Building friendships should be the number one activity on every Tales of the Shire Hobbit’s to-do list. By improving your friendship level with each of the fifteen locals, also known as the Bywater Townsfolk, you can unlock new conversations, shop upgrades, fishing spots, trading opportunities, and even room expansions. Even among friendly neighborhood Hobbits, however, forging friendships takes more than a day’s work. Here’s everything you should know about friendships...

Foraging is probably one of the easier activities in Tales of the Shire compared to fishing and cooking, but there are some secrets to the art of plucking mushrooms and gathering berries that you may not know about, such as seasonal preferences, unexpectedly helpful insects, and the difference between foraging and gardening ingredients. From butterfly guides to the best foraging location in early game, here’s everything a foraging Hobbit should...

Gardening is an important pastime in Tales of the Shire. A proper Hobbit needs a proper garden full of fruits and veggies — including any ingredient that can’t be foraged in the wild. If you want the best garden in Bywater, simply sowing some seeds is not enough; you must also water your plants and mind their companions. This Tales of the Shire gardening guide will show you how to...

The Nintendo Switch 2’s new features include Joy-Cons that can become a mouse. I’ve personally been wondering which game will allow us to take full advantage of mouse controls, and now I know: Mario Paint. If you’ve been looking for an excuse to get artsy, then this 33-year-old classic game, now available for Nintendo Switch Online members as part of the July game updates, might be just the thing you’re...

On paper, a cozy little game set in the Shire sounds like a slam dunk. The Shire is canonically a beautiful, peaceful, inviting little place, and a game that lets you customize your own personal Hobbit hole sounds delightful. But in practice, Weta Workshop’s new life sim, Tales of the Shire: A The Lord of The Rings Game, sadly falls as short of its quest as Boromir. Published by Private...

Team Cherry’s promise to release the long-awaited Hollow Knight: Silksong in 2025 is looking more likely than ever. The latest evidence is a new playable demo for Hollow Knight: Silksong that will be available to the public at Gamescom in August. Silksong will be on hand on PC and the ROG Xbox Ally X, Microsoft announced Monday as part of its Gamescom 2025 plans. Along with Silksong, Xbox will offer...

I’m not surprised smashing stuff in Donkey Kong Bananza is enjoyable. In the tutorial alone, I, like many others, spent ages demolishing everything I could get my (giant gorilla) hands on, and it’s a given that something designed well enough to distract from the main attraction like that is still going to feel good 10 or 20 hours later. What surprised me about Bananza isn’t even how much Nintendo struggled...

During a recent successful expedition in Elden Ring Nightreign, wherein my fellow Nightfarers and I took down the Everdark Sovereign version of Adel Baron of Night, I had a realization: FromSoftware isn’t giving me enough space to properly thank my fellow Limveld adventurers. (Or to say sorry to them, if necessary.) And “Vic,” a Raider who dealt the killing blow to Adel, deserved ample thanks. He’d dispatched the Baron of...

After becoming super, Mario seems to have pulled the ladder up behind him. Our hometown blue-collar boy made it good in the Mushroom Kingdom’s highest strata, ditching the plumber’s gig for a plush life as Princess Peach’s royal favorite (whatever that may or may not entail). He and his bro are set for life, so it’s no surprise they remained silent after the Toadette debacle, where the real estate potentate...

Samantha Béart is obviously not a seven-foot-tall Barbarian in real life, but the actor says they do share some personality traits with one.  Béart is perhaps best known for their role as Karlach in Baldur’s Gate 3 — the flammable, lovable Tiefling who became one of the most-romanced characters in the game. The UK-based actor voiced Karlach and provided more than 260 hours of motion-capture footage for the game, a...