After a disastrous launch and an infamous public apology, a report alleges that The Lord of the Rings: Gollum‘s post-launch letter was in fact written by the AI text tool ChatGPT. With low scores across the board, the Gollum-centric adventure didn’t make a positive impression when it was released.
According to the new report from Game Two, the apology given for the launch of The Lord of the Rings Gollum was written by ChatGPT and not checked over, after the stealth game was negatively recieved by critics, players, and the internet at large.
It’s no secret that this Lord of the Rings game didn’t live up to expectations, as even our own Gollum review gave it a measly 3/10. Lacking the Tolkien flair the Middle-earth series needs and being bogged down by shallow, repetitive gameplay made the game “downright disappointing,” and that’s a sentiment shared by most.
With Lord of the Rings Gollum developer Daedalic Entertainment closing down its development arm after the game’s release, German YouTube channel Game Two has released a deep dive into the game with developer interviews, called “Why Gollum HAD to fail,” and there’s a lot packed into the runtime (spotted by Knoebel, via VGC).
Multiple former Daedalic developers were interviewed for the report, but Game Two adds that the infamous Lords of the Rings Gollum apology wasn’t actually written by the team, but by publisher Nacon instead. Game Two then adds that the apology was itself penned using ChatGPT and not double-checked ahead of it being published, according to anonymous sources. The first line of the apology calls the game “The Lord of Ring: Gollum,” for example.
You can see this part of Game Two’s report at the 35:46 mark, and use YouTube’s auto-translate tool to get a real-time translation of what’s being said in German. While the development arm of Daedalic closed after Gollum’s reception and 25 staff members were moved around, the studio remains open thanks to its publishing work.
While Gollum may not have lived up to expectations earlier this year, the constantly growing list of upcoming games on PC is sure to contain your next favorite. Otherwise, you can check out the best fantasy games currently available on PC instead.
