Tales of the Shire

Steam Reviews

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• Not recommended Posted July 29, 2025 on Steam This is a tentative no, because I BADLY want to love it. I'm a massive Lord of The Rings fan, and there is a huge space in the market for a cosy game set in Middle Earth. 🍃The Good - Cooking and foraging is fun and relaxing - House customisation is enjoyable - Soundtrack fits right in to Middle Earth - The bird feature as navigation is really thoughtful and immersive - I personally find the graphics charming and feel it adds to the vibe Overall you can tell there is heart in this game. I just think they had to cut corners and it shows. ☄️ The bad - You can't approach villagers to chat unless there's a quest related to them, which in a game about community seems a bit transactional - The world doesn't feel very alive. Villagers don't really do anything but wander from place to place and stand around. Not much interaction with the environment or each other - Fishing is really mundane for a game where it's supposed to be a core feature - No festivals or holidays to mark the seasons, which seems like a major oversight for a Hobbit-themed game - Lack of voice acting is also really disappointing. I had hoped that there would be dialogue even just for main quests scenes, but nothing. Such a shame - No romance feature. They said it wouldn't fit the feel of the game but I don't believe that. I'm not asking for Baldurs Gate-esque cutscenes, damn. Can I not plan a hobbit wedding and host dinners with my spouse?? - Awkward controls at times; the lack of a jump button forces you to take extra long paths when you can't simply hop down a small bank, for example - Framerate drops on a decent PC setup I know this game could be great. I KNOW Wētā have so much love for this franchise. It shows, but it also shows that maybe they were crunched too hard. I just pray they will add more content in updates. But as it stands, if you're on the fence, don't buy it now in the hopes they will fix what's missing in the future. EDIT: I want to add that if you're upvoting this cause you automatically hated the game due to "wokeness" you can absolutely miss me with that ♥♥♥♥. Don't use my review as a shield for your dumbass opinions. The amount of comments I've got about this is vile, I don't speak for you and I'm not on your side.
• Not recommended Posted July 29, 2025 on Steam While this may be the cutest and coziest place to be in all of Middle Earth, I can't help but feel a bit let down. I went into this with high expectations but I feel like they dropped the ball and the actual execution was done very half heartedly. There are some really great things here. The character and home customization options are very well done. The art and earthy tones are all on point and exactly what I was hoping for. That being said, this game runs horribly on the deck. Given the graphics advertised, I am a bit perplexed how this isn't running better (as I have played games with better graphics on higher settings with no problems). I can only run this game on the low settings. Anything higher, and it stutters. Feels very poorly optimized. If anyone has any suggestions, that would be appreciated ^_^ Upon startup, I found myself immediately disappointed. I am not sure why I thought there would be some voice acting but there isn't any and it feels like it desperately needs it. Even partial voice acting would have been great. Adding to that, the beautiful world feels empty and the interactions equally so. There seems to be about 15 characters you can form relationships with. Yet the world is littered with little hobbits, harfoots and haflings that you just bump into and push around. It is the same with everything around you. Just there for filler. The map seems spacious enough. The most frustrating part tho, is that you cannot even jump over anything, including obstacles. Just feels limiting and is more of an annoyance whilst exploring and navigating your way around. (Update: Scratch that, the most infuriating part is the 10 bag slot you are given -_-) Overall, I feel like I am forcing myself to continue playing because I am a LOTR fan and I love all the cozy ideas this game has IN THEORY. Food is my love language. It brings people together. I love the concept of inviting friends over to cook for them. I love the foraging, gardening, cooking and socializing aspect this game promises. But have they executed? I am not 100% sure yet. But as of right now, it just feels hollow. I am not going to refund because I am hoping at some point I will start to see the vision that got me so excited about this game in the first place. But as of right now, I cannot say this is worth the price tag. Cute and cozy… undeniably so!! But the actual meat and potatoes of this game just isn't there for me. It falls flat. You are trying to sell friendship and building relationships with the love of food and banter, yet the world and its inhabitants don't embody that vision at all. I was hoping for more liveliness. This feels cheap. I will continue to play and update my review if my feelings change (I really want them to change!!) Till then... [i]~ If more of us valued food and cheer above hoarded gold, it would be a much merrier world ♡[/i]
