The last time I entered the simulated farming arena was in 2022, when I dove unknowingly into my first-ever farm simulator game, Farming Simulator 22. Back then, I was sceptical about a game that simulated a farming experience, but by the end, I was pleasantly surprised at how calming and zen-like my time spent in the game was. So, when Farming Simulator 25 was offered, I snapped it up, dusted off my steel-capped boots and chucked a stalk of wheat into my mouth.
Farming Simulator 25 made some pretty interesting promises before release, which initially piqued my interest. More animals would join the game, more dramatic weather would be added, and, my favourite, new areas would be playable in-game that allowed for new and exciting crops. Most notably, an East-Asian environment which adds crop flooding to grow rice grains.
Downloading and installing the game to my PlayStation 5 this time around, I was far more filled with joy than scepticism around this title.
I immediately started a new game in career mode, selected the Asian-inspired map, and was quickly reminded that I remembered none of the 70,000 different controls to play this game. Only the traditional map came with a guided tour, so sadly, I had to go the route of traditional farming.
While I still feel like the tutorial is not enough to really explain the game, it does provide just enough information for you to get started and, from there, find your own feet. Yet again, I was barely treading water in farm simulation while still enjoying stunning visuals, messing about on realistic machineries like tractors and harvesters, and just casually having a good time.
The new GPS allows for some much easier farming lines, if you want to do a better job than Jeremy Clarkson does on his farm, but I found it more satisfying to learn the lay of the land myself, perfecting my farming skills.
The promised additions of more dramatic weather systems, such as hail, twisters, and an updated fog system, did help to immerse me in the realism of the situation, but they could’ve been done a little better. The tornadoes whip through farmlands and forests, destroying trees, crops and your framerate as they pass along, but unfortunately, not much more happens.
It was in researching how I could achieve a more impactful in-game tornado that a sudden realisation hit me. Farming Simulator 25 is more of an arcade-style sim than an actual simulator, and this is probably why, as a complete noob in the world of farming, I’m able to enjoy it as much as I do.
There are a plethora of mods available for Farm Simulator games dating way back, making games like Farming Simulator 19 the perfect, realistic farming title – there are even mods that include a lot of what Farming Simulator 25 has included in their latest update. Of course, these mods are for PC builds of the game, so for those of us on console, Farming Simulator 25 is the latest and greatest we’ll get. For added vehicles and any other content, console players will just have to wait for Giants Software to release DLCs, which could incur more costs than just the base game.
While these learnings did leave me disappointed that Giants Software is just waiting for modders to fully complete their games in terms of realism, Farming Simulator 25 still gave me that relaxing, casual sim experience that I so much enjoyed when diving into the last iteration of the game I played.
Yes, the menu, the machines, and just running a farm, in general, can be overwhelming at first, but once you get into a good flow, the game lets you run free, farming to your heart’s content.
For console players looking to pick up an easy game after a hard day’s work, toiling in the corporate fields, Farming Simulator 25 is exactly that. On the other hand, PC players might be better off waiting for the game to go on sale while sticking to the current version of the game they already have.