Tales Of The Shire: A Lord Of The Rings Game has been pushed back to early 2025. The cozy hobbit home sim was originally planned for a tardy 2024 release, but developers Weta Workshop Game Studio have announced they need more time.
“All of us at Weta Workshop are excited for you to join us in the Shire, a peaceful corner of JRR Tolkien’s world. When the new Hobbit first enters Bywater, we want that moment to be everything you’ve been hoping for,” the announcement reads. shared by X.
“To ensure we deliver on this vision, Tales Of The Shire will launch in early 2025.”
The Tales Of The Shire show stream will show more action from the game on September 22nd, broadcast on YouTube AND Cramp.
Edwin had already had the chance to play Tales Of The Shire at the Summer Game Fest in June, and he found the game so irresistibly addictive that it was almost incredible.
“Playing Tales Of The Shire at Summer Game Fest reminded me that the Shire is supposed to be a paradise that has fallen into oblivion, constantly being destroyed by the tragic events of the East, insert a WWI colonial subtext here. It’s Tolkien’s Green Hill Zone, a blast of sunlight before the leap into Moria and Mordor. Subtract the leap, and the blast of sunlight becomes sinister – intriguingly, like a heartfelt overture that always threatens to slip into a minor key. I don’t mean any of this as a criticism. It seems as good, distracting, and irrelevant a cozy living simulator as any – barely imaginative as a collection of minigames and cottagecore DIY laced with dialogue and very gentle exploration, but with LOTR elements that distract from characters like Dave The Diver. But what captivates me about it is what it isn’t, and how it constantly thwarts my instinctive sense that everything is about to go to hell. As Sylvia Plath wrote, the flowers are too lively, too excitable. The air is too gentle.”
What a treasure Edwin is. I am of a simpler mind and therefore only mind that the game is subtitled “The Lord of the Rings Game”. There should be a price for mixing definite and indefinite articles in this way.