Nacon reportedly used ChatGPT for its LOTR: Gollum apology

As if The Lord of the Rings: Gollum hadn't suffered enough, reports now claim that Nacon used ChatGPT to write developer Daedalic Entertainment's apology.

Heidi Nicholas

Published 09 Oct 2023

Sources now claim that the apology from developer Daedalic Entertainment after The Lord of the Rings: Gollum's troubled launch was actually written by publisher Nacon using ChatGPT, and released without Daedalic's knowledge.

Stealth action-adventure game The Lord of the Rings: Gollum met with terrible reviews, resulting in an apology from Daedalic and, several months later, the news that Daedalic was closing its development department and cancelling a follow-up LOTR game.

"We would like to sincerely apologize for the underwhelming experience many of you have had with The Lord of the Rings: Gollum upon its release," Daedalic's apology said. "We acknowledge and deeply regret that the game did not meet the expectations we set for ourselves or for our dedicated community. Please accept our sincere apologies for any disappointment this may have caused. Our goal as a studio, and as passionate The Lord of the Rings fans, has always been to tell a compelling and immersive story-driven adventure. Crafting a story with Middle-earth as our playground has been the greatest honor — and the biggest challenge we have faced so far.

"At Daedalic, we understand that a game's success relies on the enjoyment and satisfaction of its players. We genuinely value your feedback and have been actively listening to your voices, reading your comments, and analyzing the constructive criticism and suggestions you have provided. Our development team has been working diligently to address the bugs and technical issues many of you experienced. We are committed to providing you with patches that will allow you to enjoy the game to its fullest potential. Once again, we deeply apologize for any inconvenience caused, and we appreciate your understanding during this time."

Now, reports claim that the apology from Daedalic actually came from Nacon and was written using ChatGPT. As spotted by Knoebel, this comes from German gaming outlet GameTwo, which spoke with former Daedalic employees and heard from two sources that the apology was written with AI tool ChatGPT (thanks, VGC). The reports also claim that Nacon released the apology without getting approval from Daedalic.

As it stands on TrueAchievements, only eight of the over 1,200 tracked gamers have completed The Lord of the Rings: Gollum achievements.

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Written by Heidi Nicholas

Heidi tends to lean towards indie games, RPGs, and open-world games on Xbox, and when not playing Disney Dreamlight Valley, happily installs every new wholesome game that appears on Xbox Game Pass, before diving back into favorites like The Witcher 3. She's looking forward to Age of Mythology Retold, Everwild, Fable, and Avowed on the Xbox horizon. Heidi graduated with an MA in English Literature before joining the TrueAchievements team.