Farming Simulator 22 has been available since November 22. Millions of virtual farmers active around the world will be able to discover the new episode of a franchise whose first stones were laid almost 15 years ago. And yet the game shows no signs of running out of steam. Failing to renew itself with each episode, it is step by step that Giants Software is developing its baby, now available on PC / Mac, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series S / X and even Google Stadia, at great chagrin of a community which wonders about the legitimacy of a new episode every 2 years while the modders manage to make the title evolve just as effectively… and for free.
I warn you right away, this article is not really a test since at Univers-Simu, we clearly have a bias for this game. We are testers, editors, modders, ambassador for my part, streamers, and especially players for more than 10 years now. However, I will try to have a minimum of objectivity as to the position occupied by the game in the world of video games.
For this new opus, we must start from the observation that Farming Simulator is not what it was in 2009. It now comes to titillate the biggest AAA games and is found in the tops of sales often several weeks after the release. of a new episode. Giants Software has also grown overweight, both in staff and in cash. So much so that the developer is now paying himself the luxury of breaking away from Focus Entertainment to self-edit. The distribution of the physical game is done via an international network (Koch Media for France). FS 22 therefore represents a major turning point and total freedom for developers who do not hesitate to call on the community of players in recent months to guide its title. This article is more for newcomers, since regulars were able to follow the information published every week by the dev for several months now.
A well-oiled gaming system
The transition from Farming Simulator 19 to 22 is carried out, once is not customary, smoothly. The general gameplay is the same and, anything that could be done on FS 19, can also be done on FS22. You are always in the shoes of a farmer, in a first person view. You will need to produce grain or raise animals in order to expand your portfolio and buy ever larger equipment and land. The game can be played alone or with friends, online. The novelty of this 2022 episode for multiplayer being crossplay, allowing PC and console players to join together in a single game.
Taking care of crops, your first job
In Farming Simulator, when you start a game, you have few resources. Depending on the chosen game mode (3 difficulty levels), you will start with some land and equipment. Your first tasks therefore revolve around cultures. The player can opt for wheat, barley, rapeseed, sunflower, corn, beet, potato, cotton, and now olives, grapes and sorghum. Each plant has its own cultivation route. But most of the time it comes down to preparing the soil, sowing, and then harvesting. Additional steps such as weeding or, and this is another novelty, collecting stones are possible and will impact yields and therefore your income.
Unfortunately for beginners, or players far from the agricultural world, Farming Simulator is still difficult to understand. Discovering agriculture via this simulation is a puzzle and requires a good dose of patience. Landing on a playground of several km², with unknown equipment and a help section as thin as a hundred nails, is a real challenge. Also we can understand that Farming Simulator 22 did not find its audience among some of our colleagues, including jeuxvideo.fr, who, after reading their test, only touched a hundredth of the title.
Work to the rhythm of the seasons
And the season system that has just been integrated will surely not help matters. Since Farming Simulator 17, players can, via a free mod created by independent developers, carry out their work as a virtual farmer while respecting the seasonality. the mod Seasons, which enriches the main gameplay, adds a dose of realism but also of difficulty. It allows for more consistency in the management of crops and animals. Giants Software was inspired by it and decided to integrate a similar functioning, which can be deactivated, on Farming Simulator 22. The gameplay, which was once completely free, is now regulated by a calendar which defines the periods of sowing and harvesting. And the seasons, including temperature curves, vary from one environment to another. Farming Simulator 22 takes you through 3 regions of the globe.
Finally France
Mountainous region, American plain or Mediterranean climate, the player sees a little of the landscape… but really "a little". What really differentiates one card from another? To tell the truth not much, if it is not the few elements of decoration typical to each region of the globe. For example, you will find our old "dodoche" on the French roads of Haut Beyleron, a fictitious region. As the work is done in the field, the land and the ways of doing things remain the same. We will therefore always criticize the possibility of cultivating cotton on the high rocky plateaus of Erlengrat, by -15 ° C. Nonsense. For the rest, the cards are empty, not very animated, with a road traffic without intelligence which does not hesitate to get into you. NPCs follow a clear path, always the same, no matter the weather. In short, you will often have the impression of hearing a cricket sound and only your vehicle's radio, monotonous, will really keep you company, when it is not the sounds of the surrounding farm animals.
