They're taking the Hobbits to 2025 - cosy life-sim Tales Of The Shire: A Lord of the Rings Game catches a delay

Apologies to those of you hoping to escape to a cosy Hobbit life, but Tales of the Shire has been delayed into 2025.

While there's a seemingly infinite number of cosy games to play at any given moment, Lord of the Rings fans were unsurprisingly particularly excited by Tales of the Shire. You get to be a Hobbit and do things like fish, farm, cook, and explore the world of Lord of the Rings in a low-stakes manner, what's not to love? It was originally due out sometime this year, but as the year gets closer and closer towards its end, Wētā Workshop Game Studio has some bad news: the game has been delayed into 2025. It's obviously not the news you'd want to hear, especially when one of the most recent video game entries in the world of Middle-earth was The Lord of the Rings: Gollum.

"All of us here at Wētā Workshop are excited to have you join us in the Shire, a peaceful corner of J.R.R. Tolkien's world", wrote Wētā Workshop in a statement. "When a new Hobbit steps into Bywater for the very first time, we want that moment to be everything you're hoping for. To ensure that we deliver that vision, Tales of the Shire will now be launching early 2025. Thank you for your patience and continued support. Be sure to tune into our A Hobbit Day Showcase on September 22nd to learn more about Tales of the Shire and Our new release date.

The good news there is that a more concrete release date is right around the corner, which should hopefully lighten the blow a touch.

Tales of the Shire will just be the latest in a string of newer Lord of the Rings projects, with the films seeing some new additions too - like a new Gollum-centric movie, that might actually be two movies.