10 Video Games That Made You Pay For Essential Features
4. Elvish Dialogue - The Lord Of The Rings: Gollum (2023)
After facing multiple delays since its announcement, The Lord Of The Rings: Gollum finally released in May 2023 to critical scathing. The stealth-action game starring the titular character was set to bring players into the fantastical world of Tolkien's Middle-earth to tell an original story from a unique perspective. However, a selection of mediocre missions, bland narrative, and downright broken gameplay mechanics drastically soured the experience.
Even though playing as Gollum wasn’t much fun, the game nevertheless managed to immerse players in one of the greatest fantasy worlds ever created thanks to some genuinely impressive sound design and music. A large part of this game’s appeal was experiencing Tolkien’s world, but this title fumbled this too by charging players extra money to hear elvish characters speaking in Elvish.
It’s only by purchasing the Sindarin VO pack (either as part of the Precious Edition or separately) that players will be able to hear elvish characters consistently conversing in their native tongue.
Despite developers Daedalic claiming that the dialogue was created by “lore experts”, placing such a basic part of Middle-earth behind a paywall was another baffling misfire for what’s considered to be one of the worst games of the year so far.