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Digital Trends
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Digital Trends
Tales of the Shire wasn't the game I wanted to play, but the game I needed to play
This month has been an especially stressful one for me. Without getting into too many details, I had more on my plate than usual and had to be extra judicious about how I spent my time. This caused me to treat playing games more like a job than something to enjoy. Well, technically playing games has always been my job, but I never want to approach a game with that mindset. Unfortunately for Tales of the Shire: A The Lord of the Rings Game, that was my mentality on first touch — get through it as fast as possible so I could write my article and move on to my next assignment. That's a recipe for failure for any game, but especially so for a cozy game in which patience and the act of doing the more mundane tasks are the reward in and of themselves. Once I met the game on its own terms, it ended up being exactly what I needed to manage my stress. A fine stew takes time Tales of the Shire doesn't feature any epic quest or ancient evils, but focuses on simple Hobbits with simple problems. The closest you get to the wider Lord of the Rings world is a quick meeting with Gandalf and some references to other familiar areas within The Shire. Otherwise, this game is a far more accurate depiction of a Hobbit's life than Bilbo or Frodo's would have you believe. Recommended Videos After creating my own unique Hobbit and arriving in the new village of Bywater, I was struck by the art direction Tales of the Shire chose. It evokes feelings of a watercolor or oil painting that creates an almost dreamlike look to the world. It feels like a concerted effort to evoke the tone of The Hobbit book rather than the darker, grittier tone of The Lord of the Rings, which is quite effective in stills and motion. Sadly, I wasn't so receptive to the gameplay that morning. The first few hours consist of some introductory quests that serve as small tutorials for things like cooking, using your map, planting crops, and all the other chores that make up any good cozy farming sim. This is all framed around the first major quest in the game, which is to settle an argument about whether or not Bywater fits the technical definition of a village according to a lost rulebook you need to find. Thrilling stuff, right? Finding the book is an excuse to give me a complete tour of Bywater to meet the main villagers I will be befriending. Each Hobbit that once had the book tells you they passed it along for one reason or another to someone else, again and again until I finally find it in the most obvious of spots. It isn't the game's fault that this extended fetch-quest rubbed me the wrong way. I was too focused on treating the game like a task that every additional step felt like a waste of time. Bywater isn't a huge village, but my Hobbit isn't all that nimble, so trekking from one end to the other right off the bat was a poor first impression. Also, the cuteness of replacing a sprint with skipping only felt like salt in the wound when I was already on edge with the game. I stopped playing after this first quest, unsure if I would go back. Two days later, I did but only after reflecting on how I wasn't playing Tales of the Shire on its own terms. This isn't a game about the destination, but enjoying the journey and living life slowly — just like a Hobbit. I would need to put aside my stress and let the game move at its own pace to give it an honest shot. When I stopped worrying about not knowing where to go to find the specific fish I needed, or where I could harvest berries for a pie and just enjoyed the process of fishing and foraging, I began to settle into the laid-back atmosphere Tales of the Shire wants to provide. Cooking has very few timed elements and is almost impossible to fully fail, there are no harsh time limits on just about anything I encountered. Even when I accidentally missed a dinner I had invited two Hobbits to, all I got was a mildly passive-aggressive letter in the mail. It was such a relief to have my biggest problem be a slightly grumpy Hobbit that could be won over with just a dinner or two. Even with the tone and pace clicking for me, Tales of the Shire does have some niggles that detract from fully enjoying its world. The biggest was the very limited inventory at the start. Cooking is such a core feature that I wanted to stockpile every fruit, mushroom, fish, and vegetable I came across on a daily basis, but ran out of space frustratingly fast. Being forced to skip back home two or three times a day started to resurface my resentment for the overly saccharine animation. There's also no way to easily track what ingredients I need for a dish. Having a way to pin one or more recipes to the screen so I could easily reference what specific breed of fish or other ingredient I needed while out and about without having to dig through my menu feels like a missed opportunity. Those issues aside, for my first true cozy game experience, Tales of the Shire came at just the right time to help me slow down and appreciate the journey and not focus on the destination. Tales of the Shire is available now on PS4, PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch, and PC.
