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

I've had the opportunity to play Tales of the Shire for about 10-15 hours so far, on a Nintendo Switch.

From the creative studio, Wētā Workshop, live the cosy life of a Hobbit in the wonderfully serene landscape of The Shire. Discover, decorate, and share in this idyllic corner of Middle-earth. Join friendly Hobbits and familiar faces awaiting your arrival in Tales of the Shire: A The Lord of the Rings Game.

The game starts of strongly with a set piece where you are met by the "Stranger" (as Gandalf is called on-screen) and introduced to Bywater, the setting for the game. The timeframe is set between the events of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, so you will occasionally see mentions of Bilbo's adventures though you never meet him. You are given an old hobbit-hole to live in, which needs serious work to clean up and make functional again, and are introduced to a dozen or so other hobbits to interact with during the game.

A portion of Tolkien's "A Part of the Shire" map, with the approximate region from Tales of the Shire highlighted in red.

I really enjoy the artwork style, which helps set the tone and doesn't strive for anything that would tax the hardware. The controls (on the Switch) are relatively straightforward and usually intuitive, though there are some that are helpful (or fun) that are never shown in a tutorial or on-screen - checking out the settings revealed a few things that were quite handy to know as I played. There is no audible speech in the game - all character interactions are done in text boxes, which (unfortunately for me) are in a fixed font size, which I sometimes struggled to read. There was at least one spoken sentence that was meant as a "quiet aside" in a smaller font that was essentially illegible on the standard Switch display.

Lorewise, Tales of the Shire is based on Tolkien's writings in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings only (not movies, TV shows, or other games). There are a few things that I raised an eyebrow at, but nothing egregious or ruining my fun of the game. An example is Daisy Took (a child hobbit in the game) who has a stuffed animal oliphaunt she calls "Mooma", because Bilbo told her they are called "Mûmakil" in Haradrim. While technically possible that Bilbo could have heard this from Gandalf or the Dwarves or Elves during his wanderings (pre-Lord of the Rings time, remember), it stretched my own credulity a bit to say the least.

Gameplay wise, Tales of the Shire suffers quite a bit from grinding. The story line is entirely wrapped around the four skills you can develop - Foraging, Fishing, Gardening, and Cooking. Cooking is the focal point of the game, from all appearances, with every other skill and interaction funneling into needing to cook at some point. For example, a plot point will need you to improve your relationship with a hobbit, which means inviting them to a meal you have prepared - that meal needs ingredients that you have to forage/fish/garden or else purchase from shops (which have strict quantity limits per day), so moving the story ahead one "task" can easily lead to an hour of grinding (Foraging and sleeping to refresh store stock or to mature garden plants).

Further on the Cooking focus - each NPC hobbit in the game has a relationship with you, and they get grumpy if you don't invite them to meals regularly. That's 10 or more hobbits that you need to constantly be monitoring and inviting (to your "one meal a day" you can host), and gathering ingredients for and cooking - all completely outside the plot tasks that also require gathering and cooking and hosting meals...

The hobbit hole you inherit requires a lot of cleanup, staged through the story line. There is very little you can do in the first few seasons other than moving existing furniture around, and many doors and zones are blocked off until you unlock them through the story. I am about fifteen hours into game play, and I still cannot use the "broken" front door but rather have to run all the way around to the back door every time I want to use my kitchen - adding a minute (into and out of the house) to Every. Single. Task. I do love cosy games, but man I wish I could unlock some rather basic features of the home more quickly in the story.

Technically, I had one game crash where I lost an entire "day" (about half an hour of my time) that I had to redo. There is an auto-save function that I believe triggers when you sleep overnight, so it wasn't a huge loss for me. I have gotten in the habit of manually saving the game after a big push (cooking for and then hosting four guests for example) as I would detest having to repeat that amount of detailed effort. The camera angle is entirely manual, requiring some agility to keep your hobbit in view as you navigate through narrow or twisting paths, and often a shrub or tree will completely obscure your view (even in set pieces during plot-focused conversations).

Overall, I am enjoying playing the game and will continue to work through the story, but I wish the gameplay had a bit more variety and less focus on lengthy walks between ingredients and kitchen. Also it would be very nice to be able to get out of Bywater - maybe an expansion to visit Hobbiton is in the cards if the game does well.

Overall I give the game a tentative thumbs-up (depending on your love of repetitive cosy gameplay). Certainly appropriate for all ages, though the complexity of the cooking system might challenge some very young players.

I will be doing a livestream play session on Tue, 29 Jul 2025 4:00 PM GMT with Mr. Underhill and Trotter chatting with me. Come join in if you want to see more!