Despite a rough start, The Lord of the Rings: Gollum still became one of the best-selling games in its release week.
The Lord of the Rings: Gollum has achieved desirable sales in the UK since last week, coinciding with the time of its release. Despite the fact that Gollum has received negative reviews, it seems that a fair number of people decided to try this product.
Being able to see that The Lord of the Rings: Gollum had a terrible launch is an understatement, the game has faced a miserable reception after its release. Gollum is the worst rated AAA game of 2023 at the moment, receiving terrible scores from most media. On Metacritic, the game currently has a review score of 35 and an even lower user score of 1.2. Most of the common complaints relate to slow stealth and repetitive gameplay, boring puzzles, some bugs, and unimpressive graphics. However, despite such a weak reception, some were willing to give Gollum a chance.
The Lord of the Rings: Gollum came in at sixth place among the UK’s top-selling games for the weekend of May 27. It’s behind much more popular games like the latest Zelda, FIFA 23, Hogwarts Legacy, Mario Kart 8: Deluxe and Star Wars Jedi: Survivor. According to the announcement, 70% of sales are on PS5 and only 20% are on Xbox. However, it should be noted that these numbers only come from actual UK sales and the Xbox Series S does not use discs, which may affect sales figures.
With a series of delays, it’s not too surprising with the launch quality of the game.
This game represents the release of a new game set in a beloved franchise, and the Gollum developers even had to apologize for the state of the game they released, so it’s nothing. Surprised that sales were not as high as expected. However, since The Lord of the Rings franchise and future updates fix some existing bugs, perhaps sales will eventually pick up again.
Despite the disastrous launch, Daedelic is currently developing another game set in The Lord of the Rings universe. Recently, it was revealed that the company received 2 million euros from the German government to create a second game set in the Middle-earth universe. At the moment, not much is known about this product, but there are indications that it may be focused on magicians. The upcoming game is in development under the codename “It’s Magic” and doesn’t have an expected release date yet.
