Tales of the Shire delivers a slice of Hobbit life

The premise of Tales of the Shire (a.k.a Tales of the Shire: A The Lord of The Rings Game) is clear within the first few minutes after meeting Orlo Proudfoot. "Big People sort out their differences with swords, bows and arrows," he says. "We sort them out with a nice spot of lunch." Indeed, Tales of the Shire is about carving out a peaceful existence in J.R.R. Tolkien's fantasy world. As part of Hobbit Day, Shacknews recently had a chance to give Private Division and Weta Workshop's life sim another shot.

As noted in our Summer Game Fest preview, Tales of the Shire opens with players creating their own custom Hobbit. The character creator system allows for players to craft their Hobbit with different body shapes, hair styles, facial expressions, outfits, and even specific feet qualities. What's new about the intro is an opening cutscene that sees the character-created Hobbit escorted by a certain bearded wizard to the Shire village of Bywater.

The idea in Tales of the Shire is simple. It's to make friends with the village's happy community of Hobbits. Part of that will come from assisting with the game's main questlines. For starters, Bywater's Hobbits have come to notice that their haven has not been formally recognized as a village. This kicks off a series of objectives involving a Book of Rules, which nobody can seem to track down. Following these objectives will gradually introduce Bywater's quirky citizens to the player.

One of those friendly faces is Old Noakes, who will teach players how to fish. Fishing in the Shire is a simple matter of finding ripples across the various ponds in Bywater. There, players can cast their line and look for a bite. If they get one, holding the analog stick back while reeling the line in will catch a fish in most instances. Bywater is overflowing with fish, as the fishing holes will repopulate each day.

Players can also fill their pantries by gardening in their yard, by receiving gifts from friends, or by completing certain objectives. Once the pantry is full, it's time to get to cooking. As noted in our last preview, dishes can vary depending on how players approach their preparation process. It's possible to chop or dice all the way until a meter at the bottom of the screen goes all the way to the other end or they can control their cuts in order to make dishes come out a certain style. Depending on the type of dish that a character wants, players will want to monitor how they approach the cooking mini-game.

Of course, to bring this preview back full circle, cooking is an essential activity in the Shire. It's the easiest way to make friends and with each character in Bywater having their own friendship meter, players will want to get to work on endearing themselves to everybody. Opportunities to cook will come frequently, whether it's through a quest objective or through personally inviting another Hobbit over for dinner.

It'll be fun to see how Hobbit life and friendships develop further over the course of a playthrough. With that said, Private Division and Weta Workshop have noted that this game will need a little more time in the oven. Look for Tales of the Shire: A The Lord of The Rings Game comes to PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, and Nintendo Switch to arrive in 2025.

This preview is based on an early Steam code provided by the publisher. The final product is subject to change.

Ozzie Mejia

Senior Editor

Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?