The Lord of the Rings: Gollum will feature full Elvish voice acting, but only if you pick up the special edition. The Lord of the Rings: Gollum: Precious Edition will cost an extra £10, and will come bundled with some additional exclusives, including the Sindarin voice-over pack.
Anyone with the pack will be able to have the Elven characters speak their fictional language of Sindarin, presumably with English subtitles. However, this will only be available to those who purchase the Precious Edition, or buy the DLC separately after launch. This could suggest there will be very little Sindarin spoken in the base game, saving it for the DLC.
"The Precious Edition was put together with Tolkien fans in mind," says publisher Daedalic Entertainment, revealing the bundle. "With a focus on immersing players in the world of Middle-earth, this edition is sure to delight fans and gamers alike."
As we've come to expect from pretty much every big release now, the announcement includes a graphic that explains the different versions of the game you can pre-order and their bonuses. In this case, both the standard and precious editions of Gollum will come with "six exclusive emotes". Standard will set you back £49.99, whereas the special release is £59.99 to pre-order.
As for the exclusive voice acting, the product description describes it as: "Additional voice acting in the Elvish tongue of Sindarin, done by professionals and made for Middle-earth die-hard fans who want to immerse themselves even more while exploring the world of Tolkien."
Right now, online storefronts say that the DLC will not be available to purchase separately. However, a response from the official account suggests otherwise, as they say that anyone who has preordered a physical copy of the game won't be able to upgrade, and will instead have to purchase the additional content separately.
Other than the voice acting, the precious edition will also come bundled with concept art, additional lore, and the game's soundtrack.
In any case, The Lord of the Rings: Gollum will launch on May 25 for PC, Xbox, and PlayStation. The Nintendo Switch release doesn't have a release date just yet. Even this initial release on more powerful platforms has faced delays, as the game was originally set to be with us all the way back in 2021, before being delayed into 2022, then early 2023, and now into next month. It seems more likely to stick to this release date at least, since the publisher is confident enough to make the store pages live and start accepting pre-orders. Of course, we'll just have to see how the Elven language DLC goes down with the fanbase.