Lord of the Rings: Gollum gameplay revealed in a new trailer

It's been two years since Daedalic Entertainment unveiled The Lord of the Rings: Gollum, and while we've enjoyed a handful of screens and a teaser or two since then, there's been no look at how it actually plays. That changed today with the debut of the first-ever Gollum gameplay trailer at the Future Games Show, which you can watch above or on YouTube.

The clip features our titular jewellery collector roaming in and around the neighborhood of Mount Doom, and perhaps the poisoned bowels of Isengard. It doesn't get into any sort of detail, but very broadly it reminds me of Styx, another game series about a sketchy, undersized hero quietly wending his way through an industrialized fantasy landscape. Styx, of course, is much more inherently violent: That game is about a master assassin who's pals with the biggest orc in the universe.

Gollum, on the other hand, is very much not a fighter—he just wants to find his ring and go home. Daedalic is taking a slightly more stylized visual approach to the character than Peter Jackson did in his movie trilogy and it's possible that it could also retcon the character to give him a more murderous streak, but I really don't think there's a lot of room for the game to move in that direction—at least not without stepping into ridiculous Sexy Shelob territory—and the video doesn't give me that impression either. Clocking the occasional unsuspecting passer-by with a rock may not be out of the question, but that's about as far as I'd expect Gollum's offensive capabilities to go.

The Lord of the Rings: Gollum is still a long way off: It had been set for launch this year, but in January Daedalic pushed it to sometime in 2022.

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.