| Tales of the Shire: A The Lord of the Rings Game | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Release Date | Gameplay & Story | DLC & Pre-Order | Review |
Tales of the Shire is a Lord of the Rings-themed life-sim that lets players experience the life of a Hobbit in the Shire. Read our review to see what it did well, what it didn't do well, and if it's worth buying.
Tales of the Shire Review Overview
What is Tales of the Shire?
Tales of the Shire: A The Lord of the Rings™ Game is a cozy life-simulation titled based on the critically acclaimed Lord of the Rings series where players will get to play as a Hobbit living in the idyllic Bywater in the Shire. Join a cast of friendly Hobbits and Dwarves, taking on everyday tasks such as gardening, fishing, foraging, home decorating and most of all, cooking!
Tales of the Shire features:
⚫︎ The Life-Sim Experience—Hobbit Style
⚫︎ Engaging Cooking Mechanics
⚫︎ A Variety of Recipes to Make
⚫︎ An Idyllic Countryside
⚫︎ Foraging, Fishing, Gardening
⚫︎ Your Homestead, Your Way
| Digital Storefronts | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Steam |
 PlayStation |
 Xbox |
 Switch |
$34.99 | |||
Tales of the Shire Pros & Cons
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
 Engaging Gameplay Mechanics Incredibly Fun Cooking Catchy Soundtrack |
Performance Issues Lack of Appealing Characters Flat Story |
Tales of the Shire Overall Score - 66/100
Tales of the Shire is a decent life-sim game, especially if you’re a fan of playing through routine tasks like cooking, farming, fishing, and foraging day in and day out. However, the supposedly idyllic and budding village of Bywater, while charming, feels flat and lifeless with the inability to forge deeper connections with your neighbors and repetitive fetch quests. It doesn’t help that the game is also flawed by its technical and optimization issues, which only turns the experience more sour.
Tales of the Shire Story - 6/10
Tales of the Shire lacks a solid narrative, with the player thrust into the middle of a thriving community as its newest member and quickly tasked to go on a rather daunting variety of fetch quests to and fro. While it perhaps went down that route to be able to have the player forge their own path in the lovely village-to-be the way they want to, it becomes hard to even get that motivation if all you’re doing is running from one villager to another without really knowing more about them. It all feels barebones, and could have been done better.
Tales of the Shire Gameplay - 7/10
Gameplay revolves around four main gameplay mechanics, namely cooking, fishing, farming, and foraging, as well as trading, decorating, and fulfilling quests for the townspeople. The cooking gameplay is simply a delight to play with its rather intricate way of creating dishes, but everything else pales in comparison to it—fishing, farming, and gathering herbs and whatnot are fun in itself as well in their own rights, but it docks a point for the reason that it’s evident that the developers put more effort into the cooking mini-game more than anything else gameplay related.
Tales of the Shire Visuals - 6/10
The game’s visuals are decent with their own type of cartoon-y charm, vibrant enough to really hone in onto the happy-go-lucky and idyllic village life-theme that the game was going for. However, it feels a bit dated, made worse by being marred by frequent FPS drops and evident stutters when doing…well, anything. Characters—even your own Hobbit character and the main NPCs—are cut from the exact same cloth, the same set of hairstyles and faces and whatnot. There’s no need for superbly detailed customization but everyone looked rather the same.
Tales of the Shire Audio - 8/10
The audio is well-done, with catchy and charming tunes that just bring you right into the world of Middle-earth. They’re cozy, and are perfect with the rich countryside vibes of the entire game. The flutes and violins and various instruments mixed with some chirping birds and sounds of nature pair perfectly with your daily tasks for the day. On the other hand, it completely lacks voice-acting, which was definitely a missed opportunity.
Tales of the Shire Value for Money - 6/10
For $35 and a full game at that, one would expect a certain degree of completion to its overall development, and at its current state, it doesn’t seem to justify that. While there is a variety of content and collectibles to discover especially in terms of cooking, with its performance issues and lackluster plot and characters for a life simulator no less, it doesn’t feel like a $35 game.
Tales of the Shire Review: Not A Lot of Tales To Go On
Tales of the Shire is the newest title to join the long list of The Lord of the Rings-themed video games, but it’s the first of its kind as a more light-hearted life-simulator, vastly different from what is expected.
I admittedly don’t know much about The Lord of the Rings (apologies to anyone who’s disappointed), but I was immediately hooked with its rather appealing trailer. The voiceover, and the warm graphics that echoed the games I used to play in my childhood, and the life-sim aspect—I love myself a good life simulator title, and Tales of the Shire seemed superbly promising. Everything looked fun and engaging, which immediately put it on my radar.
However, the full release did…leave quite a bit to be desired. There were several aspects I enjoyed, especially in terms of gameplay, but everything else didn’t deliver as well as I hoped it would.
Routine, but Fun Gameplay Cycle
Although firstly, let’s go through the things that Tales of the Shire did pretty decently. Life-sims feed off a core gameplay loop of rather repetitive tasks, much like the routine that every single person on the planet goes through daily. And thus, to make a repetitive cycle more enjoyable, you gotta add something to the mix to spice it all up.
Life-sim or farming-sim enthusiasts will find themselves right at home with the mechanics—watering crops daily, fishing for…um, fish to use in dishes, foraging the semi-open-world of the Shire for fruits and mushrooms, typical stuff. If you’re a fan of having routine tasks, then Tales of the Shire at least delivers in that aspect.
