How Tales of the Shire's Home Decoration Celebrates Tolkien's Life

Tales of the Shire promises to be packed with tons of activities, from growing a garden to befriending other hobbits to hosting shared meals with the whole neighborhood. One of the many activities available in Tales of the Shire is home decor, where players can customize each room in their hobbit hole, as well as their outdoor garden space, using a variety of decor sets. When designing the furniture, lighting, accessories and other items available to players, Weta Workshop chose to hew close to the original Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings books as well as author JRR Tolkien's own life experience.

Game designer Catherine Booth gave Game Rant a deep dive into Tales of the Shirepp home decor feature, including the team's research process and how they decided which aesthetics to include. She explained that while many of the team visited the real Hobbiton in New Zealand, they chose to stay away from the look of the films and create a visual style similar to what Tolkien would have seen when he first designed the hobbits' peaceful settlement.

Tales of the Shire's Aesthetic is true to Tolkien's experiences

JRR Tolkien describes Hobbiton, hobbit-holes, parties and farmhouses rather lavishly in his novels. In the very first paragraph of The Hobbit, he summed up the aesthetics of a hobbit's abode succinctly: “it was a hobbit hole, and that means comfort.”

But Weta Workshop didn't stop at just reading Tolkien's books. They researched the author's life and the time period he lived and wrote his books to create a look that matched the world he would have seen around him when he put pen to paper. Booth explained the team's design philosophy:

“We're very inspired by the aesthetic of the era that he grew up in, even before the age he was when he wrote the books. What he would have had around him growing up – because we know it was really a huge inspiration for him when he wrote about the Shire. It was about his childhood, it was about his upbringing, it was about being in nature.

Tales of the Shire's design aesthetic is cozy, colorful and true

The resulting design aesthetic is rustic and cozy, including lots of rich woods, bright colors and earth tones. Great emphasis is placed on natural decorations, with candles to light the hobbit hole's room, paintings of plants and nature scenes, and handmade wooden or clay accessories. Booth revealed that the team also drew on their own New Zealand heritage; for example, one of the items players can find in the game is a Temuka pot made in the traditional New Zealand style.

Weta Workshop also ensured that the items and characters in the game were accurate Tales of the Shirepp place in the timeline. The game takes place after The Hobbit but before The Lord of the Rings, so Bilbo Baggins has returned from his journey but it is quite some time before Frodo sets out on his. As a result, Booth revealed that the team had to be careful about including or excluding key items from the series:

“Because the events of
The Lord of the Rings
hasn't taken place yet, we didn't want to make any references to the One Ring. We really made sure that there are no plots or weird inconsistencies, that it works for the times.”