• Recommended Posted November 17, 2025 on Steam So, I really like this game. It's fun, it's cute, and it's a nice little way to spend some time if you're not interested in focusing on a super in-depth story. There is a story, of course, but you're free to do whatever you'd like until you want to progress. Honestly, this game is exactly what I wanted. It is literally you being a hobbit in the Shire. I hear/see a lot of comments about this being fetch-questy... Frankly, it is. You're playing as a hobbit... What do you expect? Some grand quest? I get it. This game is not for everyone. Definitely not for everyone. For me, I love it. The beginning was a bit rough to get through, and my brain hates the way you're guided through the map by birds, but this game feels like it was marketed correctly. Maybe it doesn't deliver on everything, but I don't think any game ever does. If you want to immerse yourself in the humble day to day life of being a hobbit... cooking, gardening, dining with townsfolk, and completing silly little quests, this game is perfect for you. If, however, you're looking for a detailed storyline and highly compelling gameplay, I would recommend skipping this one and trying something else. I, personally, love this game. I, also, can see why people wouldn't. To be fair, either you want to be a hobbit or you want to be an adventurer. Not everyone can be Bilbo Baggins or Frodo or Samwise... In this game, you are certainly not them. I do enjoy the references, though, as someone who has read the books and watched the movies. (The correct movies.) If you like a more laid back game experience where you get to do pretty simple tasks to progress, this is a game for you. It's definitely more of a vibe and less of a hardcore endeavor. It's a fun way to wind down and relax for me personally. I think for what the game was presented as (living life as a hobbit) it delivers on that idea. Highly recommend.
• Not recommended Posted August 9, 2025 on Steam Overall, I enjoyed my time with Tales of the Shire. So why am I not recommending it? I think this game is for a very specific type of gamer - and not just a cosy game fan who enjoys the Lord of the Rings. Everything about whether or not you'll like the gameplay loop has to do with *pace*. If you like being busy in Stardew, Rune Factory, My Time At... or other cosy games? This isn't the game for you. Tales of the Shire is a very slow paced game, and it expects you to fill time between the story beats by roaming around and making your own fun: be it foraging, fishing, gardening, or cooking. The art direction and land of Bywater is beautiful, and it lends itself well to just roaming around and seeing what you can see. That's where a lot of my time was spent: exploring the map and gathering spoils, or fishing. Sometimes, after a hard day, this is all I wanted to do. So, for a 'cosy' game where you don't need to use a lot of brainpower and just chill out for a while, Tales of the Shire fits the bill. When I approached it that way, I enjoyed it. But as time wore on, I became more impatient and felt the slow pace wasn't intentional; it was poor game design. TotS's slow pace brings problems: regardless of whether you want an 'easy' cosy game with low stakes. There is no fast path to making money, because your rewards for quests and parties are often in items, not gold. This would be fine if there weren't so many critical items locked behind gold: from extra gardening beds from Farmer Cotton, to the flour you buy from Sandyman, to clothing from Nora. This breaks the notion of the 'gameplay' loop for me. If the loop is centred around getting ingredients to cook - and then hosting cooking parties... you will inevitably hit a point where you have to stop everything for a while and do mindless tasks to grind for gold. Because the game *doesn't* give you coin as a reward at any point. Incidentally, if you want a home looking anything like the homes you've seen in the trailers, expect to be spending hours upon hours grinding reputation with your villagers to get there. The best looking furniture comes from reputation gains with certain villagers, which means cooking, cooking, cooking. But then it also means you fall into the broken gameplay loop of garden, forage, stash everything, cook... repeat till you're broke or out of materials, stop it all and grind out money so you can buy ingredients for cooking/gardening or gardening beds... and continue on. I'm sad to say, as I neared the 20 hour mark, the gameplay loop really lost its lustre, and I wanted to stop. I would recommend Tales of the Shire to very specific people: people who wouldn't mind a very slow paced, pick up and put down cosy game where they don't have to think too much, who are also Lord of the Rings fans. And now, I'd only recommend it to them if on sale in future. It's a damn shame - the concept and world are perfect for a cosy game, and it could've been so much better than it was. But in the end, sadly, it's just not that fun and the content isn't there for a long-haul experience.
