Daedalic Entertainment Shuts Down In-House Game Development

The Lord of the Rings: Gollum's release led to the Daedalic Entertainment's devastating commercial outcome. As a result, the studio declared that they were closing down in-house production. 

According to the official statement, the company is shutting down its internal studio in Hamburg, Germany. Additionally, they will stop working on a second Lord of the Rings title in favor of focusing entirely on its publishing business and working with third-party studios.

In a comment to Polygon, Daedalic said that Lord of the Rings: Gollum failed to "live up to the expectations" and while it will continue working on updates for Gollum but has ceased work on another Lord of the Rings game.

"Daedalic Entertainment has made the decision to close its development department, with full focus now on our publishing business. Eight promising releases will be launching in this financial year alone," the statement says. A follow-up project in The Lord of the Rings universe that has already been started will be halted. The publisher will continue to support employees affected by the closing of the internal development studio. Daedalic plans to place former employees elsewhere in its "network". 

Daedalic did not announce the second Lord of the Rings title it was working on. However, the project was already started when the publisher decided to close down the studio. The studio also confirmed that they are working on another patch for The Lord of the Rings: Gollum, which has become one of the worst-rated games of 2023 on Metacritic and OpenCritic.

You can read the full statement here. Also, don't forget to join our 80 Level Talent platform and our Telegram channel, follow us on Instagram and Twitter, where we share breakdowns, the latest news, awesome artworks, and more.