The Lord of the Rings: Gollum

My precious… refund button
This is the only game where you can experience all the personality of Gollum without ever opening it: confusion, self-loathing, and arguing with yourself about whether it's worth it. I chose mercy.
10/10 for immersion. I, too, crawled around my apartment whispering to myself and eating raw fish.
Will probably reinstall once I'm emotionally stable and Daedalic Entertainment offers emotional support hotlines.

tl;dr
hidden masterpiece … just kidding. But after playing Metacritic’s ‘Best Games of All Time’ entry ranked #13,658 - the insane hate for this game feels somewhat overblown
Overview:
Lord of the Rings: Gollum is an action-adventure stealth game where you control Gollum on his everlasting quest after the preciiooousss. The gameplay mainly revolves around climbing, sneaking past enemies, and solving light environmental puzzles. The game features internal dialogues between Gollum and Smeagol, adding a narrative layer. You explore a series of linear levels and chapters, each presenting a mix of stealth sections and platforming challenges. There is no combat system, just some stealth executions.
The Good Stuff:
Stealth and climbing mechanics are genuinely enjoyable and offer some variety. The internal debates between Gollum and Smeagol add a weird but compelling narrative layer.
Occasionally, the game introduces moments that feel fresh, though overall content variety is limited. Still, it’s more engaging than expected. Especially in the beginning, the artsy-fartsy visual style is quite enjoyable and kinda reminded me of the 1978 Lord of the Rings movie.
The Sorta-Kinda-Grinds-My-Gears-Stuff:
Controls are pretty clunky, leading to frustration. I would strongly recommend playing with a controller, as keyboard and mouse controls are by far the bigger of the two evils.
Puzzles can be downright weird - some are bafflingly illogical and, honestly, an insult to the player’s intelligence.
Visual consistency unfortunately fades after the promising start, but after getting used to it, there is at least some atmospheric beauty to be found.
The Atrociously-Bad Stuff:
Firstly all characters look simply cursed. Like, really very cursed. Furthermore, the story is exclusively terrible. It makes absolutely no sense and doesn't really fit the setting. The characters introduced should not have been invented at all. The clunky controls can be painful, as certain parts require precision.
Achievement-Hunter-Things:
You’ll need at least two playthroughs to get all achievements. Which, imho, is optimistic, as you need a no-death run, which is simply amazing with clunky and error-prone controls. Take your time, refer to a walkthrough, and ignore all collectibles. It's doable but unnerving.
Most other achievements aren’t too complicated. The game lets you select chapters freely, which helps a lot for collectibles or chapter-specific interactions.
Conclusion:
Gollum isn’t the catastrophic failure many claim, but it is also certainly not good, just better than expected. There are games that are streets ahead in their design, gameplay, and general innovation. Gollum seems streets behind. While some moments hint at potential, the game often reminds you of its flaws. It rather resembles a PS2-era title, and if you play it with that in mind, you could actually find some joy in it.
The positive review is certainly influenced by the incredible hate and negative press the game received. When your baseline is below zero, you can only be positively surprised. If you are a seasoned gamer that dipped in obscure and lesser-known titles in the past, you will most certainly have played games that are way worse. I genuinely believe that the Lord of the Rings franchise mobilizes a different audience with different expectations and experiences, which ultimately influences the reception.
At the end of the day, Gollum is actually way better than Shadow of War.

It used to be a badge of honour to say "I beat Dark Souls". Now it is a badge of honour to say "I beat the Gollum game".
Still, if you can live with the extreme jank, and get it on a big sale, there is some cool stuff here.
There are moments of frustrating gameplay. There are some action sections you will need to try several times and push past.
Mostly though it's pretty easy and linear, so it just felt like playing through a strange story. It's nice sometimes to play a straightforward adventure game like this. The second half is definitely a lot better than the first half. I was genuinely curious how the situation of the elves and Mell would work out, so that kept me going.
The graphics aren't great but there are some nice looking areas and lots of cool ideas, I think they just lacked the resources to realise them. The weird costumes are a highlight. The music is also good and there is some fine voice acting.
Mainly it's just very weird, in a way that few games are, which has its own charm.
If you are curious, I would wait for a big sale so there is low-risk, and try it.

This is one of the most painful games I've ever played but it's the type of pain that needs to be experienced by everyone in the world. That's why I'm recommending it.

Solid good time. I enjoy LOTR but I'm not a die hard fan by any means. would I buy it while it was on full price? no absolutely not. but on sale it was worth the price for sure. the game lasted me about a week. some parts, especially at the beginning, dragged on for too long. but it was really nice to play a game that I could play for 15 minutes at a time here and there and actually make progress. I'm too old and have a family to have all night gaming sessions now so being able to find time to play and it be meaningful time spent was refreshing.
I never had the game crash and ran just fine, never running into moments where the game didn't work.
There were times the puzzles stumped me and i stopped for the night and had to come back the next day. but they weren't too easy to where it felt like i was going through the motions and they weren't too tough to where i had to look up how to solve it. honestly looking back besides the slower parts that bogged it down, i can really see where the design of the game was going and what their intention was, and you can just feel the higher up corporate strain in the game while you play it, it honestly has so much potential but i think the suits got in the way of taking it from a 8/10 at launch to a 2/10.
the suits expected the next Skyrim, but if you except it for what the workers who made the game made it to be. its a great time.

Buy it on steep discount (as its on now, I feel for $4.99 its a decent enough game), and dont expect much in regards to graphics/character designs/looks being on par or similar to the movies or other games. Gollum doesnt look like Gollum....Orcs look different than we've seen before, more generic etc. All in all if taken for what it is (a title looking to make as much off as little as possible) it is still somewhat entertaining to play. By the time I wrote this, i already had 2.4 hours in so I couldnt return it if i wanted.

I wouldn't buy it at full price but its definitely worth a play. Its buggy and the graphics remind me of PS2 days. Gameplay reminds me of Prince of Persia, climbing-wise. It's frustrating in a fun kind of way. Was unable to play on the steam deck. I played on the steam deck at first but then my save wouldn't load. I'm playing on PC now.