‘Lord of the Rings’ to receive new game, TV show

“The Lord of the Rings: Gollum” takes place before Tolkien’s first novel in the setting, “The Fellowship of the Ring”. Image: Courtesy of Daedalic Entertainment via AFP Relaxnews

With Amazon hardly shy about its own prequel series, acclaimed game studio Daedalic has been talking about its plans for an action-adventure story focused on Gollum and, like the show, set for 2021.

First announced in March 2019, “Lord of The Rings: Gollum” is still on its way, tracking for release sometime in 2021.

German game studio Daedalic is well known for its point-and-click comedy adventure franchise “Deponia”, with the “Dark Eye” and “Edna & Harvey” series similarly well appreciated.

More recently, it turned Ken Follett’s best-selling story of medieval political intrigue, “The Pillars of the Earth”, into a multithreaded interactive adventure, and “The Lord of the Rings: Gollum” sees it continue on with another highly regarded license.

Senior staff from the development team spoke to Edge Magazine about progress on the game, indicating that their main character will be portrayed in line with earlier descriptions in the novels.

While Daedalic is still only teasing the character’s appearance, senior producer Kai Fiebig was clear enough that Gollum will not look like actor Andy Serkis did in the “Lord of the Rings” movies, IGN reports.

Instead, visual references include not only the written stories but also some of the published works’ early illustrations, as noted by a bullet point summary posted to online message board ResetEra.

Like Amazon’s series, “The Lord of the Rings: Gollum” is also set before the events of the first book “The Fellowship of the Ring”, and players will experience the inner conflict between the characters of Gollum and hobbit predecessor Sméagol.

As the game takes place before the events of “Fellowship”, Gollum’s corruption will not be quite as severe as in the books (or films), though it is still in an advanced state, and the character is still prone to vicious and mean behavior while retaining some more sympathetic qualities.

In addition, players will be able to side with one or the other of the warring personalities, though decisions can have a cumulative effect, making it difficult to change tack later on.

Just as Amazon has a multi-season deal with the Tolkien estate, Daedalic is also planning for several follow-up games, though post-“Gollum” installments are likely to focus on other characters from the stories.

“The Lord of the Rings: Gollum” is expected to release across several game platforms when it launches; by then, the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X will have joined the PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch. Even there, however, Daedelic is keeping its cards close. RGA

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