The Lord of the Rings: Gollum is getting ray tracing and Gollum's head has never looked so shiny

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Somehow Daedalic and Nvidia have made Gollum glossier

The Lord of the Rings: Gollum
(Image credit: Daedalic)

The upcoming Lord of the Rings game will feature ray tracing, meaning Gollum's head will look even shinier than usual.

As revealed by Nvidia, PC players with GeForce RTX hardware can utilize Nvidia's DLSS 2 and DLSS 3 technology (which boosts frame rates to create high-quality images) and will be able to enjoy ray tracing when The Lord of the Rings: Gollum releases on May 25, 2023. According to a blog post by Nvidia, the new technology will allow reflections and shadows "at the highest possible frame rates."

To give future players an idea of just how good The Lord of the Rings: Gollum will look when it launches on PC, developer Daedalic Entertainment has shared some gameplay from the upcoming title with RTX on. 

As you can see from the footage below, Gollum has never looked better. It's tricky for the little hobbit to look better than just okay most of the time, considering he's usually half-naked and greasy, but Daedalic has managed to do a good job regardless. 

Gollum aside, the ray tracing is certainly doing its job with the game's environments. As you can imagine, Gollum spends a lot of his time in dark, gloomy spaces, but Nvidia's technology manages to make the light parts of the hobbit's world just that little bit brighter and give its shadows even more depth. 

If you're curious about just how much of a difference ray tracing can make, Nvidia has provided Gollum's PC system requirements. According to the same blog post, with ray tracing switched off players can expect a resolution of between 1080p - 1440p, depending on their graphics setting, as well as a frame rate of 30 - 60FPS. With ray tracing switched on, however, this number increases to 1080p - 2160p and 60FPS on all settings. 

Can't wait to explore Middle-earth? Find out what else we have to look forward to with our new games 2023 list. 

Hope Bellingham
Hope Bellingham
News Writer

After studying Film Studies and Creative Writing at university, I was lucky enough to land a job as an intern at Player Two PR where I helped to release a number of indie titles. I then got even luckier when I became a Trainee News Writer at GamesRadar+ before being promoted to a fully-fledged News Writer after a year and a half of training.  My expertise lies in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, cozy indies, and The Last of Us, but especially in the Kingdom Hearts series. I'm also known to write about the odd Korean drama for the Entertainment team every now and then.