For the last 16 years, gamers wanting to while away the hours becoming a cattle-rearing legend or the local king of soybean production have turned to the ever-reliable Farming Simulator series. From casual, therapeutic farming to one of the most bizarre competitive esports scenes I’ve ever witnessed, it’s one of the most iconic simulator games on PC. Now it’s time for another new entry and on its debut day, Farming Simulator 25 has blown up the Steam charts and set a series record in the process.
While the core of the simulation game is mostly recognizable for anyone that’s played its predecessors, improved visuals and, new gameplay mechanics, and some fresh additions in the crop and livestock departments make Farming Simulator 25 an attractive prospect. It launches today with three maps spread across three different contents – including Asia for the first time in the series’ history.
As well as expanding into new areas of the world, new crops like spinach, rice, and green beans can now be cultivated. When it comes to animals, your choice is also broader than it’s ever been before, with goats and water buffalo joining the existing lineup. Oh, and for the first time, you can actually observe baby animals with unique behaviors and animations. I don’t know how it’s taken this long to get sweet little piglets and lambs into Farming Sim, but I’m glad it’s finally happened.
It’s not all sunshine and baby goats, though – new threats to your agricultural empire have been added. Twisters and hail are two new weather events that can alter the ground condition, potentially jeopardizing your crops.
The lineup of vehicles on offer has also swelled to over 400, with more big-brand trucks, tractors, and combine harvesters than you can shake a pitchfork at. Of course, all of them are accurately recreated in exceptional levels of detail.
All of this new content has led to a huge surge in players on its opening day. At its peak, Farming Simulator 25 today hit a peak concurrent player count on Steam of 126,000 – that’s the highest peak ever achieved by a Farming Simulator game, beating the previous record of 105,000 set by its predecessor.
To put it in a broader context, more people were planting their first seeds in the new Farming Sim game today than there were playing big hitters like new MMO Throne and Liberty, Baldur’s Gate 3, and Valve’s breakout hit Deadlock.
Despite the huge amount of players, early Steam reviews aren’t as universally positive as you may imagine. While early influxes of reviews should often be taken with a large grain of salt and often skew towards being negative, Farming Simulator 25 is currently sitting at a 62% rating on Valve’s platform. Generally-speaking, most negative reviews are alleging that there isn’t enough new content or progress in the way of gameplay advancements compared to Farming Simulator 23. However, I fully expect the ratio of positive reviews to increase as the week progresses and people get stuck into Giants Software’s new entry.
Farming Simulator 25 is out right now. You can pick it up yourself or learn more about the game over on its Steam page here.
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