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Hobbit life sim Tales Of The Shire is so jolly and joyful it creeps the hell out of meFor the love of god, send in the Nazgûl
For the love of god, send in the Nazgûl
Image credit:Take-Two Interactive
Image credit:Take-Two Interactive
Tales of the Shire - Official Announcement TrailerWatch on YouTube
Tales of the Shire - Official Announcement Trailer
Here are some things you won’t be doing in Tales Of The Shire (coming soon viaSteamand theMicrosoft Store): receiving any ominous parties of wizards and dwarves, giving large hooded riders directions, hiding any dreadful magic rings, or even stubbing your furry toe on the doorstep after re-carpeting your burrow. You don’t even run in this game, an action which, after all, suggests a touch of agitation – you skip, instead, radiating good vibes like a wholesome isotope. After ten minutes with the game atSummer Game Fest, I started to feel incredibly distressed, as though I were being exposed to some deranging source of high frequency sound, and took to begging the PR for hints about dark forces abroad, like a child seeking reassurance against nightmares who secretly hopes the nightmares are real.
Will the Ringwraiths come? No, they won’t. Will I get to see Bilbo descend into madness? No, you won’t, though there is a quest where you prepare a series of dishes artfully flavoured to celebrate his adventures, which, yes, are now entirely over and done with, The End. Tales Of The Shire is every bit the extraordinarily happy Hobbit life sim it appears to be. The worst thing that’ll happen to you here is that you might slice your onions too thin during the cooking minigame and slightly sabotage the mood at dinner. Slightly.
Image credit:Take-Two Interactive
The second thing I like is the cooking, which is satisfyingly elaborate and ceremonial, with bulging recipe books ushering you through such minigames as tossing a frying pan or chopping ingredients to make indicators move in the direction of Sweet or Savoury, Smooth or Chunky. The challenge, inasmuch as there’s challenge, is gathering ingredients, whether from your own allotment outside or in town, and working out their flavour profile. Nailing the recipe is important, because wining and dining other hobbits is how you’ll progress through the game’s story. Don’t fret too much if you screw up, however. There’s no odds of becoming a village pariah for oversalting the soup – you just have to keep trying. Again, the sunshine is relentless, and in any case, you can postpone advancing the narrative forever.
Image credit:Take-Two Interactive
The third and final thing I like, albeit partly as a kind of defence mechanism against the wholesomeness, is giving your hobbit a makeover. Tales Of The Shire is, in general, pretty free with the customisation opportunities: you can shunt around both cosmetic furniture and your cooking facilities, alter the wood panelling of your hobbit hole and add decorations seemingly without having to worry about gathering any resources. You can also totally re-engineer your hobbit at whim, from how they stand to their default expression to the exact hirsuteness of their feet, which is sure to earn the game some social media traction, though I don’t think it’ll bring about the second coming of LOTR memes.
During my hands-on, I tried to make my hobbit look as villainous as possible, combining a smug demeanour with caved shoulders and a dark green cape to produce a credible proto-Gollum. My proto-Gollum won’t be going on any nasty underground escapades, but perhaps she’ll give the other diners a chill during elevensies, reminding these offensively good-natured homebodies that there is a big scary universe beyond the Shire where there is only time foronebreakfast.
