County Tales: When The Lord of the Rings Meets Animal Crossing | Xbox One

While The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria will debut on October 24 on PC and PlayStation 5, and then in early 2024 on Xbox Series of games in its portfolio with Tales of the Shire.

A comfortable hobbit life awaits you

Published by Private Division and developed by Wētā Workshop, this new title was recently announced and is still very mysterious. The studio’s choice is rather interesting given that the New Zealand company worked with Peter Jackson on creating the Lord of the Rings trilogy in cinema, before doing so again with The Hobbit.

While the company specializes in special effects and artistic production, there is a branch dedicated to video games. Tales of the Shire is the first game developed entirely by the studio.

For now, we have to make do with an interesting trailer that shows a woman adding her final touches to the drawing. When you create a draft while leaving the building, the pages scroll and we can see several references to the District, which is where the gaming experience should be centered around.

While it’s unclear exactly what Tales of the Shire will be about, the publisher describes it as an “intimate new Lord of the Rings game.” So we can legitimately expect a life simulator like Animal Crossing or Stardew Valley.

Tales of the Shire will be available in 2024 on consoles and PC, without further details.