• Not recommended Posted September 7, 2025 on Steam TLDR: I have mixed feelings about this game, sadly most of them are negative. Now for the essay. I feel like I had some unrealistic expectations set for this game, whether it was from the youtube/tiktok videos or something I saw on social media, I assumed this would be an evolved, life sim game with a long play time. That is why my initial impression was worse than it should’ve been. Don’t get me wrong the performance of this game was atrocious and it should’ve NEVER been released like this, even with the patch, there are still stutters. But I will be putting aside the expectations of the game and trying to see it for what it is rather than what I was lead to believe in the marketing. This is not a HORRIBLE game, but unfortunately, it is not GOOD either. I need Steam to implement “LUKEWARM” option for reviews. Right at the start you are to make your hobbit and personally, I felt many of the customizations were just laughable, if you are trying to make a cute hobbit, you have only a very few choices. That said the clothes, both the starter and the ones you can purchase later on are very cute. While the hobbit models could use some extra love, the environment is absolutely wonderful, beautiful sights all around, the changing of seasons was also a treat to see. Here I would like to mention a great thing the devs cooked - following the birds. To get to the next goal, or a place of your choosing, you just need to follow the birds that will sit on strategically placed environmental markers. This was amazing, made me pay more attention to the surroundings and taught me how to make way through the forests without always looking at the map. The main gameplay loop will be gathering, gardening and cooking so I shall speak about each separately. - Gathering is nice at the start, though it will soon turn into a grind. To level up this skill you will get little quests, where you will be asked to gather certain amount of a reagent, it will likely take you multiple days to get all of them and later when the quest asks for a higher quality, it might even take you a whole season like it did me. You can only have 10 of them active at a time so each day you end up going to the same places, hoping you’ll get luck with the high quality proc. - Fishing was a nice change of pace, the minigame was something I have not seen before and quite enjoyable, but ultimately will result in the same grind game as gathering. - Gardening was nice with the introduction of crop relations - if you plant certain crops together it will increase their quality. Love that. - The cooking minigame was interesting, especially later when more tools get unlocked and you can experiment with seasonings and how much you can adjust the flavours. At the start, however it might be a bit frustrating. You will need to cook meals for your fellow hobbit villagers, but be careful, if you won’t invite one of them for some time, they will get angry (entitled little shi-), so keep in mind to rotate your guests :) As for the character relationships, there are some small things you get to uncover about each of them, but it is very short, a few sentence intermission, if you will. The friendships unlock more things than quests, you get rewards in form of recipes, items or even further upgrades to your hobbit… molehill… whatever it is called. There is a story going on the background, very simple, which also explains the lack of voice acting. While it was surprising at first, I don’t think the story would benefit TOO much from it so I won’t hold that against the game, especially with the price point it is being sold at. I will reiterate again that this is a small game in scope, therefore the map you are running around and doing everything on, is also very small. There will be different things to collect during each of the seasons, but you will absolutely be still running on the same few paths over and over. I would say the one thing this game did spectacularly would be the house customization and decoration. There are very many items to collect, be it from vendor or from the characters, you get house expansion, even garden decorations. So here, my final thoughts. The game is REALLY slow at the start, if you are expecting a big scale game, pass on this, if you are expecting intricate story and interesting character friendships, pass again. If the game looks interesting to you and you don’t mind a VERY slow paced, relaxing and a little grindy experience, go for it, but I would still wait for a sale. I honestly can’t really recommend this with clear conscious at the full price, even if it is not that steep.
