The Lord of the Rings: Gollum arrives on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PC and Switch with a promise: tell the story of the creature’s years in captivity. The result falls short at nearly every turn.
Trailer, via Nacon.
Stealth Through the Ruined Lands
Most of the game centers on the title character sneaking past guards through blasted plains and a shadowed wood. The climbing and balance controls fail often, sending him off ledges he should have cleared with ease. Enemy watchers follow fixed routes that break any sense of danger rather than build it. The stealth loop never grows past its first hour, and the game’s length only makes the repetition worse.
The Voice Behind the Character
The actor who plays the lead gives a performance that critics single out as the one strong part of the whole. The split dialogue between the creature’s two selves carries real menace and grief. That work sits inside a game that rarely gives it room to matter, and it cannot carry the weight of everything around it. Reviewers note that the voice work stands apart from the rest of the production, a lone bright spot in a broken field.
Trouble on Every Platform
Technical trouble follows the game across every system. On PS5 and Xbox Series X/S, frame rates drop during simple movement, not just in crowded scenes. Load times stretch far beyond what the hardware should need.
The Switch version fares worse still.
Textures fail to load, and whole rooms break apart from pop-in. Loading screens have been known to lock up entirely, forcing players to shut the game down and open it again. These faults appear early and often, making even the opening hours a test of patience.
The Tower Escape
The escape sequences set around the great dark tower aim for spectacle. Instead they expose the weakest systems in the whole build: walking through walls, guards who lose track of their target mid-chase, and scripted events that never trigger at all. The tower levels also drag, stretching simple chase beats into long, frustrating stretches.
This writer had to return to an earlier checkpoint after the game itself broke down mid-run.
Choices Without Weight
The Lord of the Rings: Gollum sells itself partly on a choice system, letting players push the lead toward cruelty or mercy. In practice these choices bring only small shifts in dialogue and little else. The branching story the game promises never arrives in any form a player can feel. The lead’s internal conflict, which could have driven the tale, stays flat and unused.
Key Facts
- Platforms: PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PC, Switch
- Release year: 2023
- Critic score: 3.4 of 10
- Standout element: the lead voice performance
| Release Window | Format | Status |
|---|---|---|
| 2023 | PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PC, Switch | Full launch |
None of this adds up to a game worth the asking price. The stealth systems, the broken frame rate, and the hollow choice system drag down a project that had one truly good idea buried inside it. Players who want a real look at the creature’s story will find only a shell of a game, one that fails to honor the very character it names.
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