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00:00Tolkien's plan, really from the very outset, was to create a complete mythology.

00:11But he said, I'm going to leave areas that are only sketched in, like blank spaces on

00:16the map, and I want other minds and hands, wielding art and paint and drama, to come

00:23in and take over the story.

00:28The heart of the game is love, fellowship, the love of the Shire, the love of community,

00:38the love of good food, good tilled earth, and the desire to protect and enjoy nature.

00:46You're coming into Bioware as a new Hobbit and trying to find your place within that

00:50group, but also you're exploring what it means to be part of a beautiful landscape and making

00:56that your new home.

00:58We're making a little pocket where that kind of life is preserved and anyone can come and

01:05experience that.

01:07It's the kind of life that makes Middle-earth worth saving.

01:18Weta Workshop's history with the Tolkien world, it stretches such a long way back.

01:24Those early days working on Lord of the Rings, seven years living and breathing in Middle-earth,

01:30it's such a long journey.

01:33Something like Tales of the Shire is really big for us.

01:36It's taken multiple years, it's taken a lot of people, and we don't want to fall short

01:43of the expectation we have on ourselves, so therefore hopefully won't fall short on the

01:48expectations of our players.

01:52As a game studio, it's incredibly unique and this incredible privilege to be able to literally

02:00walk 150 metres down the road into an actual armoury and talking to master craftspeople,

02:08swordsmiths, about what was the forge situation in 19th century England, and what kind of

02:15alloys would they have been using that's so special and unique to us.

02:22Tales of the Shire has been our opportunity to tell our little slice of the story through

02:27our specific lens, to create this virtual world with a very unique visual style.

02:34We didn't want to copy things that have been done before, we wanted to complement and find

02:40our own language of design.

02:43Steve Lambert, one of our wonderful and senior designers, took on that task and he has done

02:48an extraordinary job.

02:52The art style of the game came from my experiences of The Hobbit as a child and the books that

02:58I had growing up.

02:59I was really influenced by artists like Singer Sargent and people like that who, you know,

03:04there's a certain kind of simplicity and elegance in their work.

03:08This is a story that's kind of told in that kind of vein of The Hobbit rather than The

03:13Lord of the Rings, and the world has yet to become a dark and kind of menacing place and

03:18that was trying to reflect that and we wanted to carry that through with the art style.

03:25It's quite a challenge with how much is out there in the world now with the impression

03:29that it's made and the zeitgeist of what Middle Earth and that kind of world looks like and

03:33feels like, so we had to make a fresh and unique attempt at imagining that again.

03:40The game is very specific to the places that Tolkien refers to in his writing.

03:49The trees are all trees that you would find in the UK and the shape of the landscape with

03:57those beautiful rolling hills.

03:59But here in Aotearoa, we're huge lovers of the natural world and I think that inspires

04:07us as well as artists, that love of being outside, of looking around, of being in nature.

04:15There are quests throughout the game that get you to really like notice nature or respond

04:21to things in nature.

04:25You'll plant different things in different seasons and keeping an eye on what nature

04:31is doing and planning your life around that.

04:36One should probably take a moment every day to just sit down and have a look around and

04:43appreciate a tree or something, but no, we don't always get that chance.

04:49For me, when I want to lose myself in a fantasy world, thoughtful detail, depth of thought

04:56in that world is kind of critical and that's something that I really love about this.

05:01The Winter Workshop has this world-building ethos beyond what you see on screen and to

05:07think of them as real places, to imagine why things look the way they do, what's the cultural

05:13background for, what's the history, what's the wider world that informs them.

05:18And I think all of that comes together beautifully to create such an immersive experience.

05:23The more you look, the more you see and the more you appreciate how much thought's gone

05:27into creating it.

05:30Everything's really new in Tolkien's world.

05:34Everything's been built in the past and I think that also applies to Hobbits.

05:38Some new stuff is still being made, but there's a lot of care and love to maintain and restore

05:43what's already there.

05:45Despite it being stylised, everything's grounded, even the craftsmanship, the textiles, the

05:51way everything's made, it's still very grounded.

