Look,The Lord of the Rings: Gollumisn’t great. That fact doesn’t need repeating, but there’s something to be said for the fact that the devs are creating an entire DLC dedicated to preserving the intricacies of Tolkien’s Sindarin conlang (or constructed language, meaning any sort of language that is invented rather than evolved naturally). Not only is the new voiceover expansion a great moneymaker for game devs and a great immersion tool for people who love Lord of the Rings and want an even deeper experience — it’s also just incredibly cool.In fact, I think more games should have options that allow players to explore other languages, both fabricated and real.
The Sindarin DLC is exactly what it sounds like, making the Elves in the game speak Sindarin rather than English. The add-on is available for either $2.99 on its own or as part of the Precious Edition of Lord of the Rings Gollum.
For the uninitiated, Sindarin was Tolkien’s conlang for the modern Elven societies of Middle Earth and beyond. Thanks to his deep love of language and its historical evolution, Tolkien was famous for creating intricate, fully functional languages for all his races. Sindarin, for example, has a fully traceable language history—from its origins in Goldogrin, to Noldorin, into modern-day Sindarin. A lot of the phonetic sounds were borrowed from Welsh, but Tolkien took pride in creating and constructing his own words so they couldn’t be traced back to any other sources.
The elves got perhaps the most in-depth treatment from Tolkien, but dwarves, men, and even orcs had the histories of their languages traced, too. The dwarves kept the intricacies of their languages mostly to themselves, and Sauron’s Black Speech and other Orcish languages have appeared in bits and pieces throughout some of the other Lord of the Rings games, movies, and shows. With a bit of work (and the help of some professional linguists), all that stuff could be adapted into DLCs of their own.
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And I see no reason the possibilities should stop with the Lord of the Rings franchise. Language DLCs would be a great addition to the Middle-earth series as a whole, but how about alien races speaking in their native language in a space RPG like theOuter Worlds? It could even be extended to real-life languages, both living and dead; ancient cultures inAssassin’s Creedgames could be experienced with the full integrity of their languages rather than just a word here or there, or theCyberpunkfranchise could make better use of its cultural melting pot with a similar feature instead of making people of all different cultures speak English with an accent.
It would be a way to deepen the experience for those who want it without having to submerge those who struggle with other languages or reading subtitles quickly. It could be utilized in myriad ways that could easily benefit both publishing company and player base—as long as it wasn’t abused, of course.
I just wish it wasn’t so wasted on theGollumgame. Because ohboy,is it bad. Between the graphics, the outdated gameplay, and even the ragdoll death animations, it’s a black mark on the long and storied history of Lord of the Rings games. The Sindarin DLC won’t be enough to save Gollum, but it’s a cool and novel idea that could pave the way for this kind of stuff to appear in more games in the future.
