After being first announced in April 2024, Tales of the Shire has already made quite a name for itself in the cozy gaming space even a few months away from its scheduled release. Within that year and a bit, we’ve seen a handful of trailers and videos that give us a brief look into the life of a hobbit.
Things like cooking, decorating, and foraging have all been spotlighted across the videos shared to social media by Weta Workshop, making us more prepared than ever to start our new life in Bywater. If you want a little more insight though, here’s everything you need to know before you take on your career as a hobbit, alongside when the game will release.
Tales of the Shire release date
Tales of the Shire will be released on Tuesday, July 29, 2025. across all platforms too, so no one will have to wait around for their turn at being a hobbit.
Originally, Tales of the Shire was scheduled to be released toward the end of 2024, but it was met with a handful of delays. In a statement published to social media in February, Weta Workshop explained that “a lot more work is going to need to be done between now and its launch.”
Tales of the Shire trailers
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Outside of an initial announcement trailer, followed by a separate release date reveal, Tales of the Shire hasn’t had a huge amount of trailers. With that said, there have been a number of “inside look” videos and shorts shared to social media and the Tales of the Shire YouTube channel.
These videos give a better look at what to actually expect from the game, alongside Bywater as a whole, and have often featured the team behind the game explaining mechanics or elements of the game in more detail. We’ve already had videos about foraging, cooking, decorating, and hosting dinner parties. All of which seem to be core mechanics in the game.
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The most recent “Inside Look” uploaded to YouTube talks about multiple features of the game, like the work that’s gone into character creation so players can make the most accurate hobbit version of themselves, the wayfinding system, and explains the introduction to the game. Most importantly, a whole section of the video is dedicated to decorating your hobbit hole and the reasoning behind the decision to make it as open as possible, so you can decorate every possible inch of your home in Bywater.
Tales of the Shire gameplay
A lot of the content in Tales of the Shire is made up of traditional life-sim elements like farming, foraging, fishing, and decorating your own hobbit hole. But, to keep you on your toes, you’ll also complete quests for the hobbits around Bywater to progress through a very laid-back story.
Rather than these quests sending you on epic quests to slay dragons and take down monstrous spiders, you can expect to run between locations delivering items to hobbits and lending a helping hand where needed. Basically, your main aim in Tales of the Shire is to develop a comfortable and relaxing life as a hobbit, so as you can imagine the story is by no means intense.
Cooking also plays a huge role in the game, which is unsurprising given how much hobbits eat. With the ingredients you’ve foraged and farmed you’ll have the opportunity to invite your fellow hobbits over for a meal too. This will help you develop and maintain friendships with any character you want to, rather than relying on some sort of gifting mechanic which so many other life sims are keen on.
From what we’ve seen in trailers, customization is another significant part of the experience. Your entire house, or hole, can be decorated from ceiling to floor with whatever aesthetic you fancy. This was designed to help players “express themselves within the game” according to UX designer Jordan Peat. Weta Workshop shared in an “inside look” video for the game that decorating features a grid-free approach, meaning you can place furniture and items around your house wherever you want for that ultimate cozy experience Tales of the Shire promises.
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