Fishing and foraging are simple but engaging tasks, fun in their own way. I wish there was a little more progression and customization in fishing, like using baits and lures and whatnot, or more spice to the foraging somewhat but the straightforward gameplay is nothing inherently bad. Farming, on the other hand, requires a little bit more thinking because the placements of your plants matter so that they are able to produce higher quality fruits and vegetables, but it also becomes routine once that’s out of the way as they only need to be watered once a day.
Cooking Is The Absolute Best
If it’s one thing that Tales of the Shire definitely did well, it’s the cooking mini-game. It’s not your typical toss-together-everything type of game or having you press buttons in succession to a certain timing kind of mechanic—you actually kind of feel you have a real say into how your dish will turn out. After all, sharing meals with the townspeople is the best way to get their affection up.
For starters, you choose a recipe in your kitchen (provided you have the ingredients, of course), and then you pick out the ingredients you want to put in, depending on the type or quality of the items. Higher quality ingredients result in higher quality dishes, so if you’re particularly wanting to impress a certain villager, then the best way is through their stomach. Afterwards, you actually start cooking—depending on what you do to that specific food item, the overall texture of the dish can change, from having chunky or smooth bits of food or crisp or tender. There’s a target texture you’d want to go for, of course, but you’re not particularly punished for screwing up the dish.
After all, no matter what you do, it would still look mouthwatering and delicious on the table once you get to serve it. I served a one-star Very Good Fish Cake (which apparently wasn’t very good, according to Fosco’s reaction) but it still looked amazing! And his affection went up by a tad bit, so it’s not completely a loss. With all that said, it’s a refreshing take on the usual cooking mechanic that usually doesn’t show itself on screen.
Story and Characterization Could Use Work
What made a life simulator game feel more alive was the interactions you could have with the townspeople you share your daily life with and the underlying plot there is to make the town feel more alive and real, seen in games like Stardew Valley, Fields of Mistria, Coral Island, and more. However, Tales of the Shire feels flat in that aspect. From the get go, you’re tasked with retrieving the Book of Rules from…whoever has it. This long winded fetch quest is really just a way for you to meet all the important NPCs in the game, and while it was nice to meet everyone, their conversations didn’t feel natural and were actually kind of strange. The whole idea of the Book being passed off to different people was odd enough, but their dialogue didn’t flow well either. They felt like literal NPCs just being told what to do—which they are, but I digress.
Then, outside of their individual side-quests and main story quests they’re involved in, it sucks that you can’t really make conversation with them—not even any random dialogue like "l;The sky looks positively lovely today!" or anything that gives them a little more personality beyond the quests they’re assigned to. Of course, in a life-sim, you’re not just chasing after one quest to the next—you have these downtimes where you actually just want to try and live as if you’re in a farm-esque, life simulator.
Cook meals, take care of your crops, fish for fun or for supper, and get to know your neighbors, but Tales of the Shire doesn’t really let you do that, and it’s such a missed opportunity. Even when you share meals with them in your home—supposedly one of the best times to get to know anyone, even in real life—they just play out a cutscene of them eating and rating your dish, without so much as a real conversation shared.
For a game that puts emphasis on the cooking and food aspect given that Hobbits are known for their love of eating, there could have been a bit more with the meal aspect as well.
Performance and Optimization Issues
While I did point out that gameplay mechanics were done pretty well, it could have fared much…much better if the game would actually play properly. For reference, I played on the PlayStation 5, which I believe has the necessary hardware to run a game like this. However, there were frequent FPS drops and stuttering as I ran—er, skipped around—the land of Bywater. The camera lagged, the skips were evident, which made for a pretty unfortunate experience. Not to mention that the textures used in the game weren’t all that detailed anyway, yet it still managed to perform below average most of the time.
Is Tales of the Shire Worth It?
Maybe It’s Not Time To Go to the Shire Yet
Tales of the Shire, while decent as a life-simulator title, was underwhelming compared to the expectations that were put on it. It improved upon mechanics like the cooking gameplay, as well as having an extra bit of depth to farming, but everything else felt unpolished or that there could have been more done to make it even better. It had a lot of promise, yet it failed to deliver most of what could be.
If you’re a fan of The Lord of the Rings series, perhaps it may be your cup of tea getting to live in a small, pastoral piece of Middle-earth, but if you’re just a life-sim enthusiast, maybe let this steep in just a little while longer to see if they’ll make any changes.
| Digital Storefronts | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Steam |
PlayStation |
Xbox |
Switch |
$34.99 | |||
Tales of the Shire FAQ
What platforms is Tales of the Shire on?
Tales of the Shire is available to play on PC via Steam, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, and Xbox Series X|S.
Is Tales of the Shire in Early Access?
Tales of the Shire is not in Early Access. The full game can be purchased on any of its platforms for $34.99.
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Tales of the Shire Product Information
 |
|
| Title | Tales of the Shire |
|---|---|
| Release Date | July 29, 2025 |
| Developer | Wētā Workshop |
| Publisher | Private Division |
| Supported Platforms | PC, PlayStation 5, Switch, Xbox Series X|S |
| Genre | Casual, Life Sim |
| Number of Players | 1 |
| ESRB Rating | RP |
| Official Website | Tales of the Shire Official Website |