05:55Steve had done a bunch of work and he kind of landed on what he wanted the environment

06:00to look like.

06:01So I was brought in to figure out what the characters looked like and I essentially just

06:06drew what my dream game would be.

06:09I drew this, what I felt cool, what I felt cute, what I felt cosy.

06:14I'm drawing in my own art style so it's really comfortable and luckily Steve loves my stuff

06:19so it was very easy just to keep the ball rolling.

06:25For any good story you need to have a conflict, you need to have a problem for the player,

06:30the viewer, the reader to solve.

06:33So we're like, well what kind of problem will Hobbits have?

06:35Because Hobbits do not have very big problems.

06:39They are a people of kind of a small town mentality.

06:43Everything important for them happens in their own little village.

06:47So that was very challenging for us.

06:50We didn't want this game to be about the actual big problems in Lord of the Rings, we wanted

06:55to set that to the side and be like, okay well let's actually spend time in Bywater,

07:00what would we be doing there?

07:04You know I came to this job as an experienced Tolkien scholar and enthusiast for Tolkien's

07:08work and as a playwright and a screenwriter.

07:11But I didn't want to just take the books as my only point of inspiration, what I wanted

07:17to do was go back and actually look at Tolkien's life and what inspired Tolkien and what affected

07:22him.

07:23It was things like the urbanisation of the landscape of his childhood and his love of

07:28trees.

07:29It was looking at the effect that the First World War had on him, about what happened

07:34to his country after that time and how some of its values, the really positive things

07:39that were important to him seemed to be being lost and he wanted to preserve them or to

07:44champion them again.

07:45So I was taking all those ideas and then using that as my point of inspiration.

07:51Tales of the Shire is set in Bywater, not in Hobbiton, but Bywater is effectively part

07:56of Hobbiton and I struggled for a bit to work out what to call it because, you know, I need

08:01to write things down and is it a village?

08:03So it's not really a village, it's kind of just part of Hobbiton, right?

08:07And then I realised I had my story.

08:10People like Farmer Cotton, who are fiercely proud of Bywater, want Bywater to be a village.

08:15But people like Sandyman the miller, because he's an antagonistic character, he wants

08:19it to be part of Hobbiton, because it's Hobbiton Mill and he sells his flour from Hobbiton Mill.

08:23And that is our story.

08:28Some of our characters are canonical.

08:30Farmer Cotton, Sandyman the miller, Olden Oaks, Rosie Cotton, Young Tom Cotton.

08:36These are characters that are in the books, so they're part of the world.

08:39So it was then taking, okay, what do we have of them and then developing it further.

08:44As you talk to more of the characters, you get to know them better.

08:48You eat with them and give them the food they like and your relationship improves.

08:52They start to open up to you about their lives and really hope that the things that the characters

08:57say are really quite illuminating, they kind of really flesh out the characters.

09:04And hopefully there's a few surprises in there that people go, oh, that's really interesting.

09:10We're really inspired by that sort of nostalgic sense of what the Hobbits were, a people and

09:18a place that is all about the natural world.

09:23And to try and give that sense of delight and comfort and home to our player.

09:30All the things that are good and wholesome and wonderful and make you feel positive about

09:34Middle-earth, they're all the values that J.R.R.

09:36Tolkien was espousing when he came up with this world.

09:39Yeah, what's at stake when you go on these mighty quests and all that kind of stuff?

09:42But at the heart of the Tales of the Shire, it's about community and about connection

09:46and about appreciating the world around you.

09:51I hope that you see and you can feel the heart and the soul that has gone into the game.

09:58We're such huge Tolkien fans that we really wanted to create something that was so true

10:02to that and that would feel really authentic.

10:06It's exciting to be at this point, thinking that we're putting a piece of Middle-earth

10:12out into the world, seen through a Weta Workshop lens, and hopefully will be embraced warmly

10:19by the people that choose to play it.

Tales of the Shire A The Lord of the Rings Game - Game Overview

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