Farming Simulator 22 Premium Expansion is a major addition to the game and simultaneously with the Expansion a standalone Farming Simulator 22 Premium Edition has also been released.
The Premium Edition
The standalone Farming Simulator Premium Edition contains the basegame, the new Premium Expansion, and also everything included in the two Seasons passes for Year 1 and 2, plus seven standalone small DLCs with official machinery. This means that buyers of the Premium Edition gets the Antonio Carraro Pack, Kubota Pack, Vermeer Pack, Göweil Pack, Hay & Forage Pack, Horsch AgroVation Pack and Oxbo Pack, six different official maps, the Platinum Expansion and the new Premium Expansion.
The Premium Expansion
So what’s in the new Premium Expansion? Quite a lot, actually. The most prominent addition to the game is the three new crops – it is now possible to grow carrots, bed beets and parsnips. This in turn means the need for new machinery able to handle the new crops, so there is also a number of seeders and harvesters for that. There’s also an entirely new type of equipment – the ridge former, which is used in order to create ridges on the fields before sowing the new root vegetables.
In addition Giants have also made a new map to play on. This time the map is named Zielonka and has a clear eastern Poland feel, a region that is very well suited for the new crops.
The crops themselves all have that in common that they are rootfruit crops. This means they have some similarities with the already existing potatoes and sugar beets, but only some. They pretty much need their own dedicated machinery equipment for both sowing and harvesting.
A warning though. If you’re the kind of person who thinks potato and sugarbeet harvesting is a bit on the tedious side due to the small width of the harvesters you’re going to find the new crops to be very much the same. The smaller harvesters take one row at a time, even though it is possible to “cheat” in a second row if aiming good. But this is simply how these crops function.
If you don’t have anything against the slower process, you’ll find a nice assortment of harvesters. The most novel one being the one that deposits the rootcrop straight into a pallet box.
Together with the new crops there are also new factories which provides new production chains – a soup factory, a preserved food factory, and a potato processing plant. In the same vein as last year’s Platinum Expansion, there’s also a construction project. This time it is about delivering wooden planks for the fancy production of pianos.
Even if there certainly is no shortage of machinery brands in the game, Giants have managed to get even more brands onboard. New for this expansion are Dewulf, Gorenc, Agrio and WIFO. There is also new items from already included brands such as Bednar, Fiat, Grimme, Kverneland, and SaMasz. All in all there’s 37 new pieces of machinery and tools included in the pack.
The new machinery brands are a mix of ones specializing in equipment made to handle the new types of crops and ones with a larger market share in central and eastern Europe. The first choice is obvious with the introduction of the crops and the second is logical considering the included map’s simulated location.
It is a good, balanced mix of small and big equipment, something that makes it interesting additions both for those who like smaller farms and big ones. The two new tractors, a Fiat and a Zetor, are somewhat surprising both of slightly older date. Which actually in my opinion is a good thing since farms rarely can afford themselves to always be up to date with only the newest equipment, so some more choice of trusty older models is always a welcome thing. Speaking of older models, even the car category now gets an addition in the form of a 1984 pickup.
The machinery included is quite diverse. Besides the equipment needed for the new crops and the tractors and car already mentioned, there’s also mowers, a tedder, cultivators, subsoilers, weeders, sprayers, a manure spreader, a trailer, and a couple of tools for pallet handling.
Are there then no flaws at all? Well, there is some minor ones. In some instances one could have wished for some more customization choices on the equipment. In particular since we got a little spoiled with all the visual choices on many items in the Horsch Pack DLC. Also the flat textures depicting the harvested crops are starting to feel more than just a little outdated in a 2023 game. This is particulary true for the red beets and parsnips. It is not a major flaw since they fulfill their purpose of signalling what it is, but it is a tad immersion breaking.
On the whole though, the conclusion must be that the Premium Expansion delivers a lot of good stuff.
If you usually farm on European maps, this expansion is definitely among the best when it comes to what you get for the money. Three new crops, even if the three are somewhat similar, makes for good additional gameplay and there’s a nice, quite large selection of new machinery. Machinery which is not only geared toward the new crops but also provides new choices for the agricultural work in general.
If you like to farm on non-European maps you’ll probably mostly be interested in this expansion for the additional crops and production lines, which makes it a little less affordable but still a good improvement when it comes to getting some more variation in the gameplay.
