A prolific game dev studio is imploding after releasing the worst game of 2023

wegotthiscovered.com:

For a moment there, it looked like The Lord of the Rings: Gollum might actually be a good game. It had a lot of things going for it: a beloved IP that was only getting more popular, a fresh take and the ability to control a protagonist that we’d never been in control of before, and a studio with a great pedigree. Then, it came out and quickly imploded. Now we’re hearing that Daedalic Entertainment is stepping away from game development for good.

Perhaps it’s for the best. The game was pretty much universally panned, with a critic average score of 37 out of 100 over at Opencritic. It has a 39 over at Metacritic. IGN called it “dull,” “bad” and “pointless.” According to GameCentral it’s not only “broken beyond belief” but also a “fundamentally bad idea for a video game.” I could go on but they’re all pretty much like this.

It is overwhelmingly the worst game of the year, and with an albatross like that around your neck it’s hard to stay in business. A German site called Games Wirtschaft shared the news and the company said it was moving away from game development and going to focus more on marketing and publishing games instead.

Daedalic Entertainment is shutting down internal game development and shifting to publishing. Development for its next Lord of the Rings game (in dev since mid-2022) is halted https://t.co/XCffi0Qgui pic.twitter.com/wYold9gn5t

The company acknowledged that it was facing a “difficult turning point” after the game’s failure, and even offered an apology the day after it came out.

“We acknowledge and regret that the game did not meet the expectations we set for ourselves,” Daedalic said in late May. “Please accept our sincere apologies for any disappointment this may have caused.”

As a result of the less