Tales of the Shire: A The Lord of The Rings Game Review – A Charming Hobbit Sim

Tales of the Shire: A The Lord of The Rings Game Review

Life in Middle Earth isn’t always epic battles and incredible struggles. This world is also full of ordinary people living quiet lives. This is the premise behind Tales of the Shire: A The Lord of The Rings Game. Living as a hobbit sounds like a delight, but in practice, it’s not quite what I hoped for. The setting comes with restrictions, and your raw daily routine turns grindy fast. But this is a beautiful world you’re stepping into, make no mistake. If peace and quiet wonder are what you seek, you’ll absolutely find it.

You play a random hobbit moving into Bywater, a village(?) in the Shire. From there, your job is to make nice with your neighbors, and slowly build your new life. Pretty simple, right? Almost too simple, in fact. I had a hard time getting into the rhythm of things. It all moves a little too slowly at first. You’re foraging, gardening, cooking, and fishing. Or so I thought. Actually, your big goal is to feed your fellow hobbits as often as you can, or else they get surly.

Truly All About Food

Tales of the Shire spends a lot of time emphasizing how important this is. More fool me, I didn’t listen at first. But it’s honestly what all the mechanics in the game are built around. You simply must feed these shiftless layabouts, there’s no way around it. Recipes and story events are unlocked this way. You build connections with the good people of Bywater. You solve little mysteries. Absolutely everything revolves around keeping these hobbits fat and happy. Hobbits are canonically obsessed with food, so it makes sense. But still! This was a strange revelation to have several hours into a cozy life sim.

So, cooking. The system seems simple enough, but there’s a bit of nuance there, which I appreciate. You can choose how finely chopped your ingredients are, along with what certain recipe variants end up being. Plus, everyone has specific tastes and favorites. So you can optimize what everyone eats and how thrilled they are with your hosting abilities. Although, given how important cooking and feeding people is, there’s not as much complexity as I would like.

The Way To A Hobbit’s Heart

Fishing, foraging, and gardening all act as supply lines for your cooking. Tales of the Shire’s entire mechanic ecosystem funnels neatly into these shared meals. And yet, the act itself is a simple cutscene that rewards you with like, a new recipe or two. It just feels like there should be more light at the end of this tunnel. On the other hand, I can’t be that mad at this game. The goal was clearly to build a charming hobbit village to inhabit, and the devs most assuredly did that.

Tales of the Shire is crammed with delightful little details. Your new home is a chaotic mess, full of random furniture and knick-knacks. Every path is lined with lush vegetation. The village itself is a crush of tiny houses and lively citizens. Fish fill the waters, and birds perch on every surface. Your front yard is full of pots for planting, lined with hedges, and bordered by trees. This whole place feels distinctly lived-in, and properly alive. Even the nearby forest is tiny yet utterly enchanting. It’s so obvious that so much love and care went into making this place.

The Whole Village Feels Alive

I’m also pretty impressed by the writing in this game. All of your neighbors have tons of clever dialogue. It’s a real delight to talk to these people. Even the item descriptions and flavor text have their own charms. It’s a testament to the writing quality that all this energy and talent is successfully poured into a setting so idyllic and laid back. I could listen to these hobbits bicker, genuflect, and babble all day long.

There is a cost to crafting such a detailed and deliberate world, however. In doing so, you restrict your player’s freedoms. My house was pre-built and designed before I arrived. The layout of the village is set. I can rearrange my house’s insides, but the core identity of this place, this village, this game – remains unassailable. I’ve gotten so comfortable in life sims that trade craft for freedom, I’m no longer sure how to navigate the opposite situation. But on the other hand, this is a lovely little world to step into. Bywater is an intricate, artful diorama that resists meaningful alteration.

I prefer my life sims with a greater degree of freedom than this, I’m learning. A blank canvas is more alluring than a perfectly crafted setting, at least to me. But I also recognize the value in a place like this. Everything is built around the hobbit ideal that is food. The writing and the aesthetics are all extremely hobbit-coded. Rather than a life sim, Tales of the Shire is a hobbit sim. If that sounds like a good time, you should definitely check out this game.

***A PS5 code was provided by the publisher***