When I first watched “The Lord of the Rings,” I just wanted to be a gorgeous, slender, effortlessly cool elf like almost every eight-year-old girl could wish for, married to Orlando Bloom’s Lay Goras. When I was a teenager, I was content to remain human whenever I had the chance to obsess over Aragorn. But now, at the wise age of almost 31, I know the truth: the greatest beings you could hope for in Middle-earth are the hobbits. Luckily, Legends of the Shire lets you do just that.
Wētā Workshop’s Tales of Shire is a cozy life simulation centered around Tolkien’s most cozy creature, the Hobbit. Considering the high demand for wholesome games and my enduring love for the Lord of the Rings series, I always felt it was only a matter of time before a game was developed that celebrated these joyful and endlessly hungry creatures. After all, what else do hobbits do but take care of their land, drink, dance, be merry, and occasionally go on epic quests to save the world? I recently had the chance to do almost all of these things while playing a two-hour preview of Legends of the Shire, but unfortunately, I didn’t get as comfortable as the Gambit in their hobbit holes , came out of this experience. While Tales of the Shire is engaging and has some good foundations, Wētā Workshop needs to embark on a journey full of quality-of-life improvements and some serious revisions if they want to make this game something special.
The preview content tells the story of the character you created leaving his hometown of Bree and going to Bywater, one of the most quaint villages in the Shire, to start his own life. However, when you get there, your first series of tasks involves proving that Bywater actually yes A village that, as one grumpy local suggested, is more “backward” than Waterfront Village.
This storyline serves as a tutorial for the game, as it introduces you to some of the neighbors and the game’s core features: fishing, cooking, gardening, foraging, and cultivating relationships. Many of these features really work for me. While the game’s fishing mechanic isn’t new, it’s a fun, tension-based mini-game that avoids being annoying or tiring. Even though I’m not someone who particularly enjoys cooking or crafting in games (usually I do these things out of necessity), I actually found myself wanting to spend a lot of time in the kitchen. Instead of just pressing a few buttons to cook, you’re encouraged to chop and cook your ingredients to create more textured dishes.
This ties in with gardening and foraging, as high-quality ingredients, spices and herbs help enhance the overall flavor of the meal. I love casually strolling through the woods picking hops, puffball mushrooms, and gooseberries. Another system I really like in Legends of the Shire is companion crops, which give certain crops bonuses if they grow next to crops they get along with. Instead, some crops should be placed on separate beds to avoid a loss of quality. After harvesting, gathering, and salvaging ingredients, it’s easy to throw them all into my giant pantry where you can seamlessly pull them out while cooking. In short, the more “free form” elements of Legends of the Shire come together beautifully.
However, the “nurturing relationship” aspect is another story. While one way to improve relationships—inviting neighbors over for dinner to satisfy their cravings—is fun, unfortunately, that’s only the extent of my enjoyment. While I generally enjoyed the writing of the game, many of the villagers in the town felt the same to me, each offering the same cheeky banter and, more annoyingly, frustrating fetch quests. Much of my time in the village was spent going back and forth between a few select hobbits, with one particularly egregious mission having me go back and forth between the same two hobbits more than four times.
While the overall environment is lovely and reminiscent of the Shire we know and love – quaint, cozy, and verdant – I found myself constantly growing tired of the game’s quirks. The waterfront is packed with hobbits, obviously to give the town a lived-in feel, which I totally understand. But it quickly became frustrating when I tried to move around and meet my neighbors every The hobbit I encountered was an NPC that I couldn’t interact with. Even though it was packed, it started to feel a bit scarce.
Rather than a traditional minimap, compass, or other form of “breadcrumb trail,” Legends of the Shire opts to immerse the player by having them follow bluebirds as they occasionally perch on fence posts and signs. While cute in theory, it’s often a bit annoying when I’m walking faster than the birds can appear, or when I’m walking through a more dense area (like a town square or woods) and lose track of them entirely. Frustrated. Considering Bywater is deeply rooted in nature, filled with small bridges, winding roads, and only a handful of NPCs you can interact with scattered across the map, it’s frustrating not being able to rely entirely on birds. Even though the game obviously doesn’t want you to constantly pull out the map and lose that sense of whimsical adventure, I felt like I had to do it. These are just some of my complaints.
Between the retrieval missions, my growing frustration with certain features, and the lack of compelling characters or plot points, I ultimately found myself not particularly interested in leaving my little hobbit hole. However, unlike games like Stardew Valley, where you could be fairly secluded and focus on creating your own little slice of paradise, Legends of the Shire seems to rely on your interactions with your neighbors. interactive. Part of the reason is that even if you do decide to spend a lot of time making fun little changes to your home, it’s hard to actually spend a full day doing all the really fun things.
This will allow you to do tasks that aren’t particularly uninteresting to your less-than-interested neighbors. It’s also worth pointing out that, at least in the preview, there’s no calendar filled with birthdays, holidays, or any other events. This gave me pause, because without anything to break up the mundane aspects of the game, I’m not sure I would be compelled to continue playing. Ultimately, this is the biggest problem with Legends of the Shire right now: even a Sims patient like me (don’t ask me how much time I’ve put into Moonstone Island and the fields of Mystria this year) doesn’t feel left out. Attract through this game. While it has some great features, lovely music, and an art style that although a bit clunky feels right and adds a lot of charm, and While there’s an incredible IP behind it, the entire package on offer isn’t very effective. Fortunately, the game has been delayed until 2024 and will instead launch in early 2025, hopefully giving the team some time to polish the game into something Gollum dreamed of.
