Tales of the Shire: A The Lord of the Rings Game just came out, and isn’t exactly the one to rule them all. Fans didn’t have high hopes for this cozy game, and it seems that they were right about their low expectations as critics are tearing it apart. Worst of all, the Nintendo Switch version is an absolute mess, which was expected, but is still sad since that system is associated with the “cozy” genre.
For the record, most of the complaints come from fans online who dislike the poor visuals and worse framerate. Interestingly, it’s this version of the game that has the highest Metacritic score, though we know critic and fan opinions don’t always align.
Anyone who has seen the trailers for Tales of the Shire knows that it’s not exactly a high-quality game in terms of graphics. This is a cozy game that’s not made by a major studio, and fans were willing to give it some grace. However, fans on X have talked about how much of a mess this version is.
It seems that the already mundane visuals for this title got worse on Nintendo Switch. The original Switch was always going to struggle when compared to its current-gen competitors, but this is still surprising, given the simple art style. We imagine that a Switch 2 port could fix this, so here’s hoping the devs give fans a free upgrade.
One fan also talked about Tales of the Shire’s “horrible motion sickness camera movement,” which isn’t a good thing to hear about. We’ve seen games like the Spyro trilogy on Switch have some bad motion blur, with an update that fixed it. Hopefully, that's also the case with this cozy Hobbit game, though it is the least of its problems.
Some LOTR fans are pretty happy with the game, as the simple premise of “Stardew Valley in Middle-earth” is enough for them. Games like these are pretty great on handheld, so it's a shame that this doesn’t perform well on Switch, especially with its already simple art style. A patch or two could make this version a bit more palatable, but fans may want to play this on Steam Deck or see if it runs better on Switch 2.
Lord of the Rings games aren’t in a great place right now, and it seems that Tales of the Shire is a prime example of that. While not a horrible game, with most reviews agreeing that it’s more bland than offensive, it’s a sad state for the license. This franchise is home to titles like Shadow of Mordor and those iconic movie tie-in beat-em-ups, so this mediocre farming game is a far cry from previous titles.
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