The Lord of the Rings games are positively cursed at the moment. Since the glory days of Shadow of Mordor and Shadow of War, the license has churned out one lackluster title after another, and Tales of the Shire’s rating makes it one of the worst-rated in LOTR history.
A calm and gentle Lord of the Rings life-sim title set in the Shire has all the makings of a safe and easy winner, right? Metacritic is saying otherwise as reviews have finally launched for Tales of the Shire, and it’s less promising than coming face to face with a balrog.
Tales of the Shire: A The Lord of the Rings Game Carries on Recent Trend
Tales of the Shire is officially out. More importantly, so are Tales of the Shire’s ratings and review scores. According to Metacritic, the game has scored 60/100 on PC—most of the reviews are on this format.
To put this in perspective, Metacritic has whipped up a quick ranking of every LOTR game from worst to best. Tales of the Shire sits 19th out of 25 games. This is very low, and if you consider its PS5 score (with only six reviews, granted), its score is 54/100—which would drop it down to 24th out of 25!
Yes, it follows in the footsteps of 2023’s The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria—which no one asked for—and the infamous The Lord of the Rings: Gollum. Hopefully, there will never be a Lord of the Rings game that comes close to the atrocities committed by the standalone Gollum game. It’s sad to see the license being missed over the years, though.
Shadow of Mordor was breathtaking. The Nemesis system was light years ahead of its time, and continues to be mysteriously absent in the gaming world. Shadow of War was a great successor. It’s been extremely slim pickings since, and here’s hoping we can have at least one more great game to rule them all soon.
An innocent life-sim title wasn’t the answer. What does a The Lord of the Rings game need to be a success? Let us know through the Insider Gaming forum.
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Andy is Insider Gaming's Senior Evergreen Editor and has been in the games journalism sphere in one way or another for over 7 years. His video game taste is as…
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