Tales of the Shire is a cozy Lord of the Rings game from Weta Workshop

Samwise Gamgee may be pleased to learn that we're going back to the Shire. Another Lord of the Rings game has been announced, but it's one that should be vastly different from the likes of Lord of the Rings: Gollum. Tales of the Shire is described as a "cozy" game that's coming to PC and consoles in 2024.

Details about the upcoming title are thin on the ground, but a lovely little live-action trailer hints at the tone. It shows an illustrator drawing images of a hobbit and a Hobbit-hole (the semi-underground domicile of such a being). The artist moves away and the pages of the sketchbook blow over to show other hobbit residences and signs for various locations around the Shire.

Here's hoping it's a chill Lord of the Rings-style farming sim in the vein of Stardew Valley. I have my fingers crossed that there will be multiple options for cooking potatoes. Namely boiling, mashing and sticking 'em in a stew. Maybe even turning them into big golden fries with a nice piece of fried fish.

There are some notable names involved in the project: Private Division and Weta Workshop. It was revealed last year that the two sides were working on an LOTR game.

Private Division is one of Take-Two Interactive's publishing arms. In recent years, it has released games such as The Outer Worlds, OlliOlli World and the fantastic Rollerdrome. As for Weta Workshop, that's the company that handled special effects for all six of Peter Jackson's Middle-earth films, as well as movies such as Avatar: The Way of Water. (Weta FX, a separate company, worked on the digital effects for those projects.)

This is far from the only Lord of the Rings game in the pipeline. For one thing, Amazon is making a Lord of the Rings MMO with the team behind New World. Meanwhile, survival crafting title The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria is slated to arrive on October 24.

Last year, Embracer Group secured the rights to make games and other projects based on The Lord of The Rings and The Hobbit. Fast forward a year, and the company is in a difficult financial position, leading it to carry out layoffs and close studios. So it shouldn't come as too much of a surprise that Embracer believes it needs to be "exploiting Lord of the Rings in a very significant fashion and turning that into one of the biggest gaming franchises in the world."

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