Metro
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Metro
Tales Of The Shire: Lord Of The Rings Game review - Animal Crossing with hobbits
The latest Lord Of The Rings game is a cosy village simulator by Wētā Workshop but are they as good at making games as they are special effects? When you hear the name Wētā Workshop, the first thing that springs to mind is the astonishing (at the time) visual effects for The Lord of the Rings movies and their various decreasingly interesting offshoots. What's less well known is that while Wētā is primarily a special effects company they also do various other things, including making tabletop games. So far that's included District 9: The Board Game and GKR: Heavy Hitters, but now they've decided to have a go at making a video game as well. The result is Tales Of The Shire: A Lord Of The Rings Game. It's all about hobbits, but this time rather than setting off for Mordor to toss a demonic ring into a volcano, here you stay happily in the Shire, specifically in Bywater. At the beginning of the game the county assessor decides it's not even worthy of being called a village, so it's up to you and your fellow Bywater residents to change that. You do that by making friends and setting up the institutions necessary for somewhere to be considered a village. The rules for such things are fairly nebulous and still mention wolves and goblins, which haven't been seen in the Shires for a long time. None of that really matters though, because soon enough you've got a laundry list of cosy quests to undertake. In keeping with the way the Shire is depicted in Tolkien's books, and more saliently in the films, that means wandering Bywater's lanes and bridges, helping people and foraging for ingredients. That's important because perhaps the most significant distraction in Tales Of The Shire is cooking for friends. Heading to the kitchen in your recently inherited hobbit hole, you'll find a chopping board and saucepans. Provided you have all the necessary ingredients, making a recipe takes a few taps to complete, its test of skill is in achieving the right flavour and texture. The latter is governed by the number of times you chop each ingredient before adding it to the pot. Get it just right and your meal will be extra delicious. The meals themselves are vehicles for building relationships. Heading to your writing desk, conveniently placed next to your hobbit hole's dining table, you compose invitations to townsfolk to come and dine with you. You soon learn what they like and dislike and tailoring the meals you serve – and making sure they're as tasty and texturally pleasing as you can – helps level up friendships. Sign up to the GameCentral newsletter for a unique take on the week in gaming, alongside the latest reviews and more. Delivered to your inbox every Saturday morning. Finding ingredients can be a bit of a trick though. While your garden comes with five planters to grow herbs, fruits, and vegetables it'll take a good few hours before you can afford to add more. It also takes quite some time for each plant to grow. Watering them speeds up the process slightly, but you mustn't overdo it and it's often easier to forage or buy what you need if you're in even a slight hurry. Fellow hobbits are forever writing you notes, which appear in the American-style postbox outside your house, and these often contain new side quests, as well as replies to your dinner invitations. Unfortunately, as you start digging deeper into your expanding to-do list, it becomes painfully clear that almost everything you do is an extended, multi-part fetch quest. A brief conversation directs you to a hobbit on the other side of town, who needs you to speak to someone else next to the lake, who would be very grateful if you'd collect an item on their behalf, before returning to the first hobbit. After minimal chat they give you a reward, completing the quest and freeing you up to get on with the next one, which to nobody's surprise means walking to the other side of town, where the process starts again. The end result is that you spend most of your time in transit. Fortunately, that's easily Tales Of The Shire's strongest suit. That's because despite looking like a PlayStation 3 game, its landscapes really are beautifully designed. Colourful flowers and elegantly proportioned hobbit holes are connected by little bridges, tunnels though hollow tree trunks, and perfectly manicured country lanes. Butterflies flit past, townsfolk go about their business, and every day has a cadence that takes you from early dawn to night, with village life going on around you. Seasons pass, with summer giving way to autumn, followed by winter, and the things you can forage or fish for change along with them. The game does a convincing impression of a real living ecosystem. Similarly brilliant is the way you navigate. After tracking an objective, birds flutter ahead of you, perching on whichever arm of a signpost you'll need to follow, or on bridges and arches over the road, leading you where you need to go without once