The Lord of the Rings franchise has always been popular throughout the years. J.R.R. Tolkien’s books have drawn many people into Middle-earth, spawning books, movies, TV shows, and, naturally, video games. While the history of the Lord of the Rings video games dates back to 1982, many Lord of the Rings games span various genres. After 40+ years, there have been mixed reactions to the games, yet fans of the games want to see more (as of this writing, Amazon Games is developing a Lord of the Rings MMORPG). Does Tales of the Shire scratch the itch that Middle-earth fans want?
I will fully disclose that life simulation games were never among my favorite game genres. In my honest opinion, you play video games, after all, to escape from real life, and life simulation games are usually extensions of real life (think The Sims or Second Life) which, for me, defeats the purpose of becoming a hero that saves the princess or any other video game trope that you can think of when you fire up the video game console or PC. Knowing this, I decided to give this game a chance, because, after all, it’s Middle-earth, and that doesn’t exist in real life, right?
You start by creating your own customizable Hobbit character and settling in the village of Bywater. You live the day of a Hobbit, hunting, fishing, gardening, and foraging for resources. While the graphics are nothing to write home about and closely resemble something that could have been released for the PlayStation 2, graphics have hardly been a benchmark for a good game, especially as I approach two decades of reviewing video games (longer if you count all the contributions I’ve made to GameFAQs). Like any good life simulation game, you can customize your home to your liking, and that was fun to do for about 30 minutes or so, when you realize you have to work around the static environment as opposed to building something that truly reflects your personality.
One major slip-up here is no voice acting, which is inexcusable in 2025, as even small studios can muster up voice acting, and seeing Gandalf mute doesn’t seem right to me. Second, for a cozy single-player game, there is an awful lot of grinding, which leads to immense feelings of sunk cost fallacy as you try to collect everything in the game. You can unlock decorations by completing quests, but most of them are much of the same and also constitute grinding. Cooking tries to shore up this rather pedestrian effort of a game, but, once again, you have to grind harder than most life simulation games to get these recipes. Building relationships with the NPCs is also fun, but sadly stifled by the lack of voice acting.
One of the saving graces of this game is that it feels like Middle-earth when you have everything unlocked, which took me about 20 or so hours, even with the massive grindfest and small distractions here and there. The game even plays like a PS2 game in that there are lots of bugs and glitches. Thankfully, the nature of always-online consoles and PCs means that these things can be fixed, but this first impression left me sad and disappointed, as living life in Middle-earth could have been done a lot better.
Over the years, many games have caught my eye through trailers and demo gameplay, only to leave me disappointed. Tales of the Shire has a great premise: living life in Middle-earth with your fellow hobbits and other Lord of the Rings characters. Sadly, the grindfests and what looks like an unfinished product show that Weta Workshop should stick to what it’s good at: special effects, makeup, props, costumes, and the like (aside from Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, it has also done work for the iconic TV series Xena: Warrior Princess). If you’re a fan of hobbits, this merits a play, but I would wait for the MMORPG to have a truly immersive Lord of the Rings experience.
Developer(s): Weta Workshop
Publisher(s): Private Division
Platform(s): PC, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch
Words by Jose Alvarez
Also published in GADGETS MAGAZINE Volume 26 Issue No. 2