The Lord of the Rings: Gollum is out now across pretty much every platform, but unfortunately, the game is getting panned by critics. The Lord of the Rings: Gollum was first revealed three years ago with a planned release in 2021. Development on the game hasn't gone quite as one would hope, and so for many Lord of the Rings fans, the writing was on the wall.
The Lord of the Rings: Gollum missed its planned 2021 release window by a whopping two years. The game was delayed multiple times, resulting in many fans losing faith in the project. Those concerns have been validated now that The Lord of the Rings: Gollum is available to the masses.
The reviews for The Lord of the Rings: Gollum are in on its launch day, and they're not pretty. At the time of this writing, The Lord of the Rings: Gollum has a 42 overall rating with only 3% of critics recommending it. This makes it one of the lowest-rated AAA games of all time, and certainly one of the lowest-rated new releases of 2023 so far. There are still some major outlets that have yet to weigh in on The Lord of the Rings: Gollum for themselves, so there is still time for the score to fluctuate, but it's unlikely to change much.
Looking at the reviews, many critics were unhappy with The Lord of the Rings: Gollum's technical problems, with some going as far as to call the game "broken." Others have criticized The Lord of the Rings: Gollum's stealth gameplay as being slow and repetitive. The word "boring" is used in the reviews, so it seems that even if the game didn't suffer from severe technical issues, it still wouldn't have been much fun to play.
Unfortunately, The Lord of the Rings: Gollum's gameplay isn't the only element of the game getting knocked. The game's graphics have left many unimpressed, while others aren't satisfied with The Lord of the Rings: Gollum's story. It seems that the game has failed to deliver on nearly every front, and that is reflected by its remarkably low review scores.
Fans of The Lord of the Rings may be especially disappointed as it's been some time since a major new game based on the franchise was released. The good news is that there are more Lord of the Rings games in development, including a big budget MMO from Amazon, though time will tell if they live up to expectations or not.
The Lord of the Rings: Gollum is out now for PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.
Source: OpenCritic