There have been several disastrous game launches this year from “Redfall” to “The Last of Us Part 1” PC port, but little compares to “The Lord of the Rings: Gollum” which released in May.
Developed by Daedalic and published by Nacon, the game is reportedly one the lowest-rated titles of the year on major aggregation sites Metacritic and OpenCritic.
Things got so bad around launch time that Daedalic issued an apology for delivering an “underwhelming experience” with the final game, and that they “deeply regret” it did not meet expectations before pledging to improve it.
Now, in a video special for the German gaming outlet GameTwo (via Knoebelbroet and VGC), several former staffers at the developer have spoken for the first time about what went wrong with the title.
One of the biggest surprises is that it’s alleged that the text of the apology was written by AI software ChatGPT according to the outlet’s sources. In addition, it’s claimed Daedalic had no knowledge of the apology or its content prior to publishing with all that handled by Nacon.
Part of the reason for the title’s failure is put down to insufficient funding. The game’s development budget is reported to have been just under $16 million – very small by major game standards. Daedalic senior developer and technical director, Paul Schulze, says:
“There were people working on the game that have been developers for 10,15,20 years, and they’re good, but they can’t do magic because they weren’t given the funds.”
Due to running out of time before the 2023 release, several characters and cutscenes meant to be animated were simply hidden from the player. In addition, the core argument system was never finished leading to a makeshift solution being implemented.
In the wake of the game’s failure, Daedalic Entertainment announced it would close its development division and focus solely on its publishing business. Plans for a second “Lord of the Rings” game were quickly scrapped.
Soource: VGC