needing to use a map or draw any crude HUD markers. It works really well and fits sympathetically with the rustic setting. Unfortunately, character designs and animation are more of an acquired taste, the game's cartoonish hobbits are permanently leaning over backwards whether walking, skipping or just standing around. They all do it, it looks utterly bizarre, and it doesn't seem to have any motivation beyond a peculiar choice by the art department. We found the hobbits profoundly ugly to look at, in stark contrast to the countryside they inhabit. More Trending The real problem though, is the gameplay. Aside from cooking and fishing, the overwhelming preponderance of time you spend in Tales Of The Shire is merrily skipping from one place to another. You can't take shortcuts, with Bywater's organic-looking trails and fields actually turning out to be rigidly controlled corridors, and with so many tasks involving traversal, you just walk and walk and walk. It's grindingly tedious and makes you realise the skill with which the Animal Crossing games have been put together. Even though superficially similar, Animal Crossing manages to weave warmly likeable characters and involving miniature stories out of its island paradises. By contrast, there's something depressingly flat about Tales Of The Shire. There's also a fine line between cosy and cloyingly twee. While it's entirely possible that small children will find something alluring in the non-violent, bucolic setting, and continual mind-numbing repetition, they would be infinitely better off playing Animal Crossing or Stardew Valley or virtually any other cosy game. Despite its cheerful demeanour, Tales Of The Shire is a grim, drudge-filled reminder that looking cute is no substitute for gameplay. In Short: A cosy hobbit-themed life simulator that can look pretty but is almost entirely made up of thinly veiled multi-part fetch quests and drab, under-developed minigames. Pros: Glorious map design and landscapes. The avian satnav is a genuine innovation and the dedication to non-violence means there's not so much as a pointed stick in the entire game. Cons: Very little variety and systems like fishing and crop growing are underexploited. Most of your time is spent in transit, and with no voice acting cut scenes feel half finished. Ugly hobbit animation. Score: 4/10 Formats: PlayStation 5 (reviewed), Nintendo Switch, Xbox Series X/S, and PCPrice: £29.99Publisher: Private DivisionDeveloper: Wētā WorkshopRelease Date: 29th July 2025 Age Rating: 3 Email gamecentral@ leave a comment below, follow us on Twitter. To submit Inbox letters and Reader's Features more easily, without the need to send an email, just use our Submit Stuff page here. For more stories like this, check our Gaming page. MORE: Nintendo's next big Switch 2 game is just £50 right now – but only for today MORE: Wolfenstein 3 hopes reignited as live action TV show is announced MORE: Battlefield 6 battle royale map leaks alongside new gameplay videos
Forbes
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Forbes
NYT Connections Today: Tuesday, July 29 Hints And Answers (#779)
Find the links between the words to win today's game of Connections. Each day's game of NYT Connections goes live at midnight local time. Before we get to today's Connections hints and answers, here are Monday's: Hey there, Connectors! I hope your week is off to a stellar start. My partner and I are planning to be together for the long-term and so we've naturally broached the topic of marriage a few times. We have a general idea that if we do tie the knot, we'll probably have two small weddings: one in Montreal and one in Scotland. That'll make it much easier for all our family and friends we want to be there to attend. We're not in any rush, but we're at least thinking about it. While we were talking on the phone the other night, I said I had to share something important. I'd been thinking about for a long time. It was a non-negotiable. I told her I needed to have a Lord of the Rings-themed wedding. The response was about six seconds of silence, followed by an 'O…kaaaaay.' Then me laughing and telling her I was only kidding. Then her laughing. I have absolutely nothing at all against anyone who wants to have a theme wedding, as long as everyone is on board. Do whatever makes you happy! I do like The Lord of the Rings, but I'm very far from being a super fan or anything like that. I just knew that my partner does not care about that stuff at all. I figured it would be a fun little prank. And I think it was. Before we begin, we have a great little community on Discord, where we chat about NYT Connections, the rest of the NYT games and all kinds of other stuff. Everyone who has joined has been lovely. It's a fun hangout spot, and you're more than welcome to hang out with us. Discord is also the best way to give me any feedback about the column, especially on the rare (or not-so-rare) occasions that I mess something up. I don't look at the comments or Twitter much. You can also read my weekend editions of this column