Game review of Farming Simulator 25 (FS25) by Snake Man, PMC.
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Farming Simulator 22 is garbage. Keep playing FS19 and FS22 or if you're a new player considering buying FS25, don't, get FS22 instead.
2024-12-24T09:33:48Z Written using FS25 v1.3 without any mods. Plan is to update this review once more game upgrades and mods are released. However I have no illusions that Giants would fix the core game engine issues so while I would be absolutely over joyed if they did, I am not holding my breath while waiting for such thing to happen.
For background reference see my FS17 Review, FS19 Review and FS22 Review pages.
Unfortunately I allowed myself to get excited about new farmsim game engine release, only to be disappointed greatly when learning what new changes there are.
Giants Software (game developer) added ground deformation and fog as major new features, well the fog looks like trash just ruining game-play and its my belief that ground deformation destroyed large terrain functionality. Ground deformation is a gimmick in the first place as its just tyre tracks with added "localized" throw away heightmap edits (meaning on savegame load all tyre tracks ie ground deformation is lost, also it doesn't work in multiplayer but that is just one of the multiple bugs in FS25 v1.3 game engine).
Graphics were improved, I don't see much difference in-game between FS22 and FS25 but many mod developers are talking loudly about all the annoying 3D model and texture editing changes they have to re-learn now with the new game engine. Overall the same trend continues from Giants, landscape environment looks like manure while vehicles and implements get improved to the latest high tech fancy graphics advancements on computers, this approach makes no sense whatsoever, why would you put your 50,000 polygon uber fancy super high quality tractor model into a terrain that looks like its from the 2000s.
Contracts were updated by taking several features from FS19 and FS22 Better Contracts mod. In-game FS22 "seasons" is the same as before, no changes there, same dumbed down for conzole peasants just a pale comparison, an insult really, to the original old school elite FS19 Seasons Mod by Realismus group.
Riverbend Springs terrain is just horrible and claustrophobic which makes FS22 Elmcreek and even FS19 Ravenport (haha) look good, insult to injury is that Riverbend Springs is supposed to be american terrain but at best it looks like any traditional community user made european terrain for FS19 and FS22. This is my review but I'm referencing to other people as well, this is just not my opinion alone, many other people are running away screaming from this abomination called Riverbend Springs.
As of FS25 engine overall, well besides the destroyed large terrain functionality, its like a copy, a clone, of FS22 with possibly slightly better vehicle/implement 3D models/textures to please those most simpleton weak minded players who don't know any better than "k00l GFXZ!!1".
I know that most of the farmsim players sees no problem with having NO MORE large terrains in the community made releases, there are even people who hate large terrains because "too big" meaning takes long time to drive to and work the fields, so in that sense most of the players have no problems with FS25 as all they care about is little girlie men 2km terrains.
However for me, Giants destroyed FS25 with this ground deformation garbage as you cant create any large terrains now. If you want to learn what was broken in FS25 then please check FS25 Terrain Editing Tutorial page for details.
Dec 24th, 2024.
Snake Man, PMC.