Farming Simulator 22 is somehow
the 11th entry in this franchise. All of
the games are developed by the
Swiss studio Giants
Software, which
lovingly renders a
punctilious,
businesslike
interpretation of
heartland warmth.
Upon beginning a
campaign on the
easiest settings, you
will be gifted a barn, a house, a
handful of equipment and a trio of
pastures. From there, it’s up to you
to determine what kind of farm
you’d like to build. Every day, your
farmer wakes up at the crack of
dawn and immediately gets to work
on a laundry list of chores. The
canola plot needs weeding, the
wheat needs to be harvested, and a
fresh payload of cotton seeds ought
to be put into the ground. Like all
simulation games, the player is
instructed to find euphoria in the
heuristics of a life that doesn’t
belong to you. If you do not possess
some sort of envy for rural glamour,
this game will likely leave you cold.
The biggest addition in Farming
Simulator 22 is a brand-new seasonal
system. Leaves fall in the autumn,
snow blankets in the winter, and
farmers must make sure they are
only putting new crops in the
ground when conditions are right.
(Barley must be planted in the fall,
and it won’t be ready for a harvest
until the next summer.) This also
affects the economy, as some
products sell at higher prices during
certain parts of the year.Giants Software has also added
the ability to clear out the forests
from the land or dig up the stones in
your fields, which adds
a faintly Animal
Crossing-esque verve
to the proceedings. I
am far too much of a
Farming Simulator
novice to contextualise
how those wrinkles
deviate from the prior
games in the canon,
but from a purely aesthetic
perspective, I do appreciate how an
idyllic little homestead can glow
through the cold air.BIG FARMER
Of course, that gets to the greatest
lingering complaint I have with
Farming Simulator 22. From a pure
gameplay perspective, there remains
a thick layer of unpolished chaff
clinging to the fundamentals.
Attaching your tractor to a towable
piece of equipment is finicky. I often
found myself backing into my
fertiliser sprayer at every possible
angle before I was prompted with the
hitch function. The physics logic
occasionally freaks out. I’d be driving
my truck down a peaceful highway,
wind in my hair, before suddenly
tumbling into the forest. Farming
Simulator 22 simply still lacks a
certain intuitiveness that could
considerably broaden the appeal of
the franchise. If just a few of these
creases could be smoothed over,
Farming Simulator 22 would become
much easier to recommend.
That said, oftentimes I get the
sense that the Farming Simulator
community enjoys the jank. The
franchise went viral for its uncanny,
antiseptic style and dogmatic
approach to its source material —
which I suppose are the tenets you’d
expect for an offbeat videogame
about planting vegetables. I sorta get
it. I remember hauling a payload of
grain to the mill and passing by a
handful of nondescript NPCs on the
sidewalk, all of whom looked like
they were plucked out of some open
source asset depository from 2007,
which did bring a smile to my face.
Amid the aureate military shooters
and indomitable open world
adventures, Farming Simulator 22
does occupy its own lane out of time.
I was susceptible to its curious magic,
I just wish others could more easily
fall under the spell.75
There still isn’t any game
on the market quite like
Farming Simulator, but
the series is overdue for a
gameplay makeover.VERDICTT
here are those who twist the lands of Farming Simulator 22
into an arcadian paradise, producing endless pallets of
foodstuffs every season like a terrifying Monsanto baron. I do
not belong to that camp. At best, I am a filthy casual. My
plough inherited from the bronze age, my cultivation skills
cannot nurture anything more fragile than the hardiest of cereals, and I
frequently sell my labour to the richer neighbouring homesteads. And yet,
here in this yeoman muck, Farming Simulator has finally clicked in my
brain. There is so much joy in scraping by.REAPING AND SOWING
FARMING SIMULATOR 22 retains both the franchise’s magic and jank
By Luke WinkieThe biggest
addition is a
brand-new
seasonal
systemNEED TO KNOW
WHAT IS IT?
The latest entry in the
popular and aptly
named farming
sim series
EXPECT TO PAY
£35
DEVELOPER
Giants Software
PUBLISHER
In-house
REVIEWED ON
Windows 10, GeForce
GTX 1070, Intel Core
i7-9700 CPU, 16GB RAM
MULTIPLAYER
Yes
LINK
farming-simulator.comFALL IN LOVE WITH FARMING SIM
Become a virtual homesteading fanaticEuphoriaStruggleDespairFarming Simulator 22
REVIEW
OK, well at
least the
fields look
nice.Why won’t my
plough attach
correctly? I’m
bleeding money!Huh, the corn
prices are high
this season.I’m quitting my job
and heading west.