa38-4c99f7958f73_The_Lord_of_the_Rings_Gollum_Screen_7.jpg

med_3f9a2ad0-4cd7-4fc5-af69-837689d70853_The_Lord_of_the_Rings_Gollum_Screen_5.jpg

med_1ca5d56f-fb41-46e7-98e8-430470e3a3ba_The_Lord_of_the_Rings_Gollum_Screen_1.jpg

med_9198632e-168e-4359-9caa-f3c121794024_The_Lord_of_the_Rings_Gollum_Screen_2.jpg


It obviously needs more time in the oven, which is why it's launching sometime in 2021, but I think you can still see some of the positives here.

Gollum's story btw is actually pretty interesting if you've read the books, which this is more based on.

 

Herr Edgy

Member
I'm positively surprised. You can definitely see some lack of polish that is usually associated with AAA, but the overall composition is very nice.
 
I mean... It actually doesn't look that bad.

Setting aside the art style, as it seams to be going for more of a... realistic story book theme here and I know style is going to be subjective, I'm pleasantly pleased at how dense everything looks. Also, nicely varied textures and objects.

med_c31cf383-aa7f-4af7-aa38-4c99f7958f73_The_Lord_of_the_Rings_Gollum_Screen_7.jpg

med_3f9a2ad0-4cd7-4fc5-af69-837689d70853_The_Lord_of_the_Rings_Gollum_Screen_5.jpg

med_1ca5d56f-fb41-46e7-98e8-430470e3a3ba_The_Lord_of_the_Rings_Gollum_Screen_1.jpg

med_9198632e-168e-4359-9caa-f3c121794024_The_Lord_of_the_Rings_Gollum_Screen_2.jpg


It obviously needs more time in the oven, which is why it's launching sometime in 2021, but I think you can still see some of the positives here.

Gollum's story btw is actually pretty interesting if you've read the books, which this is more based on.


In the screenshot thread I said it looks decent, probably will be more impressive in motion. I’m assuming 60fps, zero or lightning fast load times, and some RT thrown in there. It might not be a mind melter but it’s pretty
 

A.Romero

Member
I like the concept and I'm intrigued by the dual personality mechanic but at least in it's current form it doesn't show anything that makes me think "next gen".
 
I like the concept and I'm intrigued by the dual personality mechanic but at least in it's current form it doesn't show anything that makes me think "next gen".
Not if you are comparing it to next gen AAA. I'm not talking about you specifically, but I think most people have a bad habit of knee jerk reactions where "next gen" is only whatever AAA studios can pull off, which means hyper realism or literally cutting edge, best of the best or something.

Personally, I'm having a really hard time thinking of any last gen AA game from a small studio that pulled off this amount of texture variety in the environment and object variation. Asset, object, geometry and texture density displayed on the screen as well at a great draw distance. Which would make sense given the new ssd's and io bandwidth devs now have to work with on these new consoles. Plus all the other headroom. And this game is still around a year away from launch.
 

dottme

Member
Not if you are comparing it to next gen AAA. I'm not talking about you specifically, but I think most people have a bad habit of knee jerk reactions where "next gen" is only whatever AAA studios can pull off, which means hyper realism or literally cutting edge, best of the best or something.

Personally, I'm having a really hard time thinking of any last gen AA game from a small studio that pulled off this amount of texture variety in the environment and object variation. Asset, object, geometry and texture density displayed on the screen as well at a great draw distance. Which would make sense given the new ssd's and io bandwidth devs now have to work with on these new consoles. Plus all the other headroom. And this game is still around a year away from launch.
The thing is they are communicating in a period where people want to see what next gen can deliver.
i think I’m not the only one still waiting what can happen next gen. the game is ok and probably a good second/third game to buy with a console, but now it might not be the best time to show screenshot of it.
 
The thing is they are communicating in a period where people want to see what next gen can deliver.
i think I’m not the only one still waiting what can happen next gen. the game is ok and probably a good second/third game to buy with a console, but now it might not be the best time to show screenshot of it.
Ok, but who gets to say when people can finally start talking about their smaller projects? These big studios can stay silent for as long as they wish and it hurts them far less because they can just crank out marketing budgets like crazy. But these smaller studios projects live or die by whatever publicity they can get, whenever they can get it. Right now, while no one else is revealing things, is a perfect time for these smaller studios to get some publicity for their games. I think people should be mature enough to understand the differences between AA and AAA studios and dev team sizes and actually be able to glean things from that. Especially on an enthusiast forum.

EDIT: Please know that I'm just frustrated. I'm not coming at you man.
 
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Really tired of them having to use the Peter Jackson designs...its time to move on...
Then you're in luck...


In the ten screens, you can check out Gollum himself, who as previously confirmed, won't resemble Andy Serkis' rendition of the J.R.R. Tolkien characters, as the game takes its cue from the books rather than the Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit movies.

Gonna guess that goes for everything else as well judging by the look of things.
 
Then you're in luck...




Gonna guess that goes for everything else as well judging by the look of things.


ugh no the reason i said that is because he still does look like the anydy serkis one.....its stylized yes but the design is still the same.
 
ugh no the reason i said that is because he still does look like the anydy serkis one.....its stylized yes but the design is still the same.
I mean, I think it's different enough. His eyes are even a different color.

med_3b28f3ef-ebb7-484b-89aa-23835aac3750_The_Lord_of_the_Rings_Gollum_Screen_9.jpg

0MK69vs.jpg


But I absolutely feel you on that. Gollum is mostly shrouded in mystery as to what he used to look like before the ring. No one knows exactly what race he was. Which would determine greatly how he looks now. But it's theorized that he was one of three different Halfling races. So prob not going to look too much different between them though some of them where larger and hairier. Anyway, his entire ring transitioning phase is where a lot of creative freedom could come into play.

However, just imagine them taking that big giant step in really out there direction with his form. You can see the crap they've gotten already from people with the game not looking super realistic and instead more story book. Good luck with a crowd that finnicky. I wouldn't want to be the studio making that gamble.
 
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