Tales of the Shire: A Lord of the Rings Game is set to take place in the village of Bywater in the Shire, and stands alone as a game in the world of The Lord of the Rings because it's a cozy game rather than an action-oriented game. Rather than engaging in combat, Tales of the Shire's main premise keeps the player within the bounds of the Shire, homesteading, foraging, and building relationships with the local hobbit inhabitants.
Cozy games often include engaging with a small village community, and one of the best ways to do that is through a holiday system. Many cozy games involve unique festivals and holidays that are tied to the community's culture. As The Lord of the Rings has so much established lore and history, especially for the inhabitants of the Shire, Tales of the Shire should include the holidays and festivals that are detailed in the source material.
Tales of the Shire Can Still Address One of Its Biggest Criticisms Before Release
While its release date is quickly approaching, Tales of the Shire might still have enough time to tweak an area that has already garnered criticism.
Bringing Hobbit Holidays to Tales of the Shire
In The Lord of the Rings, hobbits had their own calendar system separate to the rest of Middle-Earth. As hobbits are an argrarian society, most of their calendar is based around the changing seasons. The Shire was originally based on Tolkien's home country of England, and the hobbit calendar and holidays are very similar to the ones found in England. Holidays that are unique to the Shire would be a natural fit for Tales of the Shire, even considering the canon appendices and going beyond them because of the thousands of years of potential history that hobbits remember in The Lord of the Rings.
In the canon calendar, hobbits have two important holidays, namely the summer solstice and the last and first days of the year, which happen in the middle of winter. Both of these holidays are primarily feast days, although the Lithe Days in the summer are also popular trading days.
Official holidays in the Shire include:
- 2 Yule
- 1 Lithe
- Mid-Year's Day
- Over-Lithe (only observed on Leap Years)
- 2 Lithe
- 1 Yule
Including Hobbit Celebrations in Tales of the Shire
2 Yule is the first day of the year, and the second day of a two-day feast celebrating the New Year. The Lithe Days, also known as The Summerdays in Bree, is a festival between three to four days and places an emphasis on feasting. Both of these festivals happen over several days, but Tales of the Shire could adapt them to instead run for one day, as is typical in cozy games. As the emphasis of these holidays is on feasting, the Tales of the Shire's core gameplay mechanics of harvesting, cooking, and hosting guests for a meal could play a central role in participating in these festivals, while the Yule festival could include Gandalf and his fireworks to ring in the New Year.
Hobbit Birthday Celebrations
Other celebrations that Tales of the Shire could include are birthday celebrations. Hobbits are depicted as loving birthday parties, and being able to plan and execute parties for NPCs that the player hobbit has a close relationship with should be included. If the player hobbit is close to other NPCs, it would also be great if those NPCs could throw a birthday party for the player hobbit on their birthday, possibly with special characters making cameos at the event.
- Released
- July 29, 2025
- Developer(s)
- Wētā Workshop
- Publisher(s)
- Private Division
- Franchise
- The Lord of the Rings
- Number of Players
- 1
WHERE TO PLAY
- Steam Deck Compatibility
- Unknown
- PC Release Date
- July 29, 2025
- Xbox Series X|S Release Date
- July 29, 2025
- PS5 Release Date
- July 29, 2025
- Nintendo Switch Release Date
- July 29, 2025
- Platform(s)
- PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, Nintendo Switch, PC
