The Lord of the Rings: Gollum

Emerging from four years of development hell, long after its original Fall 2021 launch window, The Lord of the Rings: Gollum feels like a relic of a bygone era in the worst possible ways, being much akin to the countless licensed cash-grab shovelware titles from the PlayStation 2 era. Fumbled over the finish line by a studio whose previous work was largely 2D point-and-click affairs, with €2 million (~$2.2 million USD) in government funding to make it happen, the game was lambasted for its dated visuals, wonky controls, some very drab-looking fonts, eyebrow-raising dialogue, and horrific performance, all topped with a $60 pricetag.

Its inevitable icy reception prompted an apology from the developer for the state that "The Lord of Ring: Gollum" arrived in, which was received about as well as the game itself. This was followed by them outright shutting down their development division, as well as laying off over a quarter of their staff, and beginning the transition to solely a publisher; all in just over a month.²

Gollum won the argument, and the ridicule of the internet.

Unused DialogueGollum won the argument. Development TextThe lore compendium for the game's development.

Unused Text#

TRAPPED ORC
WRAITH

The lines of dialogue associated with these speaker names are not subtitled, leaving them unused.

Unused Models#

Early Gollum Model#

File Name: SK_Gollum_Dummy_01

Appears to be an earlier model of Gollum, sporting thinner hair and a dimmer eye color. It has a single animation, A_Gollum_Dummy_Idle_01:

Deagol#

File Name: SM_PRP_DeagolDead_01

While this model is used in a flashback in Chapter 8, only the bottom of his legs are visible. He uses Gollum's model as a base.

Unused Audio#

Test Audio#

test_amb_mono_1ch_pink_noise, test_amb_stereo_2ch_pink_noise, test_amb_quad_4ch_pink_noise, and test_amb_surround_5ch_pink_noise are what they suggest: test pink noise for mono, stereo, quad-channel, and surround sound output, respectively.

Unused Textures#

Test Maps#

The area maps for three test maps are present:

File Name: AMT_Dummy_01, AMT_Dummy_02

File Name: AMT_UITESTMAP

File Name: AMT_UITESTMAP2

The area map for a test map for the sneak kill mechanic.

Main Menu Background#

Likely a placeholder used until the final game's 3D main menu background was completed.

Test Texture#

A test texture featuring a simple black cross on a white background. Seems fairly innocuous, but in the game's files this simple texture is actually an uncompressed image taking up 139MB of space. The copy of it you're seeing now was easily compressed to less than 1% of the size.

German Logo#

While this logo can be seen in German promotional material for the game, the game itself only uses the English logo when set to German.

Chapter Selection#

The Wraith#

File Name: T_UI_Ch1_scaled_blurred

The Wraith is always unlocked, leaving this blurred chapter icon unused.

Mell Companion Icon#

Mell does not have a Companion Mode section, leaving her Companion icon unused.

Stamina#

Would have appeared beside the stamina bar, complementing the heartbeat sound effect when you run out of stamina.

Can be seen in a prerelease trailer.³

Argument#

Textures used for the argument system, seen in the game's two infamous early screenshots, are still present. Not helped by the final game ditching these altogether in favor of a flatter, more lifeless aesthetic.

File Name	Texture
T_UI_DialogueChoiceIcon_01
T_UI_DialogueChoiceIcon_02
T_UI_DialogueChoice_Normal
T_UI_DialogueChoice_Hovered
T_UI_DialogueChoiceDeco

Loading Icon#

Early	Final

Button Icons#

Common#

Early	Final

Early	Final

Early	Final

Early	Final

Xbox#

Early	Final

Early	Final

Early	Final

Early	Final

PlayStation#

Early	Final

Early	Final

Early	Final

Early	Final

Early	Final

Early DLC Banners#

Description	Early	Final
Emotes Pack
Lore Compendium
Sindarin VO

The text on the early Sindarin VO banner reads "A palan-diro elenath! Uilaw lítho i·amar nan ech", meaning "Keep looking at the stars! Never forget the world around you."

Additionally, two DLC banners that aren't used in the game itself also have early versions:

Description	Early	Final
Original Soundtrack
Art Exhibition

Blood Splatters#

File Name: T_UI_bloodSplash_01

File Names: T_UI_Health_0n (n = 1 to 4)

Unused Mechanics#

Upper Hand#

gains the upper hand.

As well as one half convincing the other, and winning the argument, there's also references to an unused sequence where one half "gains the upper hand". This would logically happen when either Smeagol or Gollum gains a majority of points on the bar at the bottom of the screen. There's even an unused video which references this cut mechanic. It was probably cut as this scenario could happen several times in one argument, resulting in several of these sequences in succession, making the process quite tedious.

Item Wheel#

File Name	Texture
T_UI_ItemWheel_Background
T_UI_ItemWheel_Arrow

File Name	Texture
T_UI_ItemWheel_CategoryFood
T_UI_ItemWheel_CategoryThrow

Textures for a scrapped item wheel mechanic. In the final game, Gollum can use either kind of item with a single button press. Was likely scrapped due to there being only two kinds of item, rendering an item wheel counterintuitive for quick inventory management when individual buttons suffice.

Difficulty Settings#

The game features two inaccessible settings: Parkour and Stealth Difficulty. Stealth can be set to Story, Normal, or Challenge difficulty, while Parkour can be set to Normal or Challenge difficulty. Both settings are always set to Normal and cannot be configured by the user.

Unused text describes the difficulties for each setting:

Parkour#

Stealth#

There is also an unused accompanying menu icon for these settings:

File Name: T_UI_Difficulty_Icon

Additionally, there is unused text that states:

Changing the difficulty while playing can prevent you from unlocking certain Achievements.

Nintendo Switch Leftovers#

File Name: T_UI_NintendoJoyCons

Various assets intended for the presumably scrapped Switch version (originally set to be published in Japan in December 2023⁴, but delayed indefinitely), including a controller layout graphic and button icons.

HUD Layout Mockups#

Unused Collectibles#

Name	Texture	File Name
Acorn Branch		T_UI_Collectables_AcornBranch_256x256_002
Food Bank Coin		T_UI_Collectables_FoodBankCoin_256x256_018
Mirror Shard		T_UI_Collectables_MirrorShard_256x256_011
Orc Jaw		T_UI_Collectables_OrcJaw_256x256_025

Menu graphics for four unimplemented collectibles can be found among the rest of the collectibles. Of note here is the Mirror Shard, which better fits the description of the Piece of a Mirror in the final game, which appears as a whole mirror, with a shard missing: not really something you'd call a "piece."

Unused Video#

Codename#

The codename for this game, referenced several times throughout the files, is ToM, which assumedly stands for Tales of Middle-Earth.

Oddities#

Collectibles Dialogue#

The file names for many of the lines of dialogue upon obtaining a collectible suggest their respective collectibles were originally located in different chapters than in the final game.

This may be reflective of a different chapter structure for the game as a whole, once being split into eight chapters, as opposed to ten in the final game. With regards to collectibles, this further splitting up of chapters from eight to ten appears to have been somewhat disorganized: Chapter 7 contains over a third of the game's total collectibles, while Chapter 4 is devoid of them entirely. This old distribution, while far from uniform, is still noticeably more even than that of the final game.

Miscellaneous#

• The PS5 version uses PS4 controller face button icons, despite the PS5 controller using different colors to its predecessor, ditching the classic color scheme for a monochrome one.
• The poem read by Gollum at the beginning of the game is referred to internally as DeagolsPoem, despite having no connection to Deagol whatsoever.

References#