Imagine spending 50 dollars on a game and upon opening it the developers say sorry

60*

True but then at least drop the price? Who cares about an apology, consumers want their money's worth.

Its only 50 where you live?

🤓

It's amazing how far gaming has come! We used to get day 1 patches, now we get day 1 apologies

The devs banded together after the game was finished to preemptively write the letter, y'know, just to keep it on the ready

😂

​@MarquiseFurufoo You are all misunderstanding this game. It is actually a masterpiece which was coded by smeagle himself and also made to feel the twisted and depressing, brain-breaking life of smeagle 😢😢😢😢

At least we have Pizza Tower to make us forget about this monstrosity.

Well at least it implies they regret making such a trashy game

It’s very telling that I legitimately cannot tell if the Gollum death sound effects are genuine or just Dunkey memeing.

There are no jokey edits in this, that’s just the game…😅

@Capin91 comic sans?? For real?

​@Tokum Beatboxdo you want to have a bad Tom?!

@Another User what?

@Tokum Beatbox they asked if you want to have a bad Tom?!

Just imagine that there is probably someone out there who had $70 to spend on a game, had to decide between this and Tears of the Kingdom, and went with this.

for the price of this game, you could get Deep Rock Galactic, Project Zomboid, and then still be able to buy most of the DLC for Vermintide 2 during a sale.

@K Mac P Or even 20ish cheeseburgers, now thats the steal

There are some crazy ass LOTR fans out there. Trust me on this. But no, not even I fell for this. I can understand folks who bought, for example, Anthem day one because they thought it looked like a cool concept, but this? Nah.

I mean this would probably be better than those nintendo switch zelda games though

@LaFireTeam PLX lmao funny joke

This game really makes you FEEL like you are one of father's rats

*k i l l h i m*

STOOOOP

Thought I would get sick of this run down joke. Turns out it's still hilarious

The worst part is that 10 years from now, a niche video game youtuber will post gameplay of this and the comments will be filled with people saying "deadass, this game was my childhood frfr" and we'll all know that their parents secretly hated them and expressed it by buying this game for them to play.

Bruh lmfao

But those comments are legit games used to be legendary not like todays bug filled games

@Iภvaͥᖙeͣrͫz⇜ people make comments OP was describing about infamous shit like Superman 64 or Sonic 06, though

I don't know what to say if the parents hated their kids enough to spend $50 on this to show their hatred.

Nah they wouldn't

if their goal was to make you see how depressing gollums life was then this game really makes you feel like gollum

I don't know about you, but this game actually made me feel like Spiderman.

@Scale that comment of yours is somehow even more sad than the game.

I hope they can one day capture that in a Spiderman game.

@EnNarr91 Almost as sad as your mom

"this game really makes you feel like gollum" 9/10 - IGN

Even if this was a 15 dollar indie game, this would've been unacceptable.

If they gave this game to me for free, I will ask for a refund 🤣🤣

No it wouldnt stop bandwagoning

​@Leonard Villiers 😂😂😂 and an apology

@hidewhite2 the game is utter shit, in every conceivable aspect. I’ve watched people play it, it’s not bandwagoning what he said it’s absolute garbage, ugly, poorly made and executed, uninteresting garbage. This game is going to be 20 bucks in 2 months and probably like 8 during a Steam sale within a few more months, that’s how awful it is.

I'm not sure even anyone would need it for free

I think the Smeagol game is a secret art of Daedalic Entertainment, which depicts the world of modern game-development. You slave away in a dark building, being yelled at by more aggresive and powerful people, who was given more power because they were more evil and aggressive than others. They force you to work on something you don’t want to. And at the end if you produce something worthwhile, you “get extra bread for that”.

TY, just... thank you,

You are all misunderstanding this game. It is actually a masterpiece which was coded by smeagle himself and also made to feel the twisted and depressing, brain-breaking life of smeagle 😢😢😢😢

you got extra bread?

Not the bread 😭

I appreciate the existence of games like this one, because it's a game that nobody asked for EVER. So when it turns out this game is bad I get free entertainment from YouTube. Keep it up devs!

Yeah, everything about this game is just so fucking baffling, I’m very glad it exists because it’s genuinely hilarious

I’m just sitting here praying for another shadow of war.

