Not the character, of course – Andy Serkis did a wonderful job bringing Tolkien's creepiest creature to life and firmly cemented his legacy as The CGI Character Guy. I'm referring to the somewhat misguided Lord of The Rings: Gollum video game, which promises to turn Gollum into a triple-A hero.
I'm left with only one question, really: Why? Who was clamoring for the opportunity to eat raw fish and obsess over rings for thirty hours? There are ten million more interesting stories and characters in Middle-earth, and we've landed on this? It'd be hard to make Gollum interesting with even a competently-produced game, but the gameplay revealed so far is… rough. Everything outside of pre-rendered cutscenes looks like pure PS3-era jank, and the gameplay itself seems to boil down to hiding in bushes and climbing vines, with none of the visceral combat or in-depth social mechanics seen in previous LOTR games like Shadow of Mordor.
Because, again, you're playing as fucking Gollum.
The Lord of the Rings: Gollum will be available on May 25, 2023 after a six-month delay from an initial 2022 release date. Who knows what they used it for.
