There’s been a lot of devastating news in the video game world throughout September; whether it’s more layoffs, major game cancellations, crazy hardware announcements, or perhaps most crushing of all, the news from developer Wētā Workshop that it will no longer meet the planned 2024 launch of its upcoming wizarding life simulation game The Lord of the Ring’s Tales of the Shire. While I’m a firm believer in giving developers the time they need to deliver a quality project, this announcement hit me in the foot like an orc helmet, putting an end to my hopes of a relaxing holiday season around the Shire and generally enjoying the simple life of a hobbit. So when the opportunity to dive into Tales of the Shire popped into my inbox earlier this week, I jumped at the chance like a hungry Uruk-hai who hears that meat is back on the menu.
My last week has been filled with doing very little. Intentionally, I might add. What immediately struck me after spending more than 20 minutes with Tales of the Shire, as I did at Summer Game Fest, is that this game is about embracing the primitive, completely respectable, and unexpected life of a hobbit in the rolling fields of the Shire. Wētā Workshop has captured the pure essence of Shire life in this game, and yes, that means it’s slow-paced, lacks excitement, has minimal mechanical depth, and no danger at all, but there’s plenty of charm to pack in that can quench the thirst of the armies of Mordor.
Let me paint a picture for you. To start, you need to design your own hobbit. This is a traditional character creation system where you can switch between genders, body measurements, hairstyles, hair color, facial features, basic clothing, and finally choose a name. Tales of the Shire offers plenty of matching scroll wheel options if you don’t feel like typing in a name yourself, something I embraced and went for with the very appropriate Hobbit name from Bingo Diggle. From here you’re introduced to the world by a wandering wizard in grey, all before you find yourself in a small community that is part of the blessed Bywater and get a guided tour from a local who will eventually take you to the doorstep of Bywater; the dilapidated and completely disrespectful hobbit lair you’ve inherited.
This is an ad:
Tales of the Shire then offers a series of simple and easy quests to help you find your place in the world. These range from learning the basics of farming and tending crops to finding ingredients and items used in the culinary elements that are also one of the game’s main social features. Speaking of which, you’ll also be able to meet various locals and even invite some of them over for a meal that you’ll have to cook and customize perfectly to suit their tastes and interests. This is certainly not too complicated, as during the process of getting to know each local, you’ll notice their dietary interests and even learn their favorite recipes, all so that you can use that to inform your own dish choices when cooking. Playing with the cooking suite. As for preparing a meal, this is also very basic, to the point where it’s basically about adjusting the size and tenderness of the dish to suit each guest’s tastes, all with the help of a Cooking Mama-like mechanic that has a lot of experience, but very little depth.
At the start of the adventure, you don’t really think twice about how complex Tales of the Shire is, as you’re mesmerized by the beautiful, enchanting nature and the vibrant, vibrant version of the Shire created by Wētā Workshop. But the more time you spend with the game, the more you start to realize that the lack of complexity can be the game’s biggest problem. I say this because some of the quest design is just plain bad. You travel around the Bywater, talking to the locals, and completing one-dimensional, largely uninspiring fetch quests. You fill your time doing absolutely nothing but waiting for the sun to set so you can go to bed, boost your crop growth a bit, or even watch the rapidly changing seasons. You slip into a retirement mindset, marginally rearranging your furniture, spending hours by the lake fishing for river trout, or simply wandering the world, perhaps with the ultimate goal of ending the day at The Green Dragon for a pint. The fact that the world is completely rigid and harsh to navigate doesn’t alleviate this issue, and while I wish Tales of the Shire was more like Middle-earth Animal Crossing, the distinct lack of mechanical depth and complexity means the two games don’t really exist in the same headspace.
This is an ad:
But while that’s the case, I can’t help but feel that Wētā Workshop has successfully completed the task before me. Hobbits are simple, boring creatures who live small, unadventurous lives, and that’s exactly what the developer has delivered here: a hobbit simulation without any of the distractions. Tales of the Shire is a game where you do nothing for hours without any consequences, and while that might seem like a bad design choice – and it probably would be for almost any other project – here… it somehow works.
Tales of the Shire won’t challenge you, keep you on edge, frustrate you, confuse you, bewilder you, surprise you or excite you, but what it will do is leave a big smile on your face as you bounce mindlessly around the lush, vibrant hills of the Shire. The Shire, embraces the fearless life we all know so well. So do with this information as you will. As for me, I’m perfectly happy to live a life without consequences and resent the irreverent Baggins as they go on their grand adventures. Who needs danger when you have neatly pressed toes and handkerchiefs?
