Top 26 Things To Know About Farming Simulator 25
Top 26 Things To Know About Farming Simulator 25
With Farming Simulator 25 coming our way soon, there are plenty of things to know about the upcoming game! In the spirit of 25, we were thinking of doing 25! But there’s just so much to discuss, and we had to add at least one more. Here are the top twenty-six things you need to know about FS25!
FS25 release date
FS25 will be released on November 12, 2024. This follows the trend of a few recent FS games, which are released once every three years in the final quarter.
The time of the release for the GIANTS Store is usually at midnight of the day, German time. This means that if you purchased the game from there and live in the Americas, the game might reach you on the evening of the 11th! If you purchase on other platforms, expect the release to happen sometime during the 12th. Playstation, for example, says that the game will release at 7 AM EST on November 12th.
Platforms supported
FS25 marks a pretty major jump in hardware requirements. This means that older-generation consoles, namely PS4 and Xbox One, will no longer be able to play the newest Farming Simulator game.
However, if you’re a PC gamer who is not at all excited about Windows 11, good news! FS25 will support Windows 10. Macs should also be just fine, with FS25 offering support for Mac OS back to 11.3.
Pricing for FS25
The base game will cost $60 for Xbox and PS, rising to $90 if you pick up the Year 1 bundle. For PC and Mac, these prices will be $50 and $80, respectively. If you are unsure whether you want to get the Year 1 bundle, no worries: you can pick it up later, as it will be available after the game is released.
Preorder items
Your preorder will come with the same bonus on for each platform—the MacDon pack! However, PC and Mac users can also get the New Holland CR11 Gold Edition, which is included in the Collector’s Edition and the Year 1 bundle.
Season pass and new DLCs
The season pass (Year 1) will include 4 DLCs. At the moment, the information on what these DLCs will be is limited. However, there might be some hints in the names. Here’s what they are.
- DLC 1: Innovative Machinery
- DLC 2: Performance on Plains and Prairies
- DLC 3: The Stars Alight
- And finally, the fourth DLC will come as a new map.
- If the previous games are anything to go by, it’s possible to expect at least Year 1 and Year 2 season passes to be released. This would mean at least 8 different DLCs released throughout the game. However, this is a conservative estimate – likely, there would actually be even more!
FS25 Collector’s Edition: what will you get?
The Collector’s Edition of FS25 is only available on PC – the most expensive combined package for the game. But you will be getting a lot of goodies for your money. Here’s what the top-tier edition of FS25 will get you:
- New Holland CR11 Gold Edition
- MacDon Pack
- Collector’s Box
- Key Chain
- USB Ignition Lock – which you can connect to your PC and start your machinery!
- 16-Bit Retro Edition of Farming Simulator and Soundtrack CD
- Modding Tutorials Version 6
- 32 Stickers
- 3 Posters
Updated maps
From the information we have right now, FS25 will include three different maps: a North American one, an East Asian one, and a classic Central European one.
The last of the three, the European map, looks very similar to the classic Zielonka map many players are quite familiar with. UK players could be a little disappointed that there’s no classic UK-style map in the stock game, but from the released images, it seems that the Year 1 expansion map will be based around England and/or Scotland.
The USA map has a river flowing through the middle, and the fields are much more realistically shaped – you will see much fewer squared-off, unrealistic fields that were present in the earliest games.
The size of the maps will be just about the same: a standard 2×2 kilometer. The mods might make them significantly bigger, but for the base game, it appears that the focus will be on making the maps more realistic and more dense with activity. There are reports that it is definitely possible that the maps could get bigger in the future, so we will have to wait and see what the future brings once the game is finally released.
New types of crops
FS25 will come with at least 3 new crops: rice, long grain rice, and spinach. There might be some more coming soon, but for now – this is what we know. The crop textures and the density will remain the same, but we will get new textures and the updated crops will have significantly more detail: because of the double sided rendering.
Trees and foliage
The new game’s updates will focus a lot on greenery. This means that trees, grass, bushes, flowers, and a lot more will look much more realistic. The forests will be much more lush and unique, with many more vertices. Expect the new Farming Simulator game to drop the boring and uninspired forest and go bigger.
Animal trader
The friendly neighborhood animal dealer has had a rebrand and is now known as the Animal Trader. The trade location will be much more completed, with animals actually walking around the area. While it used to be just a basic spot opening the shop menu, it will be much more completed in FS25.
Farmer’s market
A brand new location in the game, the Farmer’s Market is a place with a complete interior and interactive shelves. The shelves will actually fill up as you deliver the goods. There will still be a classic selling station, so you won’t have to interact with the farmer’s market yourself: but now, the world will be a lot more dynamic and respond to your actions and business decisions.
Farm houses – finally buildable!
Yes, the farmhouses on the new game will now be buildable. It works pretty similar to the Silverrun’s Roller Coaster mod in FS22, but obviously, you’ll need a lot less materials. This means that you won’t have to resort to buying the entire house, but instead, get all the required materials and get everything done for less. Fully built houses will not go anywhere, and will remain as an alternative for those who want a faster way to get things done.
