In the 1977 cartoon adaptation of The Hobbit, there is a scene where Bilbo Baggins climbs a tree to get a better look at his surroundings in the deep forest. At the top, he sees hundreds of dark‑velvet, black emperor butterflies moving in the sunlight across the tree canopy. As the movie’s musical theme, The Greatest Adventure, plays dramatically, Bilbo says, “There are moments which can change a person for all time. And I suddenly wondered if I would ever see my snug little hobbit‑hole again. I wondered if I actually wanted to.”
I kept thinking of that clip when I started playing Tales of the Shire: A The Lord of The Rings (LOTR) Game, which is ironic because Bilbo was talking about how the life of an adventurer was, at times, so amazing that he might forget about his quiet Shire, and this new game never leaves that magical place. Shire life was all that Bilbo knew, whereas in terms of video games, adventuring and combat is pretty much all we ever get to experience from Lord of the Rings titles. Tales of the Shire offers players something really different from Middle Earth: a cozy life where carefully growing a huge potato, catching a finicky fish or throwing an elaborate dinner party for village friends is the highlight of the season. And after spending time as a hobbit in beautiful Bywater, I wondered if I would ever seek out adventurous LOTR games again. And I wonder if I actually want to.
Tales of the Shire: A The Lord of The Rings Game is about one of the coziest titles that I’ve ever experienced. There are goals and objectives for your character to tackle, but there are no timers or any real pressure at all to actually accomplish anything in a timely fashion. If you want to become the ultimate hobbit by avoiding work while spending a few days skipping around the Shire, puttering around in the garden, foraging in the forest, decorating your hobbit home or perfecting the ultimate fruit pie, by all means, feel free to do so.
The title, which is available for the PlayStation 4 and 5, Xbox Series X, Nintendo Switch and for the PC through the Steam platform, begins with players making a new character, a young hobbit who is moving to Bywater from the big city of Bree. I was a little bit disappointed with the character options. For some reason, all of the features for player characters seem designed for female hobbits. There are not really any male hairstyles, and even though some of the NPCs in the Shire have sideburns or more weathered, male looks, there are no options like that for players. Male characters end up sort of looking like Mrs. Doubtfire in a not very believable way. Given how much detail went into every other aspect of Tales of the Shire, this lack of male character options was surprising. Anyway, I ended up creating a male hobbit with a weird Elvis-do, the best I could manage in terms of a male character and just moved on.
After getting a ride into Bywater from Gandalf himself, you quickly find that Bywater is about the friendliest village that you could ever find. The makeshift postman greets you and quickly shuffles you over to your new home, which is empty since the previous owner passed on. Why they just give you a house, albeit a real fixer-upper, is not really explained, but life in Bywater is like that. When you are just starting out, lots of other hobbits will give you things like tools, seeds for your garden, money and other items to help you get on your feet. It’s a really friendly place.
There is a tutorial of sorts, although it’s mostly just integrated into the gameplay. How it works is that most of your new home and garden is inaccessible at first as it’s blocked by debris or boarded up. That means that what you have access to is pretty basic, just a few little garden plots, a small cooking station and a dining room. You will need to complete “quests” for hobbits in the village, and learn the basics of each activity like cooking or gardening, to unlock more stuff and more complex options. In this way, while Tales of the Shire can get pretty complicated once everything is unlocked, you learn about new and advanced features pretty slowly, so that even novice gamers are probably not going to get overwhelmed by it.
The main activities in this adventure involve running around the Shire doing little quests or favors for other townspeople, working in your garden and tending to both your decorative plants and food crops, fishing and gathering, cooking, learning new recipes and most important of all, hosting shared meals for your new friends and neighbors. You don’t so much level up yourself like in a traditional game but instead do so by becoming better friends with your neighbors, which earns you more options, recipes or even unlocked areas for your home.
Cooking is one of the most in-depth experiences in the title, which makes sense given the importance of shared meals with friends as the primary way to “level up.” Anyone who enjoys crafting will love the cooking here, since you are basically crafting fine meals. When cooking, you can manipulate the various ingredients at cooking stations. For example, if you just cut up your rhubarb a little bit, the resulting dish will be chunky, but if you really shred it, then the texture of the resulting dish becomes smoother, either of which might be good depending on the meal you are crafting. Then there is seasoning, which can be sour, sweet or bitter. You have more control over all of that when you unlock more advanced cooking stations, which is good because most recipes have “perfect spots” that make a dish extra tasty if you hit them with a perfect mix of texture and flavor. Eventually, you will be able to craft quite a few impressive feasts.
The cozy nature of Tales of the Shire is also its biggest strength. Everything about it is relaxed. For example, there is no run key, but if you want to move a little faster, you can hold a button down to skip around the Shire, which is pretty funny. Also, while you are supposed to go home and sleep once nightfall comes, if you stay up too late you will eventually just pass out. But have no fear because some nice hobbit neighbor will toss you in a wheelbarrow and take you back home – it really is a lovely village.
There is a small penalty for not making it to bed on your own. You will sleep in longer the next day, giving you less time for tasks, not that it matters much since no missions are timed and hobbits are not much for keeping schedules anyway. The only thing that might matter with that is the fact that the seasons change in the Shire, which affects what kinds of crops grow, so you might miss out on prime plant-tending time if you sleep in too much.
The art for Tales of the Shire is really beautiful in its own way. It’s not photo-realistic or anything, and it’s in fact more cartoon-like than most other fantasy titles. It almost seems like an MMO interface where details are paired down a bit in favor of bandwidth concerns. But visual details are not really the point here. The style of Tales of the Shire fully supports the cozy, relaxed feel of the Shire. Even though it’s not super-detailed, the fairy-tale style looks great and helps to further set the mood.
While it’s true that action gamers might nod off while trying to navigate the ridiculously laidback hobbit way of life, Tales of the Shire can be a huge stress reliever at the end of a busy day in real life. While reviewing this one the hours really seemed to melt away, and I found myself truly wondering if I actually ever wanted to return to the more action-packed and violent games that I normally play. I’m sure that I will return to them, but for now, I have a prize pumpkin that needs watering, a fish and potato pie to bake and dinner party to plan for several very hungry hobbits with quite esoteric tastes.
Developers: Weta Workshop
Platforms: Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, Steam, Xbox One, Xbox Series X