at my new newsletter, Pastimes. Today's NYT Connections hints and answers for Tuesday, July 29 are coming right up. How To Play Connections Connections is a free, popular New York Times daily word game. You get a new puzzle at midnight every day. You can play on the NYT's website or Games app. You're presented with a grid of 16 words. Your task is to arrange them into four groups of four by figuring out the links between them. The groups could be things like items you can click, names for research study participants or words preceded by a body part. There's only one solution for each puzzle, and you'll need to be careful when it comes to words that might fit into more than one category. You can shuffle the words to perhaps help you see links between them. Each group is color coded. The yellow group is usually the easiest to figure out, blue and green fall in the middle, and the purple group is usually the most difficult one. The purple group often involves wordplay. Select four words you think go together and press Submit. If you make a guess and you're incorrect, you'll lose a life. If you're close to having a correct group, you might see a message telling you that you're one word away from getting it right, but you'll still need to figure out which one to swap. If you make four mistakes, it's game over. Let's make sure that doesn't happen with the help of some hints, and, if you're really struggling, today's Connections answers. As with Wordle and other similar games, it's easy to share results with your friends on social media and group chats. If you have an NYT All Access or Games subscription, you can access the publication's Connections archive. This includes every previous game of Connections, so you can go back and play any of those that you have missed. Aside from the first 60 games or so, you should be able to find our hints Google if you need them! Just click here and add the date of the game for which you need clues or the answers to the search query. What Are Today's Connections Hints? Scroll slowly! Just after the hints for each of today's Connections groups, I'll reveal what the groups are without immediately telling you which words go into them. Today's 16 words are... And the hints for today's Connections groups are: One Word For Each Connections Group Need some extra help? Be warned: we're starting to get into spoiler territory. Let's take a look at one word for each group. Today's Connections word hints are… What Are Today's Connections Groups? Today's Connections groups are... What Are Today's Connections Answers? Spoiler alert! Don't scroll any further down the page until you're ready to find out today's Connections answers. This is your final warning! Today's Connections answers are... Aw man, I thought I was off to a quick start by grouping together FOLD, CHECK, DEAL and CALL. I figured RAISE would go with promotion. But no. I was caught in a trap, like the fool that I sometimes am. I was one away from a group, though, so I was onto something. Then I realized that it was actually DEAL that would go with PROMOTION, as well as SPECIAL and SALE. That got me the yellows. RAISE then went with the rest of the blues. I thought those would be the greens. After that, I suspected that BUG and NETTLE might go together in a group of things that sting. STEAM and FIST (as in a stinging blow) made sense, but I was one away from a group. I swapped out STEAM for IRON, but that was wrong. Not close to a group there. After a long, long break to clear my mind and try to keep my streak intact, I came back to the puzzle with fresh eyes. I realized that BRAKES and IRON (as in lifting weights) are both things you can pump. FIST and GAS made sense with those and I had the purples. NETTLE and STEAM aren't really words I'd think of as meaning "irritate," but BUG and RUFFLE hinted at that, so I did eventually figure out the green connection. A close call this time around, but that's win number 153 in a row for yours truly. Here's my grid for today: 🟦🟨🟦🟦 🟨🟨🟨🟨 🟦🟦🟦🟦 🟩🟪🟩🟩 🟩🟪🟪🟩 🟪🟪🟪🟪 🟩🟩🟩🟩 That's all there is to it for today's Connections clues and answers. Be sure to check my blog tomorrow for hints and the solution for Wednesday's game if you need them. P.S. Given the purple category, I am very tempted to recommend Electric Callboy's "Pump It," which is genuinely one of the funniest songs I've ever heard. The video is a very amusing riff on all those '80s workout videos, so I'll go with a song from that era instead. For your Tuesday listening pleasure here is "Girls Just Want To Have Fun" by Cyndi Lauper. I've no idea why it popped into my head right now, but it's a fantastic song nonetheless: Have a great day! Stay hydrated! Be kind to yourself and each other! Call someone you love! Please follow my blog for more coverage of NYT Connections and other word games, and even some video game news, insights and analysis. It helps me out a lot! Sharing this column with other people who play Connections would be appreciated too. You can also read my weekend editions of this column at my new newsletter, Pastimes.
