The Lord of the Rings: Gollum will be a mix of Prince of Persia-esque stealth action, branching story, and J.R.R. Tolkien's hints about the Stoor - formerly known as Sméagol - to create a brand new Lord of the Rings story that is meant to fit within the books and not stray too far.
Stealth and new gameplay mechanics
The game's developer, Daedalic, spoke about the game's content which consists of stealth action and interactive, narrative gameplay.
Gollum has almost superhuman strength and incredible climbing abilities (according to the developers, he's been freeclimbing for 500 years). So he climbs a lot to stay out of sight. He can even do wall jump combinations and slide down steep cliffs when under pressure. The gameplay hints that Gollum will be able to climb most surfaces and that the levels have been designed with verticality in mind.
In a direct fight he is useless, but he can do takedowns when approaching enemies from behind. The problem with that is that Gollum has difficulty killing his opponent in this situation and ends up making a lot of noise, so it might be better to avoid the fight altogether. If Gollum is discovered, he has no choice but to run away and hide until he's out of sight of the nasty Orcs.
The perhaps most interesting mechanics lets the players decide if they want to act like Smeagol or Gollum in a certain situation. This leaves you as a player with different decision options in all situations that can influence the further course.
Stealth apparently is one of the main pillars of the game, because developer Daedalic says that Gollum is mainly a non-combat title. Apparently, the figure is about "cunning, not combat".
The game is mostly divided into levels and nodes. When Gollum arrives at a new place, the places he can go from this node are limited until he either works his way in, discovers secret passages, finds information, or manages to sneak his way into otherwise blocked areas.
Some levels are said to be completely open in all three dimensions and can be explored freely. Meanwhile, others may be more linear, but often have alternative routes where the player can, for example, decide whether to sneak around some guards or take a risky parkour route at dizzying heights to get to the next area.
The Lord of the Rings: Gollum was announced back in March 2019 with a release date for 2021. The game has since been postponed to 2022 and will be released for both the current PS5 and Xbox Series X/S as well as the older PS4, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch.
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