Tales of the Shire’s Hobbits Should Bow to No One

Posted by By our-little-miss-is-home January 16, 2025 2 Views 6 Min Read
Tales of the Shire’s Hobbits Should Bow to No One

Hobbits have had a rough go in video games lately because of The Lord of the Rings: Gollum’s lackluster outing. Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor and Middle-earth: Shadow of War are phenomenal plunges into familiar iconography as well as Aragorn and Ringwraith tropes and motifs, and yet they moved The Lord of the Rings’ needle further away from hobbits. To be fair, it seems as if it would be unsurprisingly difficult to have a hobbit-centric game that is also action-oriented, and perhaps that’s why Weta Workshop’s upcoming Tales of the Shire: A The Lord of the Rings Game has the potential to be truly special.

Inevitable, Fizz Factor, Saffire, and Sierra’s The Hobbit is a fantastic adaptation of the titular book. That said, with no hobbit-led game besides Gollum since 2003, there’s a hobbit-sized hole in Middle-earth waiting to be filled by Tales of the Shire: A The Lord of the Rings Game. With any luck, Tales of the Shire will hopefully be the title that stresses the significance of hobbits again as the beating heart of the Lord of the Rings IP.

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What to Expect From Tales of the Shire in 2025

Tales of the Shire is set to release in 2025, giving players the chance to finally live out their hobbit dreams in the village of Bywater.

The Lord of the Rings’ Power Fantasy Has Long Been Upheld

There’s much to cherish about peace and lightheartedness in The Lord of the Rings and yet its plot revolves around the essential conflict between Middle-earth and Sauron. Therefore, with so many epic fantasy battles portrayed between The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King, so much of the franchise’s cinematic action has been fertile soil for video game adaptations. These include but are not limited to:

  • The Lord of the Rings: War of the Ring (2003)
  • The Lord of the Rings: The Third Age (2004)
  • The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth (2004)
  • The Lord of the Rings: Conquest (2009)
  • The Lord of the Rings: War in the North (2011)

With so much of the fantasy spectacle beholden to clashes between men, dwarves, elves, orcs, goblins, and other such races in J. R. R. Tolkien’s lore, there has been a lot to explore in role-playing and action landscapes, especially around the time when Peter Jackson’s theatrical Lord of the Rings trilogy released. These movies would then shape what the predominant iconography would be for the IP.

This is also why, for better or for worse, popular characters would routinely appear in game adaptations whenever possible—the same is true today with The Lord of the Rings having proven countlessly that it clings ferociously to brand familiarity, and parting with it completely might elicit the same response Bilbo Baggins experiences when he sees the One Ring adorned by his ‘nephew,’ Frodo, in Rivendell. Of course, while popular characters seem inescapable, war does not need to be endlessly depicted. Cave trolls and beautiful orchestral scores are phenomenal and entertaining in The Lord of the Rings, but it is now Tales of the Shire’s responsibility to sheathe its sword and substitute it with the finest pipe-weed in the Southfarthing.

Tales of the Shire is a Portrait of the Good in Middle-earth Worth Fighting for

Tales of the Shire: A The Lord of the Rings Game is reportedly situated between The Hobbit and The Fellowship of the Ring. Here, hobbit life can be as rejuvenating, recreational, and jovial as Weta Workshop wishes it to be. Tales of the Shire’s Bywater certainly plays an enormous role in The Lord of the Rings’ War of the Ring, being where Saruman and Grima Wormtongue are eventually felled, but with its distinct place on the timeline it is made plain that hobbits will decorate and furnish their abodes free of strife or ruin being thrust upon them.

Tales of the Shire may be accurately billed as a cozy life sim but, above all else, it intends to be an immersive hobbit sim. If Tales of the Shire is as thorough in its exploration of hobbit life as it needs to be, it will be fantastic to have the perspective of what a quiet and comfortable life is like when The Lord of the Rings’ Shire, much less Middle-earth itself, isn’t riddled with harrowing darkness.

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