And it’s baffling that those aspects of Lord of the Rings have largely stayed unexplored until now, with the hobbit-sized game Tales of the Shire. Those factors are exactly why people have come to love cozy games so much — it plays into the general sense of escapism that video games provide. And in Lambert’s mind, that’s the most essential ingredient of a cozy game. Despite the fantasy setting, however, cozy games often need things to be grounded to some degree. And therein lies the great shame of how The Lord of the Rings games have vastly overlooked an essential ingredient of the source material.