Tales of the Shire: How Cooking Could Be the Game's Biggest…

Summary

Players may be able to master cooking, gardening, and fishing to host multiple grand dinner parties in Tales of the Shire for unique rewards.
Challenges can streamline gameplay by requiring players to maximize skills, gather ingredients, and plan meticulously.
With no combat in sight, a focus on the hobbits' love for feasting could heat up gameplay and deepen relationships in Bywater.

Tales of the Shire is a cozy game set in the world of The Lord of the Rings that allows players to create and customize their own hobbit, grow fruits and vegetables, fish, cook, sell their produce, befriend the community, and customize their own hobbit hole. As a cozy sim, cooking is likely to be a large part of Tales of the Shire, especially as food and mealtimes are a core part of every hobbit's life.

Tales of the Shire can take advantage of this by making a cooking challenge a key goal for players. Players will be able to host dinner parties, but to push it even further, they should be able to host multiple main dinners in a single day as a massive event for a reward. This can be a late-game challenge that rewards players for learning multiple essential skills, such as cooking, fishing, gardening, and their friendships with their community.

Tales of the Shire Needs a Specific Type of DLC to be Successful

J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings has been a rich source for various adaptations, including video games. Despite some recent inconsistencies in the quality of these games, successes like the Shadow of Mordor series and The Lord of the Rings Online show the franchise's enduring appeal. Now, Private Division and Weta Workshop's Tales of the Shire aims to add to the growing library of LotR games with a unique focus on the cozy life of Hobbits. The extent of content in Tales of the Shire and potential post-launch DLC remains unconfirmed. However, if substantial DLC packs are planned, the game should expand its LotR premise by exploring regions beyond Bywater, specifically within the Shire's Westfarthing.

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By Josh Cotts

A Cooking Challenge is the Perfect End-Game for Hobbits

One of the main traits of hobbits in The Lord of the Rings is that they love food, with cooking being a major pastime, and Tales of the Shire is no different. Cooking is a major feature in Tales of the Shire, with many recipes to unlock. Players will be able to grow, fish, and gather their own ingredients, then cook and bake them for a sumptuous feast. Members of the Bywater community can be invited over for meals, which can increase their relationships with the player-controlled hobbit, and new recipes can be learned from other hobbits.

As Tales of the Shire is a cozy sim with no combat, cooking would be a great place to turn up the heat. Hobbits love to eat multiple full-course meals in a single day — ideally, up to six meals — and players could work towards preparing six perfect dinner parties with invited guests in a single day. Successfully carrying out this lofty goal could bring with it a hefty reward of a special recipe, rare ingredients, or a unique item.

Challenges Would Streamline Gameplay for Tales of the Shire

Preparing to carry out such a task could also help streamline Tales of the Shire gameplay towards a specific goal, where players would have to master multiple skills to even begin undertaking such a massive series of events. This would include maximizing skills in fishing, perfecting multiple recipes, growing numerous types of high-quality crops, having a well-decorated hobbit hole, having good relationships with many hobbits in Bywater, and maximizing their cooking and baking skills.

In addition to the skills that need to be maximized beforehand, the correct ingredients would need to be gathered, recipes planned, and the correct hobbits invited at the right time. Timing on the part of the player during the event would also be important to ensure everything is done perfectly, and that all six meals happen on the same day.

Because an event like this would take so much prep time and work, it could be an ultimate goal the player works towards. The reward would need to be something that is highly desirable and could be something that makes gameplay easier, a reference to The Lord of the Rings, or something rare and sought-after. However, the reward cannot be something redundant, such as making skills easier to learn, as the player's hobbit would have already learned many essential skills on the way to completing the challenge. The reward must also be revealed to the player before they embark on the challenge, as a mystery item may be disappointing after so much effort, although an element of mystery with an aspect of the reward being known could also work.

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