Farming Simulator 25
Review
One potato, two potatoes, three potatoes, four.
by Howie Howard
reviewed on PC
One potato, two potatoes, three potatoes, four
Farming Simulator 25 is the newest iteration of this venerable farm management game first developed and produced by Giants Software back in 2008. The newest introduction of this yearly fan favorite has a storied 17 year history and it has appeared 15 times on the PC. The only years without a new Farming Simulator by Giants was when it was ported to the Nintendo Switch in 2010. Then it went through a 16 bit port for the Sega in 2024, but no PC release in 2021. That certainly is a well earned record of success over a very long time for this game!
I want to look just like Mister Potato Head?
I'm a sim management game junkie at heart but I must admit that the 2025 edition of Farming Simulator is my first attempt at being a farmer. When my editor offered the chance to review this new simulation game I was quite excited at the opportunity. So I am going to present a look at the game from a seasoned management simulator game player but as a newbie Farming Simulator user.
The game starts out when you are directed to create a character that will represent your alter ego in the game. No you can't be Mister Potato Head. Character creation is very in-depth in nature and it consists of choosing from a wide range of faces, clothing, hats, gloves, boots, beards and more. The nice part about this is that you are not stuck with this initial character look and can later change everything on the wardrobe page which is accessed by using the escape or P to pause button.
You need to have the proper equipment to plant potatoes properly
After creating your on-screen persona, it's on to choosing how difficult you want your farming experience to be. There are 3 choices and they are New Farmer, Farm Manager, and Start From Scratch. New Farmer allows you to start with or with out a tutorial experience and you can choose whether you want to inherit your Grandpa's farm or not. Honestly though, all 3 of the choices seem to be the same and I couldn't figure out why there were 3 because they all had the same choices. The only real difference that I could see was the default starting parameters were easy, medium or hard.
If your choice is to inherit the business then you start with all of the beginning farm tools and vehicles and you also take ownership of the farm with it's buildings and the 3 closest crop producing fields. Saying no to inheriting Grandpa's farm will make it impossible for you to produce crops of your own until you can buy everything needed. However, players can accept contracts from AI farmers and rent vehicles and attachments to complete the contract. Buying everything will be very expensive with the land and buildings on Grandpa's property costing about 180k with the 3 crop fields being similar in price for each one. Of course, you will need to purchase all of the necessary vehicles and tools along with seed, fertilizer, etc. I went that route in the beginning so I could learn about vehicles and the necessary attachment combination usage but it is not a practical way of starting. It in fact caused me to start at a big disadvantage and turned an easy start setting in to a very difficult start! The settings essentially modify the games economy from being easy to hard.
I just want to plant my potatoes, please show me how?
With the above said, the tutorial is very basic in nature and for a new player it just does not cut the mustard. All it shows is very basic vehicle control instructions, such as how to hook up tools such as a cultivator to the tractor. It also shows how to initiate AI controlled workers to take over doing job requirements such as plow fields with a nominal amount of pay required. Unfortunately, the tutorial doesn't really explain the extent as to how much AI workers can help and to be perfectly honest, after hours of playing this game, I'm still not totally clear on that. This total lack of comprehensive guidance, which I hate to admit, left me feeling like a sailor being set adrift at sea not knowing what to do next in order to save his life! Since Farming Simulator 25 does present a very complex economic model along with a complex farm and crop production planning requirement (and that is not a bad thing); there needs to be more in the form of game help, especially for new players with the option to turn help off for expert farmers.
From my research in order to prepare for this review, I learned that Farming Simulator has had a long standing history of weakness as far as in game help was concerned. I didn't want to believe that new players sometimes would become frustrated and quit because this game really is an excellent representation of the farming occupation. Unfortunately I became quite frustrated myself. I'm the kind of guy that never gives up though and I decided to start over. After giving myself the top starting money of 1 million dollars, I buought various combinations of vehicles and attachments and tried them out for myself. Doing this helped me a lot and it was more helpful than trying to find information on the in game help screen. This got me back on to a proper path.
I must admit, you have the best looking potatoes I have ever seen
Farming Simulator 25 looks fantastic with it's top notch graphics along with various weather conditions and environmental effects. It's a pleasure to see the tractor make tyre tracks in the dirt with your tractor becoming quite dirty in the process! No problem, I just bought a water pressure cleaner and then had the tractor repaired at a shop in town and everything looked shiny new again! The graphics in Farming Simulator 25 are lifelike in nature which is a normal expectation for high end games these days.
There are 3 different farming worlds in the game and they are new to the 2025 version. The one located in the US is called River Bend Springs and it comes with a nice looking rural farm community motif. The other 2 areas are an Asiatic area called Hutan Pantai and a European location named Zulonka. Hutan Pantai is the location that specializes in the new-to-the-game rice cultivation as a crop specialty. The weather and the economic model along with the crop production tree are basically be the same apart from the currency involved.
Five potatoes, six potatoes, seven potatoes, more...
Once players learn how the various attachments interact with the numerous and different types of vehicles, the rest just kind of falls in to place. The numbers of different vehicles and what the game calls tools is enormous. There are 17 small, 15 medium sized and 15 large heavy duty tractors for a total of 47 different brands. All of the tractors have a horse power rating with the large class being the only tractor that can be used with the most advanced tools or attachments because horse power dictates what the tractor can pull and better attachments weigh more. In addition, all of the crops have a planting and harvesting season so you need to plan your finances accordingly.
There are various types of farm opportunities present in the game. The main type would be the most common dirt plowing and seed planting farms that grow potatoes, carrots, wheat, canola and many other crops too numerous to list. Throw in the the possibility of being a tree farmer or an animal farmer / rancher and the game possibilities rise to astronomical heights. Indeed, you can't possibly do all of them at the same time! To further add even more depth, I would suggest limiting your farmer type down even further in the beginning because some crops such as the under ground variety of potatoes, carrots and such will require a totally new line of farm equipment than the seed variety requires. The only vehicles that can be used in all of the farming situations are tractors and front loaders along with transport type vehicles like 18 wheel style truck and trailer combos.
I have finally harvested all of my potatoes
Folks, Farming Simulator 25 is a massive game with this version being even more extensive than it's predecessors. All of the vehicles and attachment tools carry their real world brand names, so Giant Software has all of the aspects of a very good farm simulator game lined up perfectly. Even though the worker AI could be improved upon, it works fine. The environment is interactive and it contains various weather situations like rain in the summer and snow in the winter. In addition to that, fog can often times be present at night and especially in the early mornings so be careful driving on the narrow and curvy country farm roads. Luckily, I haven't see my crops being blown away by a tornado yet, but as one of the new features to the game this year, but I'll certainly be aware of them when I plant my next crop.
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8.9
fun score
Pros
An extremely detailed and in-depth farm manager simulation that really seems to have it all
Cons
The poor tutorial doesn't help new farmers