Honestly, they should’ve made this a psychological horror game. Would’ve been way more accurate to the book.

But it is a psychological horror game. It makes you feel the way Gollum feels.

Oppression, misery, and constant reminders of death. Truly a game for our times

You should try Scorn...

You are all misunderstanding this game. It is actually a masterpiece which was coded by smeagle himself and also made to feel the twisted and depressing, brain-breaking life of smeagle 😢😂

the fact that they misspelled the name of the game in their apology letter adds an extra layer of hilarity to this shitshow

Oh I didn't even realise it until you mentioned it. Wow, that's a low 🫣🤭

Truly the mark of what will be a stellar and timeless piece of entertainment

"yeah we're kinda sorry for that lord of ring game, oops, thanks for the money tho"

Jesus Christ, they really did do that

Lord of the RING Yeah, forget all the other rings!

"The graphics is the graphics" Gollum game is truly one of the games of all time

Truly. A game was made and published.

I feel like if maybe you took Gollum and placed him into the genre of horror inspired by Little Nightmares and Bramble King, you could potentially make this concept work. Treat Gollum's journey of harrowing self destruction like the horror it is and subtly tell the player that everything that happens to him is both self imposed or deserved yet beyond his control, rather than treating him like some kind of anti-hero or whatever they THOUGHT the fandom was thought of him.

Usually with bad games he has a segment where he compares them to good games but for this he had Balan Wonderworld. Terrifying to think Gollum is that bad

Well, he did show Ratchet and Clank.

My first impression hearing about this game was that it should have been a point and click adventure instead of a stealth action game, and then i found out that Daedalic specialized in point and click games before this! A baffling choice to have this be your first action game!

Maybe they should've just gone the Emperor's New Groove route, abandoned all sense of seriousness and made it a Middle-Earth flavored Untitled Goose Game. In this infinitely better Gollum (let's call it Untitled Gollum Game), you just sneak around places like Rivendell or Moria and harass people for no reason. And instead of a dedicated "HONK!" button, you have a "PRECIOUS!" button you can mash to your heart's content while you cross off objectives like "put nasty Elves's bow in the well" or Make the Hobbitses eat raw fish." I'd play that game for a million hours straight.

How does that have to do with emperors new groove? I'm so curious. I love that movie.

@Rene Mejias If you watch the behind the scenes video they made about making Emperor's New Groove, they explain how originally they set out to make a great big serious musical like their other animated movies, but the development got so troubled and dragged on and on, until they finally just said "screw it, we're making a ridiculous comedy and not holding back!"

@Some YouTube Traveler they did well with that. Loved that movie as a kid.

i genuinely enjoy the fact that the state of game development is now just at “sorry for making this game” stage

"Like all high quality games, the Smeagol game comes with an apology from the developers" is just a 10/10.

Roasted them completely

10/10 It has a little something for everyone

They also misspelled the name of the game in the letter. 11/10

@GalaxyWizard "The Lord of the Ring: Gollum" lmao I can't man... I didn't catch that until you mentioned it

It's just embarrassing at this point

My favorite part of the 'apology' is that they focus on the fact that they're working on fixing the bugs. People don't hate it for the bugs. They hate it because the core game is terrible.

I don't think the idea is bad. The mechanics of having to pick between Smeagol and Gollum could have been great if they were fleshed out and put on a game that wasn't awful.

The concept of this game sounded great. As a weak and frail Sméagol you’re tasked with navigating through middle earth and it’s dangers. Also as a character his interactions with people could have been fun to see. Too bad they released this 😭

I think the same, the concept itself is not that trash, but the execution..

"Unless you want the precious edition. That's $70. Like Zelda." That line is gold.

You know your game is bad when dunkey uses Balan Wonderland as a good example

This game makes you feel exactly like Gollum. Bitter, sad, broken, depressed and alone. It's a Gollum type game.

peak Gollumcore aesthetic

Ah yes, I’m quite the fan of Gollum-likes

Too little appreciation for this "man of culture" comment

Truly makes feel like you dont have something precious.

I just wanna know who green lit this game, and then had the balls to actually develop it over literal years. On what level could anyone have said, “yeah this sounds like a game I would love to play”

I want to know who had the audacity to slap a $60 - $70 price tag on this abomination of a video game.

