Cozy Lord of the Rings game Tales of the Shire aims to be something “Tolkien would be happy with,” and “add to his world like a real mythology”

Cozy Lord of the Rings life sim game Tales of the Shire may have been hit with a couple of delays, but as it approaches its release this July, its creative director says it was “really important” to the devs at Wētā Workshop to create something they felt Lord of the Rings author J.R.R. Tolkien “would be happy with.”

In a new interview shared on the PlayStation Blog, creative director Stephen Lambert discusses all things Tales of the Shire, including its “organic” building, noting that Hobbit holes themselves aren’t “really square or rigid shapes.” Instead, “everything’s kind of curved and a bit more organic, so the idea of having something that goes on a grid just didn’t fit. It just made sense to build something that allows for a huge amount of expression, to be able to tinker with things and put them in exactly how you want.”