Probably the least important of all these problems, but really, the publisher issuing a blanket chatGPT-generated apology, in the name of the studio without their knowledge, not even getting the name of the fucking game right.
The idea that only having a €15M budget is what caused this game's issues is ridiculous. It's not a game that had good ideas and just failed to execute them properly; it's fundamentally bad on a conceptual level.
The setting and story concept are bad. When the game was first announced, I don't think I heard or saw a single discussion where someone was excited to experience playing through the story of Gollum in that time period in the story. Or even playing as Gollum at all - he's a great secondary character in the books and films, but he's hardly a character you want to play as in a video game. There's no room for character development either.
The game design is bad. It's just bad. No amount of time, money or polish is going to fix the terrible basic design principles the game is built on. And even if they had 10x the budget and hired a world-class lead game designer from the start, it still would have the issues with the story and character.
The whole project is one that shouldn't have left the brainstorming session it was conceived in.
I have no better source than the person I replied to. I was on Reddit when the game was announced and it was clear that the game was about being gollum. Plenty of people were excited.
You can go back on reddit and look. Calling it revisionist is a bit of a stretch. The temperature on this game was very much mid to uninterested. Sure there were people who were excited, but it wasn’t a majority at all.
I was excited when it was first announced. I was hoping for a stealth game with gameplay like souls games or the shadow of mordor games. Sadly the game wasn’t even close to that so I didn’t buy it.
Those were your go-tos for gameplay expectations for sneaking around as a pretty weak little goblin man? I would’ve gone for Styx instead, a game about sneaking around as a little goblin man. (Which I think actually belongs to the same publisher)
Obviously combat would have to be balanced for Gollums powers. 1v1 an orc could have been fine but anything else would overpower him. I didn’t play Styx so I can’t compare it. I played the Splinter Cell Series and Dishonored, but both offered technology and weapons with range to help with sneaking. So I opted for games with a high fantasy setting. A game with controls like Souls, balanced for sneaking and ambushes as a focus, using the environment as your asset? Feels to me like it could work. Well, nothing like Souls, Shadow or Styx happened and we got whatever the Gollum game was.
I only played one for maybe like 2 hours, but they seem like pretty good games, you could probably pick one up for cheap on sale.
Also when I think of Soulslike Gollum, all I see in my mind is this gormless little creature wielding a 6 foot axe or something and that just makes me laugh.
Anyway, yeah, Nacon/Daedelic had several studios that had more experience making stealth-action games. I mean, besides the guys that made Styx, they also have the Shadow Tactics guys. Isometric tactical stealth could’ve been another option.
It’s honestly like they just made the absolute wrong decision for all things during development.
I could have seen it as a Stardew valley-esque Hobbit farming Sim, you start with simple farming, interacting with lore accurate villagers, fishing, cave gathering as Smeagol.
Then after a certain point of the game in a quest you find the Ring and your memories start getting hazy and your farming skill starts deteriorating and your cave gathering skills improve and the Ring blanks out part of your days and suddenly you find Deagols body and get flashbacks to what happened.
In the epilogue you start your usual day in the cave ‘bed’ instead of your Hobbit hole bed and you go gathering and meet Bilbo. Then cut to black
What was released was a disaster that hadn’t had anywhere near enough thought and consideration put into it. However, frankly if you don’t think a gollum game couldn’t be good I’d have to blame it on a lack of imagination.
Why even attempt AAA game with such a small budget/team size ratio?
It would have been a good game if they had cut the amount of developers and the scope of the game to fit the budget. I’ve recently tried smaller games like Dysmantle and they’re great, why not even pixel/FF style Lord of the rings game? That would be awesome and cost less
“ reportedly enforcing uncompensated overtime, allegedly trying to pay staff below minimum wage, and a toxic work environment cultivated by an alleged abusive leadership.”
I mean nobody wanted this game in the first place, couple that with this sewage outlet and there ya go. They really had a follow-up game planned for this? Like it was gonna be a hit?
And thats a movie based on a legendary book. Hell yeah it made that much. Now turn around and say, “hey, bud. You know the split-personality leper following the protagonist? Ever wanted to be him?” Fuck, no. And it was never advertised as anything more than that. You have to relate a little to who you are controlling in a game, otherwise it doesn’t sell. Who relates to smeagol? People who wish they sold knives that don’t whisper to you?
Well, Smeagol is an interesting character because he is tragically relatable underneath it all. He was consumed by his greed, and completely lost his mind to it. His flashes of innocence and weakness make him at times sympathetic. But, then he reverts to Gollum and you see the consequences of his weakness, again and again.
That being said, being at times partially relatable does not make me want to be him, even in a video game. I think an interesting game where you play as Smeagol is absolutely possible, but that's an unnecessary uphill battle if I've ever seen one.
I mean, I get it from one angle - Gollum is one of the longest lived characters in LOTR. The issue is that even being 500 years old, he doesn’t really witness or interact with it all that much. Someone like Galadriel or Aragorn or Gandalf would be far more interesting.
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