Breeding remains the unloved one
Working the soil according to very precise steps allows the game to always bring so many new materials in front of you. Beyond the game, Farming Simulator 22 is a real showcase for machinery enthusiasts. And under these tons of metal crisscrossing the plots of land, we almost forget that it is possible to breed animals. No change, other than a make-up (quite successful) of the animals, is brought by this episode labeled "22". It is still not possible to put your cows in a pasture for them to graze quietly, a feature that is common sense and that has been requested by gamers for so many years. In short, breeding comes down to giving food, drink, and "changing the diapers" to animals crammed into a few square meters. And even the new concept of "production chains" does not fully utilize the possibilities that animal husbandry could offer.
The farmer at the head of an empire
Maybe one day it will be possible (thank you modders) to send his pigs to the slaughterhouse to produce good hams. But for the moment, FS 22, a game for all audiences, is content to use raw materials produced on the farm, mainly crops, to supply local factories. A gameplay which, if it already existed in mod in the previous opus, is particularly well integrated and opens the doors to endless possibilities. No more simple deliveries from a harvest to a point of sale. From now on you can choose to produce cereals for breakfast, and why not accompany with some raisins, while waiting for the midday pizza on which a few olives produced on the farm will be enthroned.
Clearly, with Farming Simulator, Giants Software has chosen to show us facets of agriculture far from small family farms. Productivist agriculture in which chemicals and ever more powerful machinery are all too present. But hey, it is with this game that our French ministry wants to teach city dwellers the ecological and climatic challenges of tomorrow.
As with each release of a Farming Simulator, we could spread an encyclopedia in 10 volumes to dissect the game. Here I did not even mention the material (the strength of the game), the techno (half outdated despite the use of DX12), the Giants Engine, the buggy launch (Cyberpunk 2077 rural version), the modding that brings the game to life over time, the choices made by the dev to always find the right balance between playing pleasure and difficulty, or the ever-growing community, both haters and fanatics, which rallies behind the title of Giants Software. In my opinion, it is totally impossible to put a note on this type of simulation, since, in principle, everyone does what they want in this agricultural sandbox. To successfully assess this title, ask yourself the question: How do several million players spend about 1000 hours per year harvesting? We know 😉
To sum up (again, since we have been talking about the game for 5 months now and finally, we had already done the review before the game was released, and we were not wrong), the main novelties are as follows:
- The integration of a seasons (deactivatable).
- Collecting stones in the fields.
- Production chains (factory system).
- New cultures : Sorghum, olives, grapes.
- The sound improved vehicles.
- Beekeeping (for dummies): we put beehives and the honey arrives directly in cardboard.
- crossplay : arguably the best technical feat. Anyone can play together, even on oldgen consoles.
- Always more materials : the biggest showcase of machinery!
- Two new environments, but we will wait for the work of the mappers to fully enjoy the game.
- The customization of the farmer with REAL farmer's clothes mess !
Some player reviews
Most:
+ the sound reproduction of equipment and tools
+ driving sensations: inertia, increased engine load, skidding when the wheels are not suitable - example of Mack trucks with highway tires that spin in the open fields (like Snowrunner) - gearboxes
+ Modeling of equipment and tools
+ Greater economic dimension with processed products and price seasonality
+ New crops different from those in the open field (vines, olive trees)
+ Finally the seasons and the planning of sowing and harvesting
Cons:
- an environment still as austere and empty (for the moment)
- all the animal part without clear improvement (still no male and female, births, diseases)
- future agricultural issues (reduction of phytos, land conservation, short circuits, crop rotation) are poorly valued
- some tools are missing at launch (gps, precision farming)
Lactic (Vincent)
For me this Farming Simulator 22 is a good opus in its entirety and I will quote a few points. Let's start with the positive points, the Sound Design is a pure pleasure, the advance in the construction mode does a lot of good, the initiation to machining without necessarily going into the mods, the arrival of the seasons in simplified form to satisfy everything the world and a lot of little dots here and there. But a few points come to mar this opus, launch bugs (a beta will not have hurt), the animal part is completely eclipsed, an optimization with strawberries and especially a huge expectation of modders on the part of Giants ...
Do not expect FS a real agricultural simulation, it remains an "initiation" to the agricultural world. And above all, it must remain as pleasant as possible to be able to spend many hours there.
DaPloW (Anthony)
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