Farming Simulator 22 Review | Get Ready for Some Epic Farming

Our Farming Simulator 22 review looks at a game developed and published by GIANTS Software using the GIANTS Engine 9. It was officially launched on 21 November 2021 and made available on PC and console. It now features a Platinum Edition that includes the forestry pack with several new vehicles, tools, and more, released on 14 November 2022.

Join us in our Farming Simulator 22 review as we explore the story, gameplay, and visual, and audio elements of this exciting game. It gives you a taste of what to expect and if it’s worth buying.

Farming Simulator 22 Review: Story Elements

The first part we love covering in any review is the story. For our Farming Simulator 22 review, it involves more than a plot toward a conclusive resolution in the ending. Instead, we’ll look at the main purpose of the game and how long it will take to play it. 

See how we started out with our first live Twitch video!

Choosing a mode

When you hit the main screen in Farming Simulator 22, you’ll see that there are different modes to select. The main modes are Career and Multiplayer, where you can either play solo or with your friends. While I preferred the latter, many friends like to hook up in multiplayer mode to either work together or compete. 

The multiplayer mode is still wildly popular in eSports and online competitions. Our friends in astragon Entertainment, a subsidiary of Team 17, participated in the Farming Simulator League (FSL) Season 4, which is based on Farming Simulator 19.

Selecting a difficulty

Once you select the Campaign, you have three difficulties on your screen. They are as follows: 

• New Farmer (Easy): You have land, starting vehicles, some funds, and easy settings
• Farm Manager (Medium): You don’t have land or vehicles, but you have plenty of money and the economy is pretty good with standard settings
• Start from Scratch: (Hard): You don’t have land or vehicles, you have no money, and you’ve taken a loan from the bank. Good luck!

The starting map

When you have the difficulty you want, you can then select the map. For our Farming Simulator 22 review, I opted for the first Elm Creek so I could test it out first. The other maps in the Platinum Edition include Haut-Beyleron, Erlengrat, and Silverrun Forest. Obviously, the last map is for the Forestry Pack where you’ll spend most of your time chopping down trees and selling the wood for profit.

What type of farmer do you want to be?

The final part of the setup in Farming Simulator 22 is creating your character. You can be male or female, and there’s an assortment of appearances and clothing to work through. When you’re done, you’ll have an avatar that you’ll see whenever you drive a vehicle.

From there, you’ll need to start farming. Your initial focus will be on crops, but there are other elements to manage. You’ll eventually want animals on your ranch so you can sell the produce, such as cows for milk and sheep for wool. Much later when you have sufficient funds, you can focus on being a lumberjack.

Owning the monopoly

So, where do we see the story for our Farming Simulator 22 review? Well, the ultimate goal is to own all the lands, farm them, and make millions. Also, there are plenty of achievements to obtain, which will take you several days, if not weeks, to achieve. From there, you can move to a more challenging difficulty to see if you can succeed again, or on a different map.

How long to play Farming Simulator 22

If you plan on obtaining all the achievements, the average game time for Farming Simulator 22 is up to 50 hours. Of course, the game can carry on forever, as you can keep farming to your heart’s desire. Also, there are so many maps to try.

Farming Simulator 22 Review: Gameplay

The next part of our Farming Simulator 22 review is looking at the gameplay elements. Here, I’ll focus more on how to play the game than what it’s about. You can watch our initial gameplay video here below so you can get a feeling for the movement and controls.

Getting to grips with farming and vehicles

If you’ve never played a game in this series before, you’re in luck. Farming Simulator 22 has a short tutorial showing you the ropes, letting you drive, connect trailers and tools, and start farming the land. Even when the tutorial is done, it isn’t really. There’s a helpful guide in the settings for each component, and you’ll find question mark icons on the maps to give you even more information.

Checking the crop calendar

The one new aspect I found interesting for my Farming Simulator 22 review is the crop calendar. It’s a new feature we didn’t have with the previous game, but there’s a reason for that. There are now official seasons, which means you can only grow specific types of crops at different times of the year. 

That means you’ll need to deal with rain and snow. The latter requires specialised equipment that can remove the snow so you can move around and tend to your animals. It’s a new dynamic that makes the game more challenging, but I loved every moment of the realism.

Changing days per month

When I first started playing, I didn’t initially pay attention to the dates. I saw the month at the top, only to discover that the next day brought a new month. I headed to the settings and was glad to see I could set how I wanted the days to pass. While I didn’t want every day to be a full month, I also didn’t want to wait 28 days before the next month appeared. I set it at 14 days, which was enough time to enjoy making money for the month and prepare for the next season.

