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Farming Simulator 22

Time to take the strawberries and tomatoes to the market.

Farming Simulator 22 is the latest iteration of the long-running series of Farming Simulator games made by Giants and was released in November 2021.

As such it is a more polished version following closely in the path of the earlier Farming Simulator 19 from 2018. While the differences aren’t huge, 22 has got its fair share of improvements and reworkings. Graphically the most obvious one is the changed lighting. Gameplay-wise it is the addition of seasons and the possibility to run production facilities that uses the harvested crops to produce more refined products like processed milk, sunflower oil and timber products. Granted, both seasonal changes and production lines were possible also earlier versions of the game, but then only through third-party mods. Now they are a part of the base game, which is beneficial for a smoother running.

There are also some new crops added – grapes, olives and sorghum. While sorghum works just like the other already common cereal crops, the addition of grapes and olive trees make for new gameplay activities in how they are tended, which also means some new equipment. Also there is now the possibility to build functional greenhouses for those who would like to start to grow lettuce, tomatoes and strawberries.

Farming Simulator 22 is not a revolution for the series, but instead follows the same path of refining the game concept a bit further yet. Which is more than enough to justify its existence.

That said, the fact that Giants’ earlier usual bi-annual release schedule this time got upended and instead became a three-year one is not a bad thing at all. FS19 did not suffer from getting an additional year of life at all. A big part of Farming Simulator’s success is the vibrant mod community who provides both new maps and equipment. Without third-party mods the game would suffer quite a lot, no doubt about that. This also means that everytime a new version of the basegame is released, this gameplay-enhancing possibility is effetively reset for a while until mods made for the new version are starting to show up. A longer time period between the basegame versions thus means a longer life for the more developed, more vibrant modding side of the game. In that way we can hope that this longer period between game versions will become the new normal and that the inbetween time is instead used to maybe develop some additional DLCs.