Bale wrap – now a consumable!
RaniPlast bale wrap has been confirmed for FS25, and what this means is that consumables are coming to the game. Previously, the bales automatically had wrap on them. Now, for the sake of realism, you will also have to purchase the wraps separately. Don’t like that? No problem – FS25 has added the option to make the purchases manually, similar to what we’ve seen with the pallet boxes on the FS22 premium DLC.
GPS & AI worker’s improvements
The GPS steering and route creation, previously available as a community mod only, will finally make its way to the base Farming Simulator game! It’s a big change, and we can’t wait to see it in action.
The AI workers will see major improvements in their decision-making: working much more efficiently and generally getting stuck a lot less. The updated GPS system will also be used to make sure that they work as well as they possibly can. This will work not only on the base fields created by the game but also on any fields you will create yourself.
Third person view
GIANTS has announced that third-person view will debut on the Farming Simulator 25 game. For some, this changes absolutely nothing. For others, this opens a brand new world of possibility! We can’t wait to see what the community will make with this feature, and we bet that there will be some great FS25 roleplaying content.
Game modes & multiplayer: same as usual
There seem to be no major changes to the game modes, and no new game modes will be introduced. You can play with your friends in the multiplayer mode, and the single-player mode will include New Farmer, Farm Manager, and Start From Scratch modes.
Swathing
Swathing will be a big part of FS25. It can be done on barley, wheat, and canola. The list may still be incomplete, and you might be able to swath grass as well.
If you want to do swathing right from the beginning, you better preorder because the MacDon Pack, coming as a preorder bonus, will offer you the opportunity to do that. The complete vehicle list is still unavailable, so it’s uncertain whether any other machinery will allow you to swath. Modders, of course, will offer us plenty of opportunities to do swathing with their machinery. But we will have to wait a bit after the game’s release.
Realistic fog
Fog is an amazing way to enhance any farming scenery, and it’s no surprise that Farming Simulator 25 focuses on making sure it’s as good as possible. In the new game, we will see God Ray’s, visible when the sun hits the fog from an angle. Fog does not have uniform density, meaning that it will look and act differently depending on the location. Fog will also act much more naturally, meaning it will be much heavier in lower areas in the evenings and mornings and during suitable weather.
Lighting improvements
Lighting sees a massive improvement in the newest game. It’s not just the sun going up and down. In real life, there are so many light sources and shadows because almost anything there is will cast a shadow. Machinery, foliage, clouds, even you – everything casts a shadow! The light will also be different depending on the weather, as the sun will shine differently through different cloud coverage, and shadows will be created not only by the sun but by multiple lights on the environment and the machinery, as well as the moon and the stars. It’s not quite ray tracing – but it’s so close.
Realistic mud, dirt, and snow on the tires
Mud and dirt are inseparable from farming, and we will see plenty of new physics that should help improve immersion. Here’s an example – when you will drive on mud, it will stick on the tires, and even remove itself over time. The same will happen with snow and dirt.
Improved rain effects
The rain effects will see an upgrade. Raindrops will appear on machinery and splash realistically off the surfaces. Tires and other items will also get darker when wet, as they do in real life. All in all, the visuals will help make the rainy atmosphere all the more realistic.
Realistic, curving roads
Roads will no longer be acute and unrealistic shapes. The latest game will have us waving goodbye to the boring straight and flat streets. Now, just like in real life, the streets will follow the curvature of the ground. This will also help make them a little less of a strain on the hardware, and could potentially make the road building a lot more flexible.
Ground deformation
Ground deformation was one of the most heavily mentioned features of the new game. It has some interesting potential: what it means is that when you drive through the ground with your machinery, the ground will actually react to it, leaving the tracks behind. It’s not like it was previously, where driving with your machinery leaves a different texture. Now, you will see mud and dirt deforming by a lot, and gravel as well as grass deforming a little less. These marks will slowly fade away over time.
Smaller fire sizes
The updated Giants Engine 10 will optimize the file sizes. Compared to FS22, they will be 45% smaller! This means that mods will take up significantly less size, giving you more content and more maps. However, considering how detailed and content-filled the new FS25 maps are, chances are that you won’t notice that much of a difference. Still – good to know that the latest game won’t be a massive hog of your resources.
Tornadoes and hail
Weather, obviously, has a great effect on farming. Unpredictable weather events are an unpleasant but natural part of any farmer’s life and livelihood. Tornadoes and hail will be the extreme weather effects you should be expecting on Farming Simulator 25. This will have a negative effect on both forests and crops, and you will need to take action to secure your precious investment from turning into nothing. Of course, you will be able to turn off these weather effects in the settings if you prefer to focus more on farming rather than damage control.
Mods are so back!
FS22 mods should be converted into FS25 fairly easily, and modders are already getting some information about the latest game. The slot counts are lower on consoles, and this will make it possible to have significantly higher poly count models while keeping the size down. If that’s true, this means that we might see a massive jump in mod quality. We can’t wait to see that for ourselves!
