Ploughing a Different Furrow?

November 12th saw the release of the latest iteration of the Farming Simulator series from Giants Software. There has been a lot of hype associated with this release that promised much; It’s time to find out how much of that promise has been delivered.

The game ships with three maps set in the US, Poland and East Asia – though no country is specified. I’ve decided that I’ll be playing on the US map which is called Riverbend Springs. Set somewhere in the borderlands of Arkansas / Mississippi, you may infer from the title that there is a lot of water flowing through the map. The result is a lot more small and medium fields than the large plains type fields that have often dominated the US maps in past editions of Farming Simulator.

I’m going to kick off the game in New Farmer mode with the initial farm as intended by the designers. However, the start menu now presents more options than in the past, allowing the actual difficulty to be changed as well as the starting money. If you want you can also take out a loan. There is also the option of a guided tour to get genuine new farmers started. This includes meeting with some NPC’s and having a conversation. The first you would meet is Walter who is your relative and owns some nearby land. Here’s me in the Stetson with Walter standing behind in his green dungarees…

…Unfortunately the novelty of the NPC’s soon wears off as they are not particularly well scripted. But well done Giants for trying something different. This image shows another innovation for FS25 – 3rd person view. For once you’ll be able to see my character outside of the tractor!

So, I have started in New Farmer mode but I’ve set the difficulty to Normal. I opted for having $250k in the bank. The starting machinery given is basic – We get a 116HP John Deere 3650 and a Farmtech EDK650 trailer…

…There is also a 160HP Challenger MT635…

…Which will allow us to plough – once we’ve bought a plough! There is also a Great Plains Seeder and a John Deere shallow cultivator. Finally we have a Massey Ferguson 3570 with a grain header…

This is enough to get started with harvesting the crops that are in 2 of the 4 fields you own. The farm has a Silo for storing these and plenty of shed space with a large decorative barn and a couple of other sheds. There is a group of Beehives…

…which should provide a steady supply of honey for your small farm shop…

The farm shop / kiosk is a new selling option in FS25. There is a wider range of other selling points and production industries too, so I think there will be lots of opportunities to expand in whatever way the player sees fit.

Finally, there is a Cow Pasture with three Angus Cows…

…I already have some plans in mind and unfortunately Cows are not part of that – Think Farm Shop produce. We’ll talk about the initial work of August on the farm in another post.