The Verge
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Verge
Inside the struggle to create a cozy Lord of the Rings game
When new employees start at Weta Workshop, they're herded into a meeting room with a long, unassuming conference table. On the walls, behind panes of glass and in between statues, swords, and masks, are five Oscars. Four of them were awarded to the studio for its efforts on Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings films. New hires are offered a chance to hold one of those Oscars, but there's a catch: handling the golden statuette marks you with a curse, preventing you from ever winning one yourself. Rarely do inductees take Weta up on the offer. Weta Workshop's fledgling Game Studio hasn't achieved the same level of prestige as its film and special effects teams. There's been no success to build superstition, no room for myths. And yet, the studio's first major console release, Tales of the Shire, seems to have inherited its own curse. According to more than a dozen current and former employees, the game's development has been hobbled by ineffective management, plagued with poor decision-making and communication, sidetracked by circumstance, and, ultimately, spoiled by the company's inexperience in building high-profile video games. One former employee said, 'It's a miracle this game is coming out at all.' Another said making it has been 'hell.' The studio lurched from deadline to deadline to get the game out the door, and a culture of distrust and crunch left staff feeling burnt out, they said. All those who spoke with The Verge requested anonymity, fearing retaliation for breaches of confidentiality. In October 2024, the studio announced to staff that it would be restructuring, laying off nine staff and disestablishing the positions of lead producer and lead game designer. The changes came as a shock, eroding morale and driving a wedge between Weta's leadership team and its developers, according to our sources. Four more staff members resigned in the succeeding weeks, dropping the studio's headcount to approximately 30. While redundancies have become a familiar story in games, particularly in the last two years, the tale of Weta's Game Studio isn't quite that story. It's the story of a studio attempting to make a big leap into console gaming, one that shows what Weta could do with a Lord of the Rings game. Ultimately, it's a story about inexperience, exhaustion, the difficulty of developing video games, misunderstandings, and mismanagement. Perhaps most importantly, it's a story about perseverance — the tiny marvel of making a video game when the odds are stacked against you. Weta Workshop's Game Studio was established in 2012. It came into being during a partnership with buzzy US tech startup Magic Leap, tasked with building gaming experiences for its augmented reality headset. The studio's staff numbers swelled, and it produced several titles to muted fanfare, including Dr. Grordbort's Invaders and Dr. Grordbort's Boosters. When Magic Leap discontinued development of its headset in 2020, a significant but undisclosed number of employees at the Game Studio were made redundant. Out of the ashes, remaining staff planted the first seeds for Tales of the Shire. In 2020, 'cozy' games were exploding in popularity, buoyed by COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns and the runaway success of Animal Crossing. The rolling green hills of the Shire provided an ideal backdrop, and Weta Workshop had delivered huge wins with the Lord of the Rings franchise. The pitch for Tales of the Shire piqued the interest of Private Division, which was an independent label of US-based gaming giant Take-Two Interactive at the time. Private Division provided funding to build a prototype, and by 2022, it had seen enough to partner with Weta and help the studio bring the game to life. Weta Workshop had never made a video game like Tales of the Shire before. Employees familiar with development suggested the experience that staff had gained working on Magic Leap titles didn't easily translate to commercial 'double A' titles. From early on, there appeared to be signs of trouble. The game felt more like a handful of disparate quests and minigames, with a lack of focus on gameplay loops, several staff said. This isn't wholly unusual — game development can be patchwork, a slow and iterative process pulling varying elements together. But the lack of direction put the studio on the backfoot. According to several developers, Weta's senior leadership did not view making video games as all that different from its work in film. And because of this, employees and former staff suggested the studio didn't adequately invest in senior talent or resource the project appropriately. Departments such as design and programming were either understaffed or inexperienced from the beginning, they said, and Weta was aware of the issue but didn't act to resolve it. There were also communication issues between departments. One incident, multiple sources told us, was related to the addition of an in-game economic system revolving around collecting buttons. The idea was that, each night after a feast, fat hobbits' waistcoats would burst open, leaving buttons around the village. The player could pick them up and trade them for items. The feature was greenlit by production and then had to be dropped — there simply wasn't enough time to add it in against impending deadlines. When the lead designer decided to implement it anyway, staff said it caused significant tension and set the team back a few days. 