Do you like The Lord of the Rings? Do you imagine what a nice little life having second breakfast in the Shire might be like outside of all the craziness that happens elsewhere in Middle Earth? Well, Weta Workshop’s first game will be right up your alley in Tales of the Shire: A The Lord of the Rings Game. At Summer Games Fest, we got to go hands on with the game for about thirty minutes, and the game is just as cozy as it sounds.

Tales of the Shire is a life sim game that sees you play as your very own Hobbit in the small town of Bywater. There are a plethora of activities for you to engage in with the typical life sim affairs being there like fishing, decorating, and farming. However, the main of which is cooking and having meals with other Hobbits around the town and forming bonds as they ramp up to host the Bywater Festival.

The demo we played had us start up a questline where we were building dishes based on Bilbo’s unexpected journey during The Hobbit novel. The dish had us making three separate things, so we got to really see how the cooking and meal prep works. The game gave of plenty of ingredients to work with to try and meet whatever variation of the type of dish we were making.  When cooking, there’s an indicator at the bottom of the screen that shows four conditions your dish can be: crispy, smooth, tender, and chunky. Your dish can slide towards any of these on a scale depending on how you much and the type of way you prep the ingredients. However, within the indicator, there’s another smaller indicator to show the perfect mixture of where your dish should fall on the scale.

As mentioned, the game’s main goal is to spend time with the other Hobbits around town as everyone preps for the Bywater festival. It isn’t exactly indicated as to where the game falls in the Middle Earth timeline as we just get some references to The Hobbit, and we don’t see any of the main characters from either The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Though, a mysterious B.B. is writing you notes throughout the game.

Tales of the Shire is the definition of a cozy game, and if you like the genre or The Lord of the Rings, then you are sure to enjoy this game. Tales of the Shire is set to release at some point later this year.