The use of Fortune’s theme had me laughing my ass off. Good stuff.

Thanks I was trying to figure out where I knew that from.

This game reminds me of a AA stealth game I played a few years ago: Styx: Master of Shadows. It's like LOTR: Gollum went for a similar game with a similar premise (small and weak protagonist who cannot win a fair fight, dark fastasy setting, dark and brooding atmosphere, focus on stealth and acrobatics to avoid confrontations, even the way stealth kills are handled is extremely similar), except Styx did it better because the game was less glitchy (it was still janky but not in a game-ruining way), the story was more interesting to follow, the protagonist was more ressourceful, and the brooding atmosphere was tempered by bits of black comedy.

The game literally could have just been about Sméagol’s journey alongside the fellowship of the ring and what he came across as he followed and stalked them to try to get the ring back but instead they made it slave labor the game

Truly one of the games of all time. The story was, the characters were, the gameplay was, the level design was, the progression system was, and the graphics were

"like all high quality games, the smeagol game comes with an apology" truly the future is now

cp2077 was so ahead of it's time

On the idea level, the game could have been awesome. Gollum ranges across all of middle earth in search of the ring. Could have made an awesome stealth adventure game about that

I actually don't mind the concept of a Gollum game, he's one of the most interesting characters... ever. And he's not weak either, he's incredibly resilient, cunning and actually quite strong in a way. He does manage to assassinate goblins and feed off them. I have not played that game, will not until it becomes very affordable, but boy does it look disappointing...

I was thinking the same thing.

P.s. I like foots

All these reviewers were paid off by Big Hobbit to destroy Gollum's reputation. I thought I could at least turn to Dunkey for an unbiased review, but it seems the Hobbits' offer of getting to eat 11 meals a day was too tempting for him to resist.

Nothing nicer then checking on a childhood YouTuber who has gone from a few thousand views to now millions. So we'll deserved dunk you are the goat

You know, there kinda exists a game that this should have been like: The Oddworld series, particularly Munch's Oddest, and the original first one. You played as these frail, ugly looking creatures, and you used stealth and puzzle solving, on the original game you had side scrollers 2.5d animation, and in the Munch one you had a sandbox in full 3d exploration, either of those methods could have worked, if you had focused the level design better and increased Gollum's badassery by just a tad/made him more book accurate or at very least more movie accurate. Instead of keeping him imprisoned most of the game why not have it be a GTA free for all killing goblins and eating fish and avoiding dragons and gathering deeper insight into his entire story with Deagol or his encounters thru the Hobbit, maybe grant him some intel gathering missions for orcs/he could choose between assassinations or mercy, or even redo Frodo's story with a different ending, give him the ability to listen to Smeagol or Gollum more and affect the outcomes of the traditional ending of the book.... It would not have mattered as the graphics still looked like shit, but y'know. I think his climbing walls was entirely appropriate though his jump is way op and ridiculous.

It'll never cease to amaze me that games with tons of promise get cancelled half way through production all the time, yet games like this survive all the way to a release date.

Being lord of the rings is the only reason it got to release. Think of it like a modern one of those shitty movie games they use to make tons of like ps1/2 time frame. It doesn’t matter if it’s good, enough people will likely buy it in the end anyways to turn a profit

it always surprises me that they make a game to this extent and then just... don't polish it and release it broken? it's literally throwing away years of work and hundreds of thousands of dollars every time they release a broken game.

Corpos, that's the answer

@sam h It's not throwing aways years of hard work and millions of dollars if dumb people buy the game anyways. Then they are actually making a profit for selling an unfinished game. And then they are incentivized to keep selling unfinished games because dumb people still buy the game.

The first game I immediately thought of when you said this, was Silent Hills. I still haven’t forgiven Konami for that

i cant even explain why but "he is weaker and more stupid than a beetle" is such a hilarious sentence to me

I more or less stopped playing vidja games around 2015 and I am increasingly convinced that this was the correct course of action. Thank you Dunkey for enduring this

AAA games in particular seem like they're not worth the time or money you need for them these days. I still have a bunch of fun with indie games, but I've started skipping a lot of the big-name games that I'd have probably bought at launch 5-10 years ago. It feels like they're often padded out with grindy/ less fun stuff to make up for the high price, but that just makes me enjoy them less overall (especially now I don't have as much free time)

This is a strand-type game, Dunkey. Just play it four more times and it'll resonate with you.