'We were always chasing after the next milestone and the next milestone, and the timelines we were given were near impossible,' said one Weta employee who worked on Tales of the Shire for multiple years. The team prioritized hitting milestones, which meant several suggested features and ideas never made it into the game. But the team was hitting deadlines without tackling underlying problems in the code base, which one employee referred to as 'a pile of dogshit.' Sometimes, they said, this meant taking shortcuts. Often, it meant they missed crucial time for refactoring, the process of trimming down the code to make it easier to work with. Instead of hiring senior programmers, they said they were kicking the can down the road, incurring a significant tech debt and creating a backlog of work to deal with. About 18 months into the project, Tales of the Shire had to contend with a shift in leadership, one that employees said tanked morale. After studio director Amie Wolken quit Weta in November 2023 to take a position as CEO at Dinosaur Polo Club, a New Zealand indie studio, Weta needed a replacement. It took six months to find Tony Lawrence, who arrived at Weta in April 2024. Lawrence had a long career in Australia at multiple studios, including as head of 2K Australia. During his seven-year tenure there, the studio delivered two successful BioShock games and a Borderlands title. After leaving 2K, Lawrence worked at developer Mighty Kingdom, where he served as executive director and chief operating officer when the studio listed on Australia's stock exchange in April 2021. Mighty Kingdom was once considered a shining light of the Australian games industry, but during Lawrence's reign, it released just one console game — Conan Chop Chop — that launched to disappointing sales, and the company's share price crashed 98 percent. After his hiring at Weta, there was an 'instantaneous' shift in the studio's vibe, according to one employee. 'It was like the air stilled, you could feel it, and morale slowly started to crumble from there on,' they said. Those familiar with Lawrence's hiring said the process felt rushed and noted that Lawrence did not meet with those inside the studio who would be reporting to him. This, one senior team member noted, was 'very weird.' 'It was like the air stilled.' Lawrence did not respond to a request for comment. Weta did not respond to specific questions around his employment either. In January 2025, as The Verge was investigating this story, Lawrence led an all-staff meeting to discuss breaches of confidentiality. In that meeting, he told staff that 'it's not cool to talk to journalists,' discouraging them from speaking about their experiences. Wolken also did not respond to a request for comment. Alongside internal issues, Tales of the Shire had to contend with a major external one: uncertainty over the fate of its publisher, Private Division. In May 2024, IGN reported Take-Two was 'quietly killing' the label, slashing staff numbers and closing two of its studios. By November, Private Division had been sold to an unknown buyer. The upheaval occurred toward the final stages of development on Tales of the Shire and left Weta in limbo for several months. According to multiple sources, Weta also waited on milestone payments. (Private Division did not respond to a request for comment.) It was unclear to Weta employees exactly when, or if, Private Division would continue. Several staff noted the situation with Private Division was demoralizing, igniting concerns the game may even be canceled. In January, Bloomberg revealed former staff of publishing house Annapurna Interactive had purchased Private Division's games and franchises from Take-Two, including Tales of the Shire, with the backing of Haveli Investments, a private equity firm based in Austin, Texas. The new publisher, revealed during this year's Summer Games Fest, is named Fictions. Weta received its milestone payments, but there has still been confusion for staff, internally, about the state of publishing and which company is overseeing it. Former copresident of Annapurna, Deborah Mars, is listed as cofounder and cohead of Fictions on LinkedIn. She did not respond to a request for comment in March. Fictions did not respond to a subsequent request for comment in June. The press email listed on Private Division's website bounces. In an emailed statement, Jessica Wallace, chief marketing officer at Weta Workshop, said, 'Neither the departure of Amie nor the challenges [Private Division] has had through the year has impacted directly on the team's work building a great game.' One of the most pernicious issues in game development is 'crunch,' a practice variously defined as 'extended periods of drastic overtime' or 'a sudden spike in work hours.' The effect of crunch has been well-studied, with the exploit leaving lasting effects on physical and mental health. Many current and former Weta staff said they worked long hours, especially as deadlines approached. 'It was a systemic problem,' one experienced developer said. 'It was a resourcing problem and general mismanagement of the project.' Three staff members who spoke to The Verge said they felt pressure to work overtime coming from management and senior leadership. In August 2024, as a crucial deadline approached, a company-wide meeting was called. According to those who attended, Weta's leadership suggested that if the team did not meet this major milestone, then there was real concern over the studio's long-term sustainability. One staff member told The Verge it felt like the team was 'strongly encouraged to crunch' in that meeting. Another former staff member said that leadership had previously told the studio there was no crunch because such a practice involved working 70 hours or more per week for several months. 