The Lord of the Rings: Gollum creators close studio, cancel second Lord of the Rings game

It was one of the worst games of the year, and after months of ridicule and paltry sales, Daedalic Entertainment has said “enough is enough”. The company, which at the time apologized to fans for the state of the released product, has just announced that it will close its internal studio and abandon development to focus solely on distribution. So, goodbye to the creators of The Pillars of the Earth and the Deponia saga.

In fact, Daedalic had a second Lord of the Rings game in the works, and after what happened, the project was automatically canceled. According to the German Ministry of Economics, the BMWK, the studio received a subsidy of more than 2 million euros for the project, which was originally scheduled for release in 2024. Both Embracer Group and Middle-Eart Enterprises, the owners of the brand, and the BMWK itself have already been informed of the situation, and it remains to be seen what will happen with the money, if any of it remains.

The closure of the in-house development studio will affect approximately 25 of Daedalic’s more than 90 employees. The company has claimed that it is facing a “difficult turning point”, which is also seen as “a new beginning in the long history of Daedalic Entertainment”. In 2020, the company had already been forced to close its offices in North Rhine-Westphalia and Munich due to the failures of The Pillars of the Earth and A Year of Rain. Gollum would have been the last straw, and as we said, the company will now only publish third-party games. Without going any further, it will publish eight games this year:

However, the developer wants to keep the good side of the experience and assures to be “very grateful for the time and the instructive experience” that The Lord of the Ring: Gollum has meant, for which they maintain to release yet another patch to improve the performance and finish, if it is possible. As our colleague Borja Ruete in Spain said, their problems went far beyond that:

“It is a dull, poorly designed and frustrating game that combines simplistic stealth mechanics with imprecise platforming and the occasional uninspired puzzle. The game has been released with bugs that can force you to replay entire chapters or even prevent you from progressing at all, as happened to us.

Source | Games Wirtschaft