No no, my man. Dunkey didn't realize this is actually the first Gollum-type game. You should wait until they get Norman Reedus to do some mo-cap for the next one.

Ok I've seen this game played extensively and still....I cANNOT get over the sound design for his deaths, they're so absolutely hilarious, like slapstick perfection....the sound at 1:36 is the perfect example Such a solid *thunk* and his lifeless corpse just sorta "floating" in reality there....humor perfection

This feels like a really impressive game that a college student would submit as a final or something

it's amazing how Smeagol who can't take 5 steps without dying somehow managed to live hundreds of years

That's just how hard his life has been. No wonder he's so crazy

@BillyD00 Smeagol had to play The Lord of the Rings: Gollum for hundreds of years. Can't believe the orcs would do this to him, sadistic bastards.

In canon, smeagol is pretty weak. Strong enough to wrestle a hobbit, but just barely. Aragorn could probably crush his windpipe with one hand tbh. His survival is not a matter of physical durability. But instead is a combination of three factors: 1) His own cunning and desire to avoid danger so he can spend more time with the ring. 2) The power of the ring itself, which smeagol wielded longer than anyone. 3) The personal intervention of Eru Illuvitar ensuring that Gollum survives long enough to play his pivotal role in destroying the one ring and finally ending the rebellion of sauron and morgoth. And if I had to pick, I'd say it was mostly the third one. Smeagol was literally chosen by god to play his accursed role, to be the sacrificial lamb. And thus he could not have been permitted to due a pointless death before his appointed time.

This game ultimately offers us a glimpse of the deep sadness within the developers' souls.

I like how they tell you to press X to Accept Game Over as if there was a mechanic where you could dispute it but didn't make it to the final version of the game.

I don't know if Dunkey uses it a lot, but I love the fact he put a "Mystical Ninja: Starring Goemon" sound byte into this at 5:19. That game was my childhood and I go back to the OST regularly

I think they can fairly easily fix the gameplay issues that people were having. But its another question if they will, instead of abandoning the game. How on earth they did not receive constructive feedback on the game before it was released?

This game would probably work really well if it was structured like the escapists, where you experience a painfully repetitive week cycle and are able to slowly develop your own plan to escape, unfortunately modern AAA game devs are too scared to make their games anything except open world or linear/story-based.

You know it’s bad when Balan Wonderworld is used as a positive example

For real, the fact that Dunkey made that comparison was what really made me think "damn, this game is so horrible my feeble mind can't even comprehend its horrors"

I've never heard of Balanwonderworld I've only heard of Balanwonderland(this is a joke)

"This reminds me of that time I committed fax fraud at Yuji Naka's house"

​@Well I'm me well my mind can comprehend these horrors just fine so sounds like a skill issue

only because it knew what it wanted to be

Balan Wonderland being an example of what a game could do better is horrifying.

Say whatever you want about this game, but we all have to admit the devs produced a very well written apology letter. Well done guys👏

I think it's hilarious that in their official apology they even misspell the name of their own game. They say "The Lord of Ring: Gollum"

it truly does seem like the kind of game you play if you want to feel miserable.

This game really makes you feel like you're Gollum. This game is genius, too bad its not fun haha.

the fact that their game was so bad they had to apologise for the game itself is just incredible

their game was so bad they couldnt spare the time to write an apology because they were still coding it after release so they let the AI do it

“Lord of Ring”

It’s an embarrassment. They should have cancelled this monstrosity before it even released.

you really need to think, at any point during development did someone say 'hey this looks like trash' or were they all extremely proud of their product. If they were proud that is absolutely sad

Not my place to accept such an apology, though I will note they also need to apologize for charging 10$ for lore content to hide the fact this was not a 59$ game but a 69$ one.

This is truly one of the games of all time.