'I felt a little bit gaslit, given the amount of work that I was doing,' they said. However, there are employees who shied away from dubbing the extra hours as 'crunch,' but noted there were broader issues related to overwork and burnout in parts of the development team. One employee stated, 'I do not see our studio as a crunch studio,' suggesting the problem was specific to certain developers who chose to work extra hours and consistently accrued overtime. The studio works on a 'swings and roundabouts' model, which is meant to provide employees with the flexibility to bank hours worked and take time off later. In practice, this caused havoc. One staff member mentioned time off was not tracked well, so it was difficult to adequately resource or finance as needs shifted. Often, they said, staff would work extra hours, but they didn't receive that time back in kind — there was simply no opportunity to take time off with deadlines baring down. Wallace responded to this by stating, 'There was no 'crunch' during the development of Tales of the Shire. We extended deadlines to prioritize the well-being of our team, and all staff worked under New Zealand employment agreements, which ensure fair and adequate compensation for all hours worked.' There is nothing indicating Weta Workshop acted illegally, but staff that spoke to The Verge said there were definitely crunch periods during development of Tales of the Shire. One staff member said they could not remember a time when they were not working beyond 50 hours a week. Another responded to Weta's statement saying there was no crunch by simply texting back 'lol.' On October 4th, 2024, in an all staff meeting, Weta's executive team announced there would be a round of redundancies. It was an incredibly disruptive event that shook the team. 'That really came out of the blue for us,' said one senior developer. Leadership explained the need to cut staff was to provide the studio with long-term sustainability. Other parts of Weta's business were feeling the effects of the pandemic slump in tourism and film, and the studio had yet to sign another contract to fund future projects. Every staff member who spoke with The Verge expressed disappointment. 'It was handled terribly,' said a former member of the team. After the announcement, one staff member said it felt like the 'Hunger Games trials to keep your jobs.' They said those whose roles were being 'disestablished' would need to reapply for their jobs or other jobs within the studio. One developer said that, post-announcement, coming into work 'felt like coming to a funeral.' According to documentation seen by The Verge, the core development team on Tales of the Shire was predominantly male. Only four senior leadership positions on the project were held by women, while 18 were held by men in early 2024. The redundancies in October 2024 saw the departure of four non-male employees on the team. Today, the studio has five non-male employees on its roster of 26 development staff, sources said. Those ratios are not uncommon in modern, mid-sized studios, but sources noted that this had left diverse voices out of key meetings. After a final version of the game was completed in November 2024, about half of the studio began working on DLC, although no contract for that work had been signed with a publisher. Other studio heads that The Verge spoke to suggested this is normal as a game approaches release — and for Weta, it helped keep some members of the studio employed — but it is risky given the difficulties already encountered during development, particularly amid the current state of the games industry. Meanwhile, the other half was tasked with building out the studio's next prototype. The Verge has learned this prototype is codenamed 'Groundhog' and is again based on The Lord of the Rings. It is a roguelike, drawing inspiration from the likes of Baldur's Gate and Diablo. In an effort to ready the prototype for the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, California, this past March, where Weta could pitch it to prospective publishers, some employees suggested the crunch culture and overtime hours persisted. 'There's definitely been crunch, and there's definitely still people doing crunch,' one developer told The Verge in January. In February, Weta announced Tales of the Shire's release would be delayed until July 29th, 2025 (a scheduled mobile version for Netflix was also canceled last year). The Verge understands this is to ensure quality assurance has been performed on all platforms, with the Switch port being particularly tricky to get running smoothly. In addition, The Verge has learned that work on Tales of the Shire DLC was paused in February with no certainty the game will receive content updates at all. In a February 21st memo to staff, Kelly Tyson, the general manager of product at Weta Workshop wrote that Private Division (at the time, codenamed Vero) would deliver a part payment recognizing the studio's DLC efforts, but 'all post-launch content decisions have been delayed until the games in market performance is determined.' Tyson also stated there was a 'funding gap' and the studio would attempt to reduce costs by moving all staff to a four-day workweek, with a 20 percent pay cut for a period of three months. The February 21st email called this a 'temporary change,' adding that the goal is to 'keep as many people employed as possible.' The change was reversed in mid-May, ahead of schedule, as the studio worked to polish its Groundhog prototype in the hopes of signing a publisher. Those familiar with development have said it feels like a last ditch, all-in effort to keep the studio going, and The Verge understands there are multiple publishers interested in the game. With Tales of the Shire ready for release, Weta's Game Studio now must fight for survival in an industry trying to find its feet after two tumultuous years. Investment is much harder to come by, redundancies and closures have become commonplace. So what's next? Lawrence is charged with setting the studio's direction going forward, but there are concerns, internally and externally, about his plans. An executive vision for the game studio, revealed to The Verge in a leaked PowerPoint presentation, is that Weta will become a 'work for hire creative services business.' The presentation, delivered in late 2024, suggests the company will 'seek to have worked on five games' over the next five years. It hopes to release at least three, including Tales of the Shire. One staff member said the feeling in the studio was that this presentation was not aimed at staff but seemed to be designed to appease Weta's executives. According to a senior figure in the Australian games industry with knowledge of the strategy, this is a recipe for continued overtime and poor working conditions. 