Tales of the Shire: Most important Clubs to level up first

Tales of the Shire, Weta Workshop’s indie take on everyone’s favorite furry-footed Hobbits has a variety of mechanics to take advantage of, like Clubs. Clubs unlock very early in the game, as a way to show that the Hobbits of this village are coming together, working together, and growing as a community. It’s also a system where you can gain some pretty significant improvements for yourself, making it worthwhile.

There are only a few Clubs in Tales of the Shire, and while they’re all worth working on, I think some of them are just a bit more important than others, in the early hours of the game. Ultimately, it’s up to you and what matters most to you, but here are our thoughts.

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Which Clubs are the most important to level up first in Tales of the Shire?

Out of the four Clubs in Tales of the Shire — Fishing, Foraging, Cooking, and Gardening — it’s my opinion that Fishing and Foraging are far and away the most important. Now, every single club is important, because you’ll need to do all of those activities if you ever want this area to become a Village, but these are the ones I’d prefer to focus on.

It's easy to track your progress in the Clubs as well (Image via Take-Two Interactive)

Each time you upgrade the Fishing Club in Tales of the Shire, Old Noakes will give you a new fishing rod. This makes it easier and easier to catch rare fish, and more importantly, Delicious fish. I also prefer to level up fishing first, because it’s my way of making money in the early game.

I keep plenty of fish in the pantry to cook with, and then everything else, I sell off to get hundreds of coins to deal with other Hobbits with. Sure, plenty of characters will trade (Eggs to Nefi for Meats, for example), but other Hobbits prefer cold, hard cash. You can sell these fish to afford Milk, Cream, Flour, and anything else you need to cook with.

It made leveling my cooking easier, and thus, made it easier to grind the Cooking club. Foraging Club is another incredibly important Club to master in Tales of the Shire, for a very clear reason. Its level one upgrade, the Lantern is okay, because it lets you see at night. However, the next three levels are backpack upgrades, so you can carry more stuff. Fish, sadly, do not stack, but pretty much everything else does.

Improving with the Gardening Club opens up a lot more land to work with (Image via Take-Two Interactive)

Having more space means you can hold more fish to sell, or it simply means you have to make fewer trips back to your home, to throw cooking reagents into your pantry. The other clubs are still important, though. Cooking Club gives you four new cooking stations, and Gardening Club opens up your garden so you can plant more and more seeds.

It’s all about what matters most to you, but when I look at it, Fishing and Foraging take center stage, so I can make money, and store more items in my backpack as I travel around this section of the Shire.

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Tales of the Shire releases on July 29, 2025 for the PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X}S, PC, and the Nintendo Switch. You can learn more about the game in our in-depth review.