LOTR: Gollum Will Use Ray Tracing To Make That Disgusting Hobbit Look Even Greasier

Next month will see the release of The Lord of the Rings: Gollum, a fresh retelling of the iconic character from J.R.R. Tolkien’s fantasy books. Like several other PC games, this adventure will allow for some impressive visual features if you have the right hardware, including Nvidia’s fancy ray-tracing technology. This is a far cry from the 2022 gameplay trailer, which was met with criticism toward the graphical performance shortly before Nacon delayed the game.

While Gollum’s journey across Middle-earth won’t be giving Cyberpunk 2077 and its path tracing any sleepless nights, the sizzle reel posted by Nvidia does tease some good-looking atmospheric lighting, reflections, and unfortunately, a greasier Hobbit. Two out of three isn’t bad, especially if the “hero” of your game has spent several centuries eating raw fish inside of a dank cave. The rest of the game is, fortunately, easier on the eyes than Gollum’s filthy frame, and Nvidia has shown off how ray tracing enhances the experience in the trailer below.

PC gamers with GeForce RTX hardware will also benefit from Nvidia’s DLSS 3 and DLSS 2 upscaling technology, allowing them to experience ray-traced reflections and shadows at the highest possible frame rates. As for the actual requirements, LOTR: Gollum has some fairly demanding GPU requirements even without enabling ray tracing.

For a standard 1080p and 30fps using low to medium settings, you’ll be able to get by with a GeForce GTX 1060 or RTX 2060, but anything beyond that will require an RTX 3060 and up. Pushing the game to render in 4K and with ray tracing on will require a newer 40-series Nvidia GPU, but at least the storage capacity requirements are fairly small in comparison. You could install Gollum three times over in comparison to the amount of space that Star Wars Jedi: Survivor is asking for.

After multiple delays, The Lord of the Rings Gollum releases on May 25 for PC, PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S, and Xbox One. Preorders are now live, but if you want to get your handses on the version of the game that includes authentic Elvish language, you’ll have to cough up extra to knock down that paywall.

The Lord of the Rings Gollum PC Requirements

Minimum (1080p)

• Preset: Low
• Frame rate: 30fps
• GTX 1060 or RTX 2060
• Intel i5-4660 or AMD Ryzen 3 1200
• 6GB RAM
• Windows 10/11
• 45GB HDD

Recommended (1080p)

• Preset: Medium
• Frame rate: 60fps
• RTX 3060
• Intel i7-4770 or AMD Ryzen 5 1600
• 6GB RAM
• Windows 10/11
• 45GB SSD

High (1440p)

• Preset: High
• Frame rate: 60fps
• RTX 3070 (With DLSS Quality Setting)
• Intel i7-4770 or AMD Ryzen 5 2600
• 8GB RAM
• Windows 10/11
• 45GB SSD

Ultra (2160p)

• Preset: Ultra
• Frame rate: 60fps
• RTX 3070 (With DLSS Performance Setting)
• Intel i5-8400 or AMD Ryzen 5 3600
• 8GB RAM
• Windows 10/11
• 45 GB HDD

RT Minimum (1080p)

• Preset: Medium
• Frame rate: 60fps
• RTX 3060 (With DLSS Quality Setting)
• Intel i3-6100 or AMD Ryzen 5 2600
• 8GB RAM
• Windows 10/11
• 45GB SSD

RT Recommended (1440p)

• Preset: High
• Frame rate: 60fps
• RTX 4070 (With DLSS Quality Setting)
• Intel i3-6100 or AMD Ryzen 5 2600
• 10GB RAM
• Windows 10/11
• 45GB SSD

RT Ultra (2160p)

• Preset: Epic
• Frame rate: 60fps
• RTX 4080 (With DLSS Performance Setting)
• Intel i5-8400 or AMD Ryzen 5 3600
• 16GB RAM
• Windows 10/11
• 45GB SSD