Daedelic Entertainment Is Closing Its Development Department Following the Disastrous Lord of the Rings: Gollum Release

Peter_Brosdahl

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Daedelic Entertainment is closing its development division thanks to what has been called, so far, one of the worst games of 2023. After multiple delays and pushbacks Lord of The Rings: Gollum made its way to consoles and PC on May 25. Two days later the reviews came in and it became one of the lowest-rated games of the year to date. It seems that Daedalic's development team is now set to feel the wrath of Mt. Doom as layoffs have been announced. Daedelic provided a statement regarding the 25 employees who are affected and said it will try to support them by finding other positions within the company to move them to.

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After watching a video review of this game I think the developer deserves it. They literally brought it upon themselves. They have things like Tolkien lore hidden behind an additional $10 paywall. Even in game emotes for Gollum etc. are behind an additional paywall despite it being a single player game.

The game also appears to be straight trash. It has a story that doesn't make sense for the Golem character and it seems even less finished and less polished than Cyberpunk 2077 was on launch. The story sees Gollum having conversations and making friends. It also sees him with a human henchman and raising birds that he can control. If none of that sounds good then I've got news for you, it appears to get worse. The gameplay often centers around these mini-games because it has no combat to speak of. Its core gameplay is essentially 90's style stealth mechanics and enemy AI that was surpassed about two decades ago. You can sort of kill enemies by strangling them from behind but only if the guard is alone. If there are two a guard will simply pick you up and punch Gollum in the head until he dies. It has Assassins Creed style world traversal but its inconsistent in terms of jump distances and your path seems to often get blocked by tons of invisible walls.

It also has facial and general animations that make that pre-release version of Mass Effect Andromeda (the one everyone used for memes back in the day) seem polished and highly advanced. The graphics are also pretty dated and yet the system requirements are about as steep as Cyberpunk 2077's. I'm not kidding, for 4K and ray tracing they recommend a 4080 or 4090 and still recommend you set DLSS to balanced mode. Even though its a couple of years old, Cyberpunk 2077 is still visually stunning. This game looks like a budget title all the way yet commands a $70 price tag if you want to experience the whole game.
 
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Dan_D said:
Oh yeah. If this is an example of what the developer does it deserves to die.
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One of the comments I mad on another forums was that Daedalic as a developer had never made a single good game throughout their entire history. That Embracer thought it was a good idea to give the LOTR IP to Daedalic to develop a game based on it says more about how mismanaged or ill-informed the acquisition monster is than it does Daedalic.
 
Armenius said:
One of the comments I mad on another forums was that Daedalic as a developer had never made a single good game throughout their entire history. That Embracer thought it was a good idea to give the LOTR IP to Daedalic to develop a game based on it says more about how mismanaged or ill-informed the acquisition monster is than it does Daedalic.
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If anything I'm glad it was this game, which I was not at all invested in. But this makes me uneasy about the rest of the IPs I actually care about.
 
Armenius said:
One of the comments I mad on another forums was that Daedalic as a developer had never made a single good game throughout their entire history. That Embracer thought it was a good idea to give the LOTR IP to Daedalic to develop a game based on it says more about how mismanaged or ill-informed the acquisition monster is than it does Daedalic.
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Somebody sent 2 checks to the IP approval dept?
 
Armenius said:
One of the comments I mad on another forums was that Daedalic as a developer had never made a single good game throughout their entire history. That Embracer thought it was a good idea to give the LOTR IP to Daedalic to develop a game based on it says more about how mismanaged or ill-informed the acquisition monster is than it does Daedalic.
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I had to look it up because I couldn't think of anything off the top of my head.

Holy crap have they shoveled a lot of stuff out.

Out of that giant list, I have never played any of them. I have heard of the Deponia series, Aer, and Shadow Tactics, but just in passing somewhere, nothing significant of note.

store.steampowered.com

Steam Developer: Daedalic Entertainment

We are a videogame developer and publisher from Hamburg, Germany. We offer a diverse line-up of high-quality titles, including classic adventures, RPGs, strategy and multiplayer games.
store.steampowered.com store.steampowered.com

It looks like a ton of shovelware or an indie developer's catalog, with Gollum being their first attempt at something A-list quality.

I'm sad to see this happen, honestly. I don't think Daedalic deserves any better, they had a golden opportunity with a revered IP, that should have been a slam dunk. But to see the game turn out the way it did is a shame, and it's a shame to see a developer flame out because of it - even if it primarily put out stuff I don't care about.

It's like watching a train wreck - I may not know anyone on the train, and I hate to see it happen, but I can't stop watching either.
 
Denpepe said:
I still have to play shadow tactics but reviews were pretty good if it is your kind of game. https://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/shadow-tactics-blades-of-the-shogun
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Shadow Tactics wasn't developed by Daedalic, it was only published by them. Shadow Tactics was made by a tiny private developer called Mimimi Games. They also made Desperados III. They have a game like Shadow Tactics coming out in August with pirates instead of ninjas called Shadow Gambit.


When I say Daedalic has never made a good game, I am referring to those made internally.
 
Armenius said:
When I say Daedalic has never made a good game, I am referring to those made internally.
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Usually not happy when someone has to lose their job but I'm hoping Daedalic can find places these folks. It definitely sounds like closing this dept is a good thing, at least for now until they have a better handle on it all.

Here's also hoping that Annapurna Interactive doesn't repeat this history with the new Blade Runner game since that too will be its first internally developed game.
 
here's the deal... this does not pass the smell test from a Individual contributor level. Meaning it's not the programmers that caused this failure but the direction from the micromanaging bosses. I really doubt a team of programmers didn't know this was a bad idea but it sounds like a cult of personality (or wannabe) said it had to be this way. So they did it that way.
 
Grimlakin said:
here's the deal... this does not pass the smell test from a Individual contributor level. Meaning it's not the programmers that caused this failure but the direction from the micromanaging bosses. I really doubt a team of programmers didn't know this was a bad idea but it sounds like a cult of personality (or wannabe) said it had to be this way. So they did it that way.
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Well 25 people lose their job by them stopping to make games, AAA games require hundreds of developpers to create and even then it takes years so if this is all that are losing their job I'm not surprised tthe game has huge issues.
 
On the other hand, consider that if they don't have an immediate next project to which to send these employees, to the layoff lines they go.
 
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