They may even notice you making your way across a room and go to investigate, but if you enter a shadow in time, you'll be fully invisible to them, even when they are no more than a few inches away. Crawling through the shadows is enough to keep you hidden from the Orc guards. When it comes to stealth, the gameplay is no less basic, mostly thanks to the befuddling incompetence of the enemy AI. It completely takes the thrill out of it.

These sections aren't as irritating as the climbing, but are still unexciting, especially when you sneak so close to a guard that they must have AirPods in their ears on full blast (probably listening to the hit indie game podcast Indiescovery, no less). Stealth sections are equally uninspiring and mainly involve crawling around in the shadows and shrubbery, sometimes throwing a stone at something metal to distract guards, a la 'A Plague Tale.' If you get caught it’s an instant fail, but Gollum has heat vision (like the eagle vision in 'Assassin's Creed' or Witcher sense in 'The Witcher') highlighting who is stomping and where they are. What happened in between? Do we need to know that? Gollum was interesting when he met Bilbo, and interesting again when he started following Frodo. Gollum's wanderings between 'The Hobbit' and 'The Lord of the Rings' were conceivably glossed over by Tolkien because they weren't very interesting. Gollum's a great character in a story but I'm not sure that means he's a brilliant engine for story in general.

There are occasional binary choices to answer questions or take action as Gollum or Sméagol, but it never felt like this altered the story or had lasting effects on Gollum himself. Hardcore 'Lord of the Rings' fans know Gollum himself is a complex character, both a victim and a villain, but that's not explored in any meaningful way in this story.

Lord of the rings gollum story