Quality dunk. I love when something sucks

"The premise of this game is you play as a starving little gremlin that can't even catch a beetle doing slave labor for orcs in hell where everyone is coughing and dying and nobody likes you because you're a little slimy rat bastard and everyone hits you and calls you names the whole game" Holy shit dunky sure knows how to sell me on a premise

This is actually an intricate form of meta conceptual art in which the process of development, design, and execution accurately portrays the state of modern American consumerism and the slavery mindset that motivates consumers to seek the perfect drug in the form of entertainment, a futile and unrealistic dream that leaves the soul in the state of Gollum. The product itself serves as the bridge from broken/ corrupted establishment, to the modern man searching for the perfect content. We are slaves to those who want to drain our lives for their own benefit, eagerly seeking hope that what they will give us is our own freedom. The apology left from the developers clues us into the experience which they intended for. A substantial and affective post modern criticism of the flesh behind the screen and the soul within that groans shrills and mourns for life, all while we deny and plot to keep trying in an effort to negate the fear of death

Others made me laugh at the game but Dunkey managed to pass on some of the depression it made him feel onto me.

I’m genuinely convinced that the character designer got Gollum and Dobby mixed up on several occasions during the design process

Imagine playing as a fusion of the two most beautiful people in all of fiction. 60 dollars yes please

Don't disrespect Dobby like that, house-elves can wield powerful magics they're just brainwashed.

Then they threw Bully Maguire’s hair ontop of the abomination. 💀

And somehow failed at creating either one

It’s annoying too because theses guys helped make Barotrauma

In the world where there are elves fighting demons and a mountain sized dragon with a flying ship, they decided to make a game about a drug addict.

The way you describe the premise of this game low key makes it sound fun

Imagine playing a creature whose only ability is taking advantage of peope's pity, but every other npcs in the game is either orc or dying people so your strength didn't work at all. This game just want you to suffer boredom and misery

This game truly makes you feel like Gollum

The character you play as in this game is actually based on Dunkey's brother escaping after years of being forced to play video games blindfolded with an unplugged steering wheel for Dunkey's channel

And fed nothing but spaghetti

my little brother actually has the controller

@T𝕣ozay Spagetti and Meatballs

yes

Seinfeld?

This game is what it feels like to barely survive a horribly botched brain surgery.

I'm late to the party here but I'd like to point out the fact that they misspelled the game's name in their own apology. Truly astonishing work fellas

I have been asking for this game ever since I read the original book release in 1937, but now that I have it, I want more. This game was absolutely amazing and exactly how I pictured a game with Gollum would perform. I can’t wait for the sequel “Sméagol” !

I never thought "he's one of father's rats, kill him!" would be stuck in my head, but here we are.

I laughed uncontrollably from this video!🤣

Reading the books and watching the movies, it's apparent that the developers were going for that truly authentic Gollum experience... which is to say a life of agony, pain, and crippling helplessness.

yes -they want the experince for players so they succeded , they should charge more for this uniquehood

Which is weird, because the whole thing about Gollum in the books is that he is deceptively powerful. He can take out orcs and even trolls alone. He is twisted, and mutated, but not helpless at all.

And also mind-numbing tedium.

I'd like to think that the ghost of Gollum is trapped in every iteration of the game's avatar, living out every pathetic lifespan as a mean of punishment, this game is literally Smeagol's afterlife.

It's amazing how this game makes Balan Wonderworld look good in comparison

"but thats like stuff from fun games so its ok" best line

Omg i just realised, this game was so appropriate. The experience of suffering the torments if gollum, was actually painful

Gollum deserves a stealth-action game akin to the Riddick games. It could have been a lore dump with storytelling through environment where the most interesting parts of the game would be Gollum standing in the shadows overhearing conversations between unique characters.

"The graphics are the graphics" that's my favorite line ever

This game really makes you feel like one of father’s rats

Had a feeling someone would write this.

Worst part is, a Gollum game could actually be good if done right. Gollum is a cunning, stealthy, cruel bastard with more strength than the looks would make you believe - literally an ideal stealth game protagonist - have you guys ever heard of Styx: Master of Shadows? But no, they really thought a cinematic linear game with uncharted platforming was the way to go for fucking *Gollum*

i love how he went to name it more smeagol and then remembered how he did not want more smeagol please

1:17 to 1:35 had me rolling lol

It's a shame because Daedallic has some very good games- they're just not this type of game, they specialize in point and click adventure games, so it definitely was a mistake of them to take on a project this big without prior experience

The first "apology type game", truly revolutionary.