• Not recommended Posted July 30, 2025 on Steam [h2] 🛖 Tales of the Shire Review 🧙‍♂️ [/h2] As a massive fan of The Lord of the Rings, I was super excited to finally get my hands on this game. The delays were a bit disappointing, but I did manage to try a little of the demo beforehand. I’m pleased to say the game is very pretty and definitely delivers on the cozy, relaxing vibes I was hoping for. The cooking system is amazing, there are so many recipes, and it’s genuinely satisfying to prepare meals. You can chop up ingredients to make your food either smooth or chunky, and inviting little hobbits over to enjoy your dishes is just adorable. Gathering items around the world is also great fun; you can keep some as ingredients, use them for quests, or sell them for money. There are plenty of crops to grow too, and they look beautiful once they’re flourishing in your garden. Decorating your hobbit home is, for me, the best part. The free grid system lets you go all out and design your home however you like. The decorations themselves are very cute, and there’s a great variety to choose from. You can also decorate your garden, making your crop beds look neat and adding flowers for a finishing touch. The map is a decent size with lots of lovely areas to explore. Skipping around is enjoyable, but I do wish there was a jump feature, it can be a bit frustrating to have to go all the way around a building or structure when a simple hop over would do. Given it’s a hobbit village, you can imagine there’s plenty of uneven ground and tucked-away buildings, so a jump option would really help. The villagers are all very sweet, though sadly there’s no voice acting at all. Personally, I would have loved to hear them voiced as it brings characters to life and fills what sometimes feels like a bit of an empty void in the game. They mostly just wander around too, and I often find myself bumping into them (and feeling guilty!). It would have been nice to see them engaging in activities to make the world feel more alive. The little story is enjoyable, but many of the quests tend to be fetch quests or back-and-forth tasks between characters. As for the art style, I know some people have commented on it, but personally I don’t mind it at all. I’m an older gamer and have seen this style used in plenty of games before. I completely understand it might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but I think it’s charming. One small issue I’ve noticed is that I sometimes find myself twiddling my thumbs on what to do next, after watering my crops and finishing the quests available for the day. Fishing helps fill the time (and is a good way to make money), but the bag limit of 10 slots is… painful. For a game centred on gathering and collecting items, the small inventory feels very restrictive. Completing the Foraging Club questline did unlock a few extra slots, which helped a little, but honestly not by much. I had debates on whether to make this review positive or negative, but I ultimately decided to go negative. That doesn’t mean the game isn’t good, so to speak, but I do feel it’s lacking in a lot of areas where I was expecting more. For example, I would have loved to see more hobbit lore, seasonal festivals, and the other elements I’ve mentioned above. Do hope to change this review into a recommended in future. At the current price point, as much as it pains me as a huge fan, I can’t fully recommend the game just yet. I’d suggest waiting for a sale. That said, the game is still wonderful and enjoyable, and I do plan to keep playing it a lot, I’m genuinely loving it. Enjoy your time with the little hobbits 📜 - EDIT (06/08/2025) I know some people feel that my "Not Recommended" rating seems harsh, especially considering how much I’ve enjoyed playing the game. But I believe there’s a difference between enjoying a game and being able to recommend it in its current state. There’s a lot I genuinely like here, and I’ve spent many hours in the game, but there are also quite a few areas that I feel need improvement before I could comfortably recommend it to others. For example: - There’s no voice acting for the Hobbits, who are meant to be cheerful, lively, and full of character. This really affects the atmosphere and emotional connection. - Seasonal events are very limited,there’s only one festival at the moment, and it feels quite simple. - There’s no jump function, which makes movement feel restricted. - The game needs a lot of optimisation; I experience frequent frame drops in busier areas like the market, despite playing on a decent PC. - NPC interaction is quite shallow, you can’t really talk to Hobbits or build proper relationships (no friendships, partnerships, or marriage options, for example). - Dinner parties feel a bit dull and lack meaningful interaction. Voice acting would really help bring warmth and joy to these moments. - It would also be lovely to gift Hobbits items as a way of building rapport, rather than just sharing meals. - There’s not enough depth in the LOTR lore or character interactions, which is something I was hoping for in a game set in this world. - Crafting and gathering could be more engaging, with more variety and meaningful rewards. - Cooking is quite limited at the moment, you follow pre-set recipes with no room for experimentation. It would be wonderful to have the freedom to experiment with ingredients and discover new dishes on your own (Mostly a recommend idea, the cooking is still fun) - A small detail, but being able to interact with furniture in your house (like sitting on chairs or using objects) would really help bring your home to life and add a touch of immersion. - More decorations, furniture, and clothing options would be lovely. There is a decent selection in the game, but after playing for a while, I realised there isn’t quite as much variety as I expected or hoped for. - At the current price, I personally feel it’s a bit high. It seems like an extra £10 was added just for the Lord of the Rings name. If the game were more reasonably priced, I probably would’ve recommended it despite the missing features, as it would feel more worth the money. - A toggle option for skipping/hopping would be great. As Hobbits, we must skip everywhere! But my pinkie finger does start to get a bit angry with me after a while There are also more ideas I’ve had and other issues I didn’t cover here.I hope this clears up a few things and helps people understand why I marked the game as "Not Recommended." I didn’t explain myself super well in my original review, as I honestly didn’t expect it to get so much attention. So I wanted to clarify my thoughts, and better word my suggestions and ideas around where the game currently lacks. I do really enjoy it and will keep playing, I just want to see it improve and reach its full potential <3