'I, and the wider industry, would love to know how Weta plans to release five games in five years at AAA quality with an A budget, without implementing crunch or exploiting their staff,' they said. We asked Weta to explain this strategy, but it did not respond. Despite the challenging environment and burnout, Tales of the Shire is still scheduled to release in July. When I asked current and former staff their enduring memories of making the game, there was a common theme: they truly care about the world they've built. Several reiterated how dedicated the development team was, striving to live up to the franchise's lofty expectations. 'I could genuinely spend hours playing my own video game, which is probably kind of rare for a developer to say,' one developer said. 'It should be a time of celebration.' In between it all, they've had to contend with periods of crunch and circumstances beyond their control. 'It is in spite of Weta Workshop's leadership that there's a video game made,' said a senior member of the development team. 'It should be a time of celebration, but there's so many people who won't get to celebrate their wins because of this fight against the odds.' Many staff said working at Weta was a lifelong dream — a career highlight. There was excitement about joining a project like Tales of the Shire, especially for those who grew up as fans of The Lord of the Rings. But some of those feelings have eroded. 'The personal pride I have felt about this company is just completely tarnished,' said one former employee. Without significant changes, current and former staff believe the problems experienced developing Tales of the Shire are destined to repeat. 'I don't have a lot of faith in what work we will have after [Tales of the Shire],' one staff member said. Another mentioned ongoing communication and management issues have been flagged with senior Weta members multiple times, but they feel as if the complaints have largely been ignored or dismissed. In the meantime, the uncertainty around the future of Weta Workshop's Game Studio and its next project has left some looking for an exit. But staff believe there is a way to break the curse and buck the trends of the past two years: invest in, and trust, people. To quote one experienced developer: 'I genuinely think that if Weta Workshop nurtured the brilliance in the studio, they could just sit back and profit.' Posts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All by Jackson Ryan Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All Entertainment Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. 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Yahoo
21-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Orlando Bloom Says Working Through His Childhood Has Changed How He Parents His Own Children (Exclusive)
The 'Lord of the Rings' alum has two kids: daughter Daisy and son Flynn Orlando Bloom proves that it's never too late to learn something new, especially when it comes to parenting. In an exclusive clip shared with PEOPLE ahead of the new episode of Oprah Winfrey's The Oprah Podcast, The Lord of the Rings star, 48, opened up about how working through things from his childhood has changed the way he parents his own children. Bloom credits the Hoffman process, which was intended to help participants identify negative behaviors, moods, and ways of thinking that developed unconsciously and were conditioned in childhood, in helping him become a better parent. "I think my job as a parent now is to allow my children to grow without getting in their way," he tells Winfrey. "It's sort of like don't get in the way of anyone else's journey. Don't let anyone get in the way of your journey, and just be grateful for the opportunities that are presented to you, and see the challenges of the dynamic that are in front of you as an opportunity for you to grow." Never miss a story — sign up for to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories. He goes on to talk about how the Hoffman process has helped him handle conflict. "I'm not saying I'm perfect. It's not easy at all, but it is something that without the Hoffman process, I don't think I could say I would have understood," he says. "I think I could have been easily triggered." "Now, even if I am and if we come across a situation that we're in conflict about [something], I can take a step back," he continues. "I can let some time pass and then we can re-engage in a conversation where I'm looking at everything from his perspective whilst trying to lay in my thinking without it overwhelming or getting in the way of his process." The Pirates of the Caribbean star has two children: son Flynn with his ex-wife, model and entrepreneur Miranda Kerr, and daughter Daisy Dove with his ex-fiancée Katy Perry. Though Bloom tends to be fairly private about his kids' lives, he has shared occasional anecdotes about them over the years. While speaking to PEOPLE in November 2021, the actor revealed his favorite activities to do with his children. "We like to have experiences and shared experiences; anything from a pumpkin patch to a hike, to a beach, to a day at Disneyland, to a museum," he said. "My life is particularly blessed because of the people in it. I'm most grateful for that and them." is now available in the Apple App Store! Download it now for the most binge-worthy celeb content, exclusive video clips, astrology updates and more! On Wednesday, July 9, the actor shared a carousel of photos on his Instagram, which included one rare family photo of himself and ex-fiancée, 40. The former couple could be seen posing with their 4-year-old daughter Daisy, who sat on Bloom's shoulders and leaned over to rest her head on Perry. Bloom's 14-year-old son Flynn could be seen standing next to his dad, turning his face from the camera. The dad of two added a purple heart over Daisy's face, shielding her from the camera. The star also shared a photo of himself and his daughter as they lay together in a bed. Bloom smiled into the camera while Daisy wore a pink shirt with white flowers and had her head tossed back. He also included a snap of himself, Flynn and Daisy, posing on an outdoor balcony. "Dump 4 ya 🤍," Bloom wrote in his caption. Read the original article on People Solve the daily Crossword
