The Lord of the Rings: Gollum went through a remarkably difficult development process, reports say. Read on to learn more about what went wrong, as well as what both the studio and employees have to say about the game’s development.
The Lord of the Rings: Gollum Development Was Rife with Internal Problems
Crunch Culture and Stressful Environment
To say that The Lord of the Rings: Gollum did not meet expectations would be a massive understatement. The highly anticipated game had one of 2023’s worst game releases, and now reports claim that during development, things were toxic and difficult.
GameTwo interviewed current and former employees of Daedalic Entertainment about the game’s development. Statements from various employees came forward saying that they experienced burnout, in addition to low financial compensation, with one employee noting that there are times when they worked 60-hour weeks.
According to statements, the staff behind the game were expected to crunch. In an internal email, COO Stephan Harms was reported saying, “In the future, we will neither pay out nor allow overtime to be deducted… Overtime is a completely normal and common parameter in our industry… crunch times are the norm.” GameTwo asked for a clarification from Daedalic and the company responded that they had “always adhered to the contractual agreements.”
Yet there’s still more. GameTwo reports, based on employees’ statements that CEO Carsten Fichtelmann “often yelled at employees, used his power against them and frequently caused tears.” When asked about these accusations, Daedalic appeared to be surprised and said that there is a “friendly working atmosphere” in the company.
LOTR: Gollum Still ‘Mostly Negative’
The Lord of the Rings: Gollum released back in May and was widely panned by literally everyone in the game industry and its players, owing to its very clunky and buggy gameplay. Currently, the game sits on a ‘Mostly Negative’ review in Steam, and the last time the game was updated was in June. This lack of updates and fixes seem to be in relation with the fact that 25 employees had been laid off just a month after the game’s release, with the company refocusing on publishing and distributing.
Furthermore, a 2nd Lord of the Rings game, codenamed “It’s Magic”, was canceled.
Sources
Report: Why Gollum HAD to fail by GAME TWO
