Why is Gollum (2023) considered one of the worst games of its year?

Because the record says so: Metacritic ranked it the worst game of 2023, and its developer apologised, then closed its development division.

The Lord of the Rings: Gollum is an action adventure game by Daedalic Entertainment, released on May 25, 2023 for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S. It follows Gollum between The Hobbit and The Fellowship of the Ring, hunting for Bilbo Baggins and the One Ring. It was a commercial failure, and Metacritic ranked the PlayStation 5 version as the worst game of 2023.

The scores explain the ranking. On Metacritic the game scored 38 out of 100 on PC, 33 out of 100 on PlayStation 5 and 43 out of 100 on Xbox Series X/S, all in "generally unfavorable" territory. On OpenCritic, only 4 percent of critics recommended it. Metacritic's worst of 2023 listing attributed the position to its gameplay, controls, visuals, bugs, and a requirement for extensive knowledge of Tolkien's literature.

The launch state was part of the story. The Guardian's reviewer described a game that felt profoundly unstable and difficult to play because of its many bugs. Digital Trends could not initially score the game at all because of persistent crashes, until a day one patch arrived, the first time that had happened in the publication's history. GameSpot's reviewer, in the site's later apology coverage, was noted to have had the game crash 120 times during the review playthrough. Reviewers also criticised the user interface and a perceived downgrading of Gollum's character model since the game's announcement.

Daedalic responded in public, twice. On May 26, 2023, the day after release, the studio apologised for the "underwhelming experience," saying it acknowledged and deeply regretted that the game did not meet the expectations it set for itself or its community, and promised patches for the bugs and technical issues. In June 2023 it went further: Daedalic announced it would close its development division, focus solely on publishing, and cancel plans for a second Lord of the Rings game, telling Polygon that Gollum "did not live up to the expectations we had for the game," while promising another patch and other positions in its network for staff being laid off.

THE AFTERMATH, LABELLED

Record first, single source reporting marked

June 2023 · The closure

As a result of the game's poor reception, Daedalic closed its internal development division, laid off staff, moved to a publishing only model, and cancelled its planned second Lord of the Rings game. That sequence is the documented record, reported at the time and summarised in the game's reference article.

October 2023 · One report, allegations

On October 7, 2023, the German publication Game Two published a report based on contacting 32 people who worked on the game. It alleged uncompensated overtime, attempts to pay staff below the minimum wage, and a toxic work environment, and put the budget at around 15 million euros. These are allegations from that single report, not findings of a court or regulator, and this page presents them as such.

October 2023 · The apology claim

The same Game Two report also claimed the developer's apology statement was generated by ChatGPT. That claim rests on the same single source reporting. The apology itself, its wording and its May 26, 2023 date are documented independently in contemporary coverage; who or what drafted it is not established beyond that report.

Why is Gollum (2023) considered one of the worst games of its year?

THE AFTERMATH, LABELLED

THE FIRST WORD