Tales of the Shire: A Lord of the Rings Game Review – Hobbiton Crossing

Thanks to the indie game development scene having become massive in its own right over the last decade and a half, the genre of cozy games has seen all kinds of experiences. As it currently stands, however, the genre is largely dominated by two games, one from a major console maker and another an indie title—Animal Crossing and Stardew Valley respectively. With Tales of the Shire: A Lord of the Rings Game, however, developer Weta Workshop has figured out an interesting twist on the formula.

As its name might imply, Tales of the Shire: A Lord of the Rings Game makes use of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth as seen and read about in the Lord of the Rings series as its setting. The game takes place at around the same time as The Fellowship of the Rings starts, with Gandalf seemingly being on his way to Hobbiton to meet Frodo and Bilbo Baggins for the latter’s birthday. As he travels through the Shire, Gandalf comes across a Hobbit that seems to be taking a nap near the village of Bywater, and that’s where you come in.

This napping Hobbit is your character, and after some time spent in designing your player, Gandalf offers you a ride to the place you’re going to start calling home: Bywater. When it comes to the overall story of Tales of the Shire, this is about it. There are a bunch of smaller stories that play out as you spend time among the various other Hobbits that also call Bywater their homes, but otherwise, you don’t really get any more narrative that would push you forward aside from the tutorial. In fact, there isn’t much of a narrative for the rest of the game at all, aside from a few early bits that involve the Hobbits of Bywater trying to figure out whether or not Bywater qualifies as a village.

"There are a bunch of smaller stories that play out as you spend time among the various other Hobbits that also call Bywater their homes."

Generally speaking, the narrative is only really there to start you off in your new idyllic village life, and aside from a few visits by the Hobbiton Assessor that allows you to eventually upgrade your own house, there isn’t much of a narrative string to pull you along. Rather, the generally relaxed atmosphere as well as the fact that life in the Shire largely feels like a vacation are the key things that will likely make you play more. Ultimately, however, it all comes down to whether or not you actually enjoy the gameplay in Tales of the Shire.

When it comes to gameplay, just about every aspect of Tales of the Shire has been designed around its food system. Aside from interior decorating, every activity you partake in is going to result in you either unlocking new recipes, or getting your hands on more ingredients for all of them. This includes everything from foraging, fishing, farming, and even completing quests. Even the social system feeds into this; while you can give the villagers of Bywater various gifts to improve your relationship with them, most of your social interactions with your friends revolve around meals.

How it works is quite simple, and interestingly, also quite Hobbit-like. When you want to hang out with a couple of villagers, you can invite them to a shared meal that you can host at a venue of your choice. After an in-game day, the Hobbits you invited (by writing them a letter, mind you), will have sent you letters with their RSVP that then also tells you what kind of food they’re in the mood for on that day. It is then up to you to gather the ingredients and use the relatively complex cooking system to whip up a meal.

"When it comes to gameplay, just about every aspect of Tales of the Shire has been designed around its food system."

As for the cooking system itself, it tends to involve a number of steps even after you’ve gotten your hands on the right ingredients and the appropriate seasonings. All food in Tales of the Shire can have a number of properties related to how they taste and how they feel to chew on. Depending on how you go about with the various steps involved in cooking—from chopping up vegetables to deciding on whether or not to fry them before mixing them together in a bowl—will help define how smooth or chunky your dish will end up being. And similarly, the ingredients you use, be it a specific fish or vegetable, along with your choice of seasonings will help define how it will taste, be it salty, bitter, spicy or sweet.

To throw in an extra bit of complication over this fantastic way to become friends with others, each NPC Hobbit also tends to have dishes that they absolutely love. For example, the grumpy old Hobbit that loves to fish absolutely wants fish cakes. When you invite them over for a shared meal, they might be in the mood for something salty or bitter. This will help you narrow down on what kind of fish would be ideal to use to make cakes for this Hobbit. As you become better friends with the Bywater community, you’ll start to learn more and more about what they like and what they dislike. Thankfully, you don’t have to keep all of these things memorised either; there’s a fairly robust journal that helps you track your relationships with other Hobbits, as well as other things, like recipes for meals and how different ingredients might taste.

To help you along with your endeavours in making new friends by cooking nice feasts for them, there are a few activities to partake in. Foraging is the simplest one; butterflies you spot as you roam around Bywater will guide you to different ingredients. These butterflies are colour-coded as well; yellow butterflies, for instance, will help you find seasonings that you can forage for, like mustard flowers, while white butterflies will lead you to mushrooms. Fishing and gardening, on the other hand, are a little bit more involved.

"To help you along with your endeavours in making new friends by cooking nice feasts for them, there are a few activities to partake in."

Fishing has a simple minigame involved, requiring you to pull your fishing line against the fish you’ve got on the hook while also reeling it in, all before your line breaks. It’s not a particularly complicated fishing minigame, and largely falls in line with others of the genre. What makes the fishing more involved, however, is the fact that the kinds of fish you can catch are defined by a number of things, from time of day, to location on the map, and even the weather.

Gardening, at face value, just involves you putting down some seeds in a planter and remembering to water them once a day. Things do get a bit more complicated when you start figuring out how to raise your yields, however. Aside from dealing with the fact that most of the plants you can grow tend to be seasonal, the plants you’re growing can also be affected by other plants growing in the same planter. These effects can be positive or negative, depending on the seeds, and good use of mixing up crops tends to reward you with excellent yields.

All of these activities also have a few smaller stories that can be progressed through by joining various clubs associated with them throughout Bywater. As you progress through these clubs by completing simple objectives, you also start getting your hands on more advanced gear that can, for example, allow you to cook more complex dishes with more depth of flavour and more complicated textures. Clubs are, generally speaking, more excuses to bring you back to Tales of the Shire.

"Gardening, at face value, just involves you putting down some seeds in a planter and remembering to water them once a day."

Ultimately, what makes Tales of the Shire: A Lord of the Rings Game interesting is how well it is actually able to make use of its source material. There is an understanding of the life of a Hobbit displayed in the game that is seldom really explored outside of the opening chapters of a few of Tolkien’s books, and some of their appendices. An excellent example of this is the fact that there’s no sprint button in Tales of the Shire. But there is a “merrily skip” button, which allows you to frolic your way across Bywater without really getting any movement speed benefits. This generally encompasses what the game is ultimately about.

Tales of the Shire isn’t an objective-driven game. Rather, it’s a game that you might want to visit every now and then to take a break from some of the heavier titles you might find yourself playing. What makes the game particularly great is that there isn’t really any time pressure to do anything aside from just chill out and enjoy a vacation in the Shire. The game is particularly even more enjoyable if you’re already a fan of Tolkien’s works. The only real downside here is that there isn’t really much to chew on when it comes to story. You’re here for a vacation more than anything else.

This game was reviewed on PC.