Driving and farming mechanics

The core gameplay features for Farming Simulator 22 involve driving different types of vehicles and farming your land. To cover each type of vehicle and how they work requires a complete guide, which isn’t the scope of this review. However, it’s worth noting that movement and controls are much better than FS19, which had way too many issues.

Several tools snap into place better than before, such as the harvester header onto a trailer. Also, you need to pay attention to physics. If you have a small tractor pulling a heavy object, expect the front to lift into the air without a proper weight attached. 

Keeping animals and selling produce

There were only a few animal pens in FS19, and some more appeared with community mods. What makes me really happy for this Farming Simulator 22 review is that there are plenty more pens and animal types. Specifically, we can now keep bees and produce honey.

That brings me to another element: making and selling produce. There’s a completely new screen for you to manage your produce, check the prices, and know where to sell them. If you’re like me, you’ll want to make every type there is just for the fun of it.

Hiring helpers

To make your life easier, you can hire helpers to farm and work the land for you. It’s helpful when you have several tasks happening at once, or if you’re tired of staring at the crops on your screen while you harvest them. It’s all about how much money you’re willing to spend to make more money, taking us to our next point.

Making money in Farming Simulator 22

The ultimate goal of Farming Simulator 22 review is to make as much money as possible so you can acquire more land, vehicles and tools to make more money. At the start, you’ll mostly accept contracts and work other people’s lands for a profit. When you’ve completed the contract, don’t stop there. You can sell any leftover products for more money. Sometimes, it results in a massive payout, more than the contract value. 

For example, I accepted a baling contract for about €28,000. Once I was done, there were still many bales on the field to drop at the delivery point. I ended up making an additional €60,000 just from the excess bales.

Of course, if you’re just providing a service, there won’t be much of a profit. For example, fertilising, sowing and cultivating are all services where you simply get paid the contract price. You need to be careful hiring workers for these, as that means you’re paying them from the contract income, making less money.

Construction mode

Not happy with the buildings on your farms, or lack thereof? Construction mode is where you change how the land looks, such as adding more fields, changing the land’s appearance, and selling or buying buildings. It’s also where you’ll find the pens you’ll need to start farming with animals.

Is Farming Simulator 22 or 19 better?

Farming Simulator 22 is a vast improvement over FS19, especially on PlayStation. There are more enjoyable elements, such as bee farming and attaching to tools much better than before. The visuals are also better, while I suspect it looks more impressive on PS5 than on PS4. I’m personally hoping they add bonsai trees at some stage, which is something I personally grow at home. There are so many mechanics that can be added, letting you develop bonsais from seeds or cuttings and then sell them.

Platinum Edition Update

As of last week, GIANTS updated Farming Simulator 2 with the Platinum Edition. With this new version, you receive a new forest map, forestry vehicles and tools, and much more. I’ll be adding a separate review for the expansion.

Farming Simulator 22 Review: Visuals and Sound

You’re at the last part of my Farming Simulator 22 review. Here, I’ll highlight some visual and audio elements that really stand out in the game. 

Improved graphics and effects

As mentioned earlier, Farming Simulator 22 has enhanced visuals and effects. On the PS4, some of the trees don’t look as perfect as I suspect they look on top-end PCs or PS5. However, the vehicles are absolutely stunning, and I love the upgraded animations of many of the tools. Working at night with the lights on is still one of my many in-game pleasures.

Stunning maps and environments

The new maps and environments are superb. The rivers and small water bodies look impressive, and I enjoyed the rain and snow. It’s also easier to navigate the suburban and farm areas with the map that you can change while driving. When you go to the settings, you can check different farm elements to see if any lands need rolling or liming.

Traffic and people

The traffic is back in Farming Simulator 22, but you can also change how many appear in the settings. One element I love is that you can now see people walking on paths near the fields or by stores. There aren’t many of them, but it’s a step in the right direction. I just wish my dog would stop running in the street now and again, but I was excited to see deer running across my land.

Turn up your sound

If you’re in the mood to play Farming Simulator 22 while listening to your own music or muting the game, you might want to think twice. Besides it having some radio stations you can listen to, some tools make sounds you need to pay attention to. For example, the baler/wrapper combo machine beeps when it’s about to be full. 

What I would have liked was more dynamic stations like with Euro Truck Simulator 2 where you listen to live stations on the internet made specifically for Farming Simulator 22.

Final Verdict: Farming Simulator 22

As you can see by my Farming Simulator 22 review, I love this game. I’ve heard some complaints from friends and other people about glitches and issues, but I really couldn’t find many. It’s a much better experience than FS19, which I spent way too much time swearing at. Now, I can farm, chop trees, and manage animals to my heart’s content while making much more money than I did before. It’s definitely more pleasurable to play and worth getting.