No that was redfall

@Immadeus Don't forget Cyberpunk!

@Mollusck Scrampyeah but Cyberpunk was actually good

​@karimitic kaeloo GREAT TEM LORD_you're good_ ...and _Breathtaking_

they should make a speedrun any % apology game category, wins wichever developer apologies first

The apology letter is the little cherry on top that every AAA game in the year 2023 needs to be truly complete.

"He's one of father's rats! Kill him!" needs to be one of the new memes that shows up in the comment section of every future Dunkey video

This like playing a mario game but you play as a goomba walking back and forth the whole time

Based on this video from Dunkey, I can confidently say this is one of the games of all time

I can tell I would not like this game at all and wouldn't even want to play it for more than an hour but it is hilarious watching you play it. This video cracked me up. Most Dunkey video make me laugh but this had me dying. I got so many emails from this company for at least a year looking for me to promote this game on my main socials. I actually considered it but waited and never heard anyone else even mention the game so I knew something was stinky and it was most definitely Smeagol's pussy. This game is so bad that I bet the story behind it's development struggles is even funnier. In a way it's more appropriate that it's a bad game, this is smeagol after all. The developers really make you feel like Gollum, that is annoyed, depressed, and like Dobby the house elf with less clothing but just as much abuse from muggles. I think they should go back to the main characters from Lord of the Rings and pick again. Even those old PS2 games from the LotR era were fun for a week or two and they were pretty mindless hack and slash games. Shadow of Mordor may be the peak and I still haven't played it. I want a really good Legolas game where it's basically an archer and it plays identically to Zelda.

"Wait in the line of slaves" has to be the funniest objective. Literally virtual queuing, peak game design.

The objectives are straight out of Postal 2 "get your welfare check" "wait in line for gary coleman's autograph" "piss on your dad's tomb"

This is just what living in Chicago is

​@William Wade You are all misunderstanding this game. It is actually a masterpiece which was coded by smeagle himself and also made to feel the twisted and depressing, brain-breaking life of smeagle 😢😢😢😂

Well, to be fair, this game is actually very faithful to Tolkien's lore: Gollum's time in that prison was boring, horrible, abysmal, filled with crappy as hell objectives that either make no damn sense or are just ultra depressing, all taking place in a horrible looking environment. This game captured all of that accurately. LMAO.

@John Penguin the 3rd "It's not supposed to be *fun*, it's a commentary on the horrors of slavery, the banality of evil, and the halfling condition through the lens of the most wretched, pathetic id-driven excuse for a hobbit. It's *art*. Now give me $60.00."

Imaging going to school to be a game developer, breaking into the game industry, and you get a job working on LOTR! Then you find out it’s a Sméagol game…

nice video. feel the urge to laugh and cry at the same time!

Sméagol’s final act as a character was standing in defiance of this games existence

I remember Daedalic making all of this beautiful 2d adventures games. Maybe they just wasn't ready for 3d, not alone a high budget game.

This game could’ve been a good horror game about someones delve into insanity and unhealthy obsession and depression.

They did such an amazing job with this game. They wanted to make a dark, depressing, gritty experience. Not only is the atmosphere dark, depressing, and gritty. But so are the mechanics and gameplay. What a success

Good troll

It reminds me of Agony, except with less soul. Ironic.

I mean as a hobbyist game developer the point of game dev is to make the player feel a certain way. They seem to have made the player feel exactly how gollum feels so in that regard this game is a success.

reminds me of agony. I got to the second area before I couldn't take it anymore.

Truly this is the modern day’s Kane & Lynch 2

I was actually wanting to play this game. I had it on my wishlist since 2020. The trailers were awesome, and I was led to believe that this was a stealth game. It was a huge disappointment, but at least I didn't buy the game.

maybe its so bad that its actually good. this is exactly what they were going for. they made the game so realistic to show how how pathetic gollum is 👀 10/10

Whoever’s responsible for developing and releasing this game is on some amazing crack!

This game really makes you feel like one of father's rats.

This game really makes you FEEL like you’ve been cursed with unnaturally long life.

Yep. At least ET for the Atari was only ten minutes long.

The game feels thin, sort of stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread.

I like you😂