Lord Of The Rings Gollum Developer Is Shutting Down
Following the catastrophic launch of Lord of the Rings: Gollum, German video game publisher and former developer Daedalic Entertainment has decided to end all internal game development, including an unannounced Lord of the Rings gaming title. Instead, the company announced that it would shift its focus to publishing, licensing, sales, and marketing efforts.
According to VGC, in a statement issued to a German online publication, the Lord of the Rings: Gollum developer stated that it would cease all internal development. The company isn’t really shutting down, but the decision has affected at least 25 employees from the company’s internal game development department.
Daedalic Entertainment is shutting down its development division after the massive failure of Lord of the Rings: Gollum.
The reason for the decision isn’t specified, but it’s most likely tied to the commercial and financial failure of Lord of the Rings: Gollum video game released in May this year for all major consoles and PC.
Is Lord of the Rings: Gollum shutting down?
With that said, Daedalic added that it would continue its support for Lord of the Rings: Gollum, at least for the foreseeable future. The game didn’t live up to the studio’s expectations, nor those of the fandom’s—which were very high, considering a trove of massively successful Lord of the Rings gaming titles, such as Battle for Middle-earth and Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor/War games.
Gollum was announced in 2019 with a 2021 release date, but the game was delayed multiple times.
Ultimately, Daedalic failed to keep its promise with Lord of the Rings: Gollum. The game is so bad the developer has apologized. However, it had the potential to be great, as there are plenty of stealth games in the market, such as the Thief series or Styx, which is a real stealth/cloak-and-dagger type of game.
There isn’t a shortage of successful fantasy stealth titles Daedalic could’ve drawn from, but instead, the company wanted to create original gameplay, which, considering the company’s history, backfired.
Lord of the Rings: Gollum is Daedalic’s first game of such type. The studio is best known for developing several great point-and-click titles, which basically belong to a now-niche genre of gaming. So, it would seem that the developers wanted to take a dip but ended up in depths way over their heads, which is evident from the poor game reviews Lord of the Rings: Gollum received upon release.
Who knows, some 20 years from now, a vintage gamer might pick the game up at a thrift shop, give it a spin, and like it.
Game publishing is something Daedalic Entertainment is familiar with; the Lord of the Rings: Gollum developer has been publishing games for more than two decades now, since 2002. The company opened its internal studio in 2008, after which it released several point-and-click titles which were pretty good but have failed to garner widespread acclaim for its developer.
How can you play Lord of the Rings: Gollum?
Lord of the Rings: Gollum is available on all previous- and current-gen PlayStation and Xbox consoles and PC. The Nintendo Switch version was previously announced, but it’s unclear if it’s still scheduled for release.
