Image: Private Division
Imagine an Animal Crossing game set in Middle-earth, and you’ve got Tales of the Shire.
Developer Weta Workshop and publisher Private Division have unveiled a new trailer for Tales of the Shire, a new life sim game set in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth. The Stardew Valley and Animal Crossing-esque game will let players live out a Hobbit’s idyllic life in the Shire by fostering relationships with their fellow villagers and pursuing daily activities like cooking, foraging and trading.
Here’s the trailer:
Tales of the Shire trailer shows off cosy Lord of the Rings game
Diehard Lord of the Rings fans should be quite familiar with Weta Workshop, seeing as the special effects company worked on Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings movie trilogy and supplied it with many of the iconic weapons, armour and miniature props it’s known for today. It looks like the company is now getting into the game development business too, and its first game is a cosy little life sim game called Tales of the Shire.
Tales of the Shire takes place in Bywater, which hasn’t yet been established as an official village in Hobbiton. Your job is to create your own Hobbit and help the little village flourish by decorating your own Hobbit hole, tending to the gardens, fishing at nearby ponds, foraging for wild fruits and herbs and trading with other villagers. You can even cook meals to share with other villagers and build relationships with them.
We’re not sure what these relationships entail, but it sounds like a big part of the game will revolve around building up your village and tightening your bonds with its inhabitants. Incidentally, the town of Bywater wasn’t just made up for this game - it had a major part to play in the original trilogy, as it happens to be where Saruman was killed by Grima Wormtongue, who was then killed by a couple of Hobbits. As the books clearly demonstrated, one should not underestimate the typically peaceful inhabitants of the Shire.
Tales of the Shire will let you customise your own Hobbit and decorate their home, which they will have to return to every day to get some rest. The rest of your time will be spent collecting ingredients and cooking up food, all to participate in second breakfast and dinner parties with other Hobbits. Bywater itself is a big enough place to keep you busy, with, “secret glades and lost treasures of the Shire,” ripe for discovery upon exploration.
The game also has a weather system that will affect the player’s daily routines, and different, “seasonal surprises based on time of year.” The developer also hints that players can meet, “iconic characters and familiar Hobbit families,” as they progress through the story. The game does not have a release date yet, but it's set to launch sometime in 2024.
