I got a demo of Tales of the Shire, a cozy game about Middle-earth’s Hobbit community. It’s coming this year from Weta Workshop.
And while it’s a game based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth and The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit books, I don’t think you have to worry about the Dark Lord or nasty orcs coming to ruin the countryside. This is a sweet game set in the town of Bywater, not so far from Bilbo Baggins’ Hobbiton, and they’re both part of the idyllic and perhaps only peaceful part of Middle-earth, the Shire.
This game is full of happy things, beautiful 3D-animated scenery that looks like an anime film, and music that makes you feel like you’re in a fairy tale. In the demo at the Summer Game Fest Play Days, I saw a trailer and then went about my business chatting with the hobbits of Bywater and doing hobbit things.
You play as a hobbit, a short human-like creature with hairy toes. Hobbits are like kind folk in the English countryside, or perhaps New Zealand. It reminds me a bit of the recent Fae Farm title. Such cozy games are quite fashionable, and perhaps that’s why Middle-earth Enterprises licensed the work to Peter Jackson-spawned Weta Workshop, the developer, and publisher Private Division, a Take-Two indie label.
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(Embracer Group now owns Middle-earth Enterprises, as we explained in this story, and Tales of the Shire was approved before that transaction took place. A bunch of new The Lord of the Rings games and movies are coming).
In this game, you can spend a lot of You can decorate your home. Grow crops. Harvest them and then cook tasty Hobbit meals with them. You can supplement your meals with fish that you catch in the creeks and ponds, or you can raise your own animals or buy meat at a shop if you wish. You can explore the Shire’s bucolic spaces and help throw the Bywater Festival.
This game is a kind of outlier, quite different from the previously licensed games, which include The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria, and the critically panned The Lord of the Rings: Gollum. Before that, Warner Bros. and Monolith gave us the excellent Middle-earth Shadow of Mordor and its sequel Shadow of War.
In the demo, I went out on quests, collecting food for recipes, like a special breed of mushroom. I brought them back, harvested some carrots from the garden, and went into my lovely low-ceiling hobbit home. It was comfortable. Then I went to the kitchen and followed a recipe, first slicing up the veggies and then searing it in a pan. I could eat my second breakfast or put the food in my backpack and take it with me.
I also had to go find another hobbit named Marigold. On the quests, it’s quite easy to know where you need to go because these little birds serve as your guides, pointing the way to where you need to turn. You can also just open up your map and figure out where your home is on the way back.
The gardening and cooking tasks are quite elaborate and you can spend a lot of time making sure you have the right ingredients for your meals. You have to cook the ingredients just right or you might burn something or otherwise ruin your meal. Sometimes you’re tasked with making a salty meal for your quest.
As noted, you won’t get to fight hooded Ringwraiths on black steeds, but you’ll find plenty to do if you like a relaxing game. It’s coming this year from Weta Workshop to the PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Steam on the PC, the Nintendo Switch and Netflix Gaming.
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