The Lord of the Rings: Gollum has been a disaster thus far, becoming the worst-reviewed game of the year on both Opencritic and Metacritic. I have it sitting in my Steam library and intend on reviewing it myself, but after browsing through the various opinions of other people, I may choose to keep my sanity intact, thank you so very much.

The release has gone so badly that Daedalic had to respond, taking to Twitter.

“We would like to sincerely apologize for the underwhelming experience many of you have had with The Lord of Ring: Gollum upon its release,” said Daedalic.

“We acknowledge and deeply regret that the game did not meet the expectations we set for ourselves or for our dedicated community. Please accept our sincere apologies for any disappointment this may have caused.”

Sadly the apology may be too late because like the One Ring itself. it seems that playing Gollum has a corrupting influence that leaves the victim a frail shadow of their former selves.

But it looks like they already have a second Lord of the Rings project in the works, scheduled to come out in 2024. The news comes via a German website (and brought to my attention by Com_Raven on Reddit) that noted Daedalic was listed as having been granted a subsidy by the German government to aid in the development of a second Lord of the Rings game, codenamed “It’s Magic.” Magically pants, perhaps.

The listing describes the project thusly: “Daedalic is working on a new project that will transport the player into a lush world full of mythical creatures and magic. It tells a story from a character’s perspective that has never been told before. The player discovers completely new regions and influences the events of the world within the scope of his role and his abilities. In his own way, he tries to influence the course of things and change the fate of the world. This project is aimed at avid fans of the fantasy story and 3D action-adventure genres around the world.”

According to the same listing, the company has been awarded a subsidy of just over 2.03M Euro.

Quite frankly, given how badly Gollum has been received by critics and the general public, the fact that Daedalic is already working on a second game reads more like a threat.

Hopefully, Daedalic can actually turn this disaster around and produce something worthy of one of the greatest fantasy series ever Or failing that, maybe they could give us a fun little sim where you play as a Hobbit running a bed & breakfast & 2nd breakfast?