The game follows Gollum from Tolkien's Legendarium parallel during the events of The Fellowship of the Ring as he seeks to recover his lost "precious". The game is set right before Gollum meeting Sam and Frodo; Gollum had been made a prisoner and attempts to escape.
The game was released in May of 2023 to abysmal reception from fans and critics. In June of 2023, it was announced that, not only had plans for a different TLOTR game been scrapped, but Daedalic Entertainment would be closing down their internal game development, and existing solely as a publisher.
Tropes featured in The Lord of the Rings: Gollum include:
- Adapted Out: Aragorn doesn't show up in this game, not even from the back, not even as a mention, although he's how Gollum ended up imprisoned by the Elves. As this LP
(a rare favorable one!) puts it:To be fair, if Aragorn was involved the whole sequence would have been 'Press Q to bite Aragorn. Press Q to be bound and gagged and dragged through the mud. Press Q to be dumped in a cell.' - Adaptational Ugliness: Daedelic's Gollum is certainly not Andy Serkis' Gollum from the Peter Jackson films. He's uniquely unpleasant to look at, missing the expressive eyes from the film version and has a stringy, poorly rendered bowl cut.
- Bizarre Alien Reproduction: Exactly how orcs are made isn't shown but in this game they have a life stage where they resemble piglets and swim in pools, eating meat scraps that slaves throw in for them; these are the poorly-named Breeding Pits.
- Black-and-Gray Morality: Gollum in Moria is somewhat sympathetic, as a powerless creature trying to get by in some deeply unpleasant circumstances, and the player can choose to have him try to improve his situation by showing some loyalty to the few characters who are a little nicer to him, but at best he wants those particular characters around so they can help him and doesn't care about, say, causing an explosion that kills quite a few prisoners as well as the orcs. Lean into his more wretched side and he's worse, sucking up to stronger, harsher characters and throwing others under the bus.
- Blind and the Beast: Mell, a blind elf, is the only person in the latter half of the game who treats Sméagol like a normal person rather than the odious wretch that he is. He ends up falling in love with her, but while she does genuinely care for him, it's only as a friend.
- Call-Back: In the later half of the game, present-day Gollum is under guard in an Elven garden. The elves guarding him Order Gollum not to go to the river. If you eavesdrop on their conversation, you'll hear one asking why the river is off limits, and they are reminded of the time a group of dwarves was locked up and made a "miraculous escape" through it.
- Call-Forward: If you die in lava, you gain an achievement that says "Wait! Wait! Not Yet!", complete with an icon of Gollum's hand sticking out of the lava.
- Canon Foreigner: Most of the characters in the game are original to it, as it covers a part of Gollum's story which was only alluded to in the books.
- Enlightened Self-Interest: Sméagol can convince Gollum to lie and blame the Cruel Orc for an escape attempt by pointing out that if they risk themselves to help out the Frail Man, his friends will owe them.
- Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": Gollum doesn't care enough about the people around him to bother learning their proper names, so most characters are only ever referred to by a short mental description. The old man who shares Gollum's cell is the Frail Man, the Overseer of Barad-dûr's dungeon is the Candle Man, his daughter is the Cruel Woman, etc. Candle Man particularly dislikes being called Candle Man but doesn't share an alternative name, and that's what everyone else calls him too.
- Gameplay and Story Segregation: One of the core mechanics that makes the game so stealth-heavy is that Gollum cannot strangle any Orcs wearing helmets (which is about 85% of the Orcs in the game)...in gameplay. In a cutscene, he strangles a helmet-equipped Orc just fine.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: The Frail Man turns out to be a Southron king who defeated another Southron king in battle and offered up the defeated king's captured soldiers up to Sauron as tribute. However, the defeated king turned out to be another of Sauron's servants, and Sauron wasn't amused that the king had killed his vassal and was gifting him soldiers that he already owned. Said king thus ended up as a slave in Sauron's slave pits.
- How We Got Here: The game begins with Gollum in the custody of Thranduil (here referred to only as "the Elvenking" as in the original The Hobbit novel). Gandalf is there asking Gollum what he told the Nazgul when he was taken by them. The first half of the game is an extended flashback to an orc prison where Gollum was enslaved. Several hours of gameplay in, we return to present-day Gollum in the elvish jail.
- Hyperactive Metabolism: Gollum can carry some worms with him and generally scavenge mushrooms and so on to eat, recovering health.
- In Spite of a Nail: Sméagol can convince Gollum not to feed Grashneg to Shelob. However, she'll still find and eat him, just while also having a bone to pick with Gollum.
- Interquel: The events of the game take place between The Hobbit and The Fellowship of the Ring.
- Ironic Echo: If Sméagol refuses to throw the Frail Man under the bus for the escape attempt, the Frail Man warns Sméagol that if he ever rats out one of his people, "we are enemies, you and I." If Gollum is chosen in the ensuing dialogue tree, Gollum demands bread from the Frail Man in exchange for his silence and warns him that if he does not comply, "we are enemies, you and I."
- Karma Meter: The player can make choices as either Gollum or Sméagol. Depending on the choices one makes, that personality can dominate the character throughout the game.
- Kung Fu-Proof Mook: Orcs wearing helmets (which are most of them) cannot be sneak-killed, so Gollum has to avoid them entirely.
- More Teeth than the Osmond Family: The huge collar of the Mouth of Sauron's outfit is covered in teeth, making him look like he has a giant lower jaw.
- Multiple Endings: While the game's ending is mostly the same regardless, a few scenes play out a bit differently depending on a pair of Last Second Ending Choices, namely whether to save or kill Gwendil and whether or not to kill the Little One. If you save Gwendil, he and Mell will reunite, much to Sméagol's disappointment as he had fallen in love with Mell. Out of jealousy he almost murders the two of them in their sleep, but ultimately spares them and goes away. If you kill Gwendil, Mell and Sméagol will almost leave together into the wilderness, but Mell will realize that Sméagol murdered Gwendil as his story about how he died doesn't hold up, causing Mell to angrily abandon Gollum. Killing or releasing the Little One has no effect beyond the obvious.
- Pragmatic Villainy: For most of the game, Sméagol's choices are the "good" options and Gollum's choices are the "evil" options. However, this dynamic is completely reversed at the very end of the game when deciding whether or not to kill or save Gwendil. Gollum wants to save him because it will ingratiate him with the elves, while Sméagol wants to kill him in order to Murder the Hypotenuse.
- Ragdoll Physics: If Gollum is killed by something in his environment (particularly due to falling from a great height) he goes instantly limp and his corpse just flops onto the ground.
- Stealth-Based Game: Gollum is physically weak and has to evade his enemies or sneak up on them as opposed to engaging in direct combat.
- Throwing the Distraction: Rocks can be thrown, which will alter the courses of enemies while they check the noise.
- Truer to the Text: The game makes some different aesthetic and characterization-based choices than the Peter Jackson films. This angers a lot of film fans, but this Gollum is in many ways closer to who he is in the book.
