Tales of the Shire review – A cozy hobbit life that sparkles on the surface, but never digs deep

I love a good cozy game, and throwing fantasy into the mix feels like the perfect recipe for success. Tales of the Shire, a hobbit-inspired adventure, has all the ingredients needed for greatness, but it doesn’t quite make for a satisfying meal.

Tales of the Shire invites players into a cozy corner of Middle-earth that’s far removed from the usual high-stakes present throughout The Lord of the Rings franchise. Instead of epic battles and deadly dark forces, your focus is cooking, gardening, community, and the quiet charm of hobbit life. Unfortunately, it only somewhat delivers on this promise as it ultimately struggles to balance charm with substance. 

Chasing birds and butterflies through an enchanting, immersive environment

The world is easily the best part of this game. It’s a vibrant, verdant, open world, with plenty to explore and uncover. There’s a lot to love, but my favorite part is how immersive the exploration mechanics are.

Birds, butterflies, and skipping are the best examples of this. Birds act as your guide, flying whichever direction you need to go once you track a quest or mark a location on the map. Instead of distracting arrows or symbols, you get to follow cute little bluebirds that blend in with your surroundings, keeping you engaged with the picturesque natural landscape. 

Similarly, butterflies pop up around the land to guide you to any nearby resources you may want to pick up. They’re even color-coded to match what type of item you’ll find if you follow them. And who needs running or jumping when you can skip your way to your destination? All these mechanics work together to make this cozy Shire world truly feel like home. 

Mostly familiar mechanics with a few hobbit twists

There are all the expected cozy gameplay features here, including gardening, foraging, fishing, decorating, and cooking. They’re mostly par for the course, except for cooking and gardening, which have a delightful amount of depth to them.

Instead of just tossing ingredients together and moving on, you’re encouraged to chop and simmer your dishes to add various textures and flavors. It’s a bit challenging to master, but it’s easily one of the best parts of the game and probably the best cooking system I’ve encountered in any cozy game. 

In gardening, planting certain crops close together can result in better harvests, while others wither when placed close together. You have to be a bit strategic with your plant placements because of this, and it’s a slightly tough but fun system to navigate. I wish other gameplay systems had the same amount of depth as these two, since they really shine. 

Villagers who charm, but lack any real depth

The townsfolk you meet around the Shire are integral to everything you do and form the focal points of the central storyline. But although they’re delightful, they’re also incredibly shallow. This is my biggest issue, as the one-dimensional characters take away from the incredible immersion elsewhere.

Outside of quests, occasional pop-up events, and meals, there’s no way to chat with the villagers regularly. When you walk up to them, they’ll ask if you need anything, and your only option is to say goodbye if you’re not working on a quest that involves them. The only exception to this is characters who can trade or have items for sale, but there’s no special dialogue or depth in these interactions, either.

The Shire revolves around relationships, so why does it feel like I know almost nothing about the 15 villagers who live there, and that most of the characters are the same? Outside of the townsfolk, there are lots of other NPCs wandering around, but you can’t interact with them in any way, either. 

I can’t get to know the characters better, give them gifts, hang out regularly, or otherwise build relationships with them, and this feels like such a massive oversight. Even sharing meals with villagers, which is the only way you really get to spend time with them, doesn’t teach us anything new besides what types of food they like.

The missions townsfolk give you are tedious, as most of them are fetch quests that send you all around the map back and forth between the same characters with barely any intriguing dialogue to accompany them. These tasks are especially frustrating since there’s no way to fast travel. 

There’s the foundation for greatness here, with an incredibly cute art style, gorgeous world, and compelling characters I genuinely want to know more about, but Tales of the Shire just doesn’t deliver. If you’re looking for a super relaxing and cozy experience, you’ll have a fine time with this one, but don’t expect a game that’s going to stick with you.