The Lord of the Rings: Gollum, a video game where you play as the titular jewelry fan, has been delayed from its September 1st release date. According to a statement posted on Twitter by the game’s developers, Daedalic Entertainment, it’ll be releasing “a few months” later, with the exact date coming soon.
Game delays are exceedingly common these days, but this does make it so the Gollum game won’t be launching alongside Amazon’s Prime Video show, The Rings of Power, which is premiering on September 2nd. While the show is set long before Sméagol ever got his hands on the Ring, it’s easy to imagine the game getting a bit of a boost if it came out a day before a blockbuster show from the same franchise.
Still, it’s more important to give developers, QA, and everybody else involved the time they need to do their jobs, rather than hitting a specific release date. If Daedalic times it right, it may even be able to release the game right around when the show is ending; according to WhatToWatch, the first season of The Rings of Power will consist of eight episodes, releasing once a week. Either way, if the show’s good (which you’d hope it would be given that Amazon’s spent an astronomical amount of money on it), The Lord of the Rings could get a few weeks or months back in the cultural consciousness, which Gollum could benefit from.
The game is slated to come out for the PlayStation 4 and 5, PC, Xbox One and Series S / X, and Nintendo Switch. Originally, the Switch version was going to come out a few months after the others. Daedalic didn’t immediately reply to The Verge’s question about whether the Switch version would be able to launch alongside the others because of the delay or if it would still be releasing a few months later.
If you’re looking forward to playing as Gollum, you may want to check out the trailer that was released earlier this month.