Right now, I can't recommend this game. It's really underdeveloped and not really enough of an upgrade over FS22 to justify it's own existence.

The three default maps are bland and boring as usual, there is confusing design choices in all of them and I don't understand why they only ever release fantasy maps rather than finding unique and interesting real world farms and re-creating them in high detail with real ground mapping and elevation etc. Like what racing games do with race tracks to an extent.

The choice of equipment is laughable and again pretty sparse. If you do contracts be prepared to keep using the exact same equipment over and over and over again. Speaking of contracts, sometimes they pay out LESS than the cost of borrowing the equipment, good work Giants and when the contracts is deemed finished by the game you can't actually finish the work on the field and are locked out of the equipment. Mowing, Bailing and wrapping are now separate contracts which makes zero sense, feels like the developer padding out the content because they couldn't think of anything else to do.

Why is precision farming not in the base game already? oh wait, because it will be released as a "DLC" so that Giants can claim that they are delivering content. Anything which was in 22 should really have some in the base version of this game, it's pretty poor really. I also don't know why they didn't port some of the popular mods over from 22, seems like they could have worked with the modders to bring some of that over so there was more to do.

Graphically I don't see much of an improvement over 22 however the game runs terribly with massive amounts of graphical glitches and weird behaviour no matter what settings you use. They are trying to sell us on ground deformation and better water but frankly I couldn't care less about either. Give me a game which is well optimised please. Where are the patches to fix these things too? The graphical issues are a well known issue which should and could have been patched already or we could at least have had some notice from Giants that they are working on it.

For me the only real positive about this new game is the auto steer thing, it works really well on all the straight edge fields on all of the maps but time will tell how it fares with real shaped fields when the superior mod maps are released. "courseplay" is also included as a base upgrade but it's not courseplay at all, it's just slightly better AI helpers really. The real courseplay has significantly more features and will still be needed when mod maps are included and you have obstacles in fields etc. Why is there no follow me, auto drive, unload combine type stuff?

My final annoyance with the game is the changing of the menus, it makes no sense and didn't need to be changed. They have made it so that it's confusing to find things, so that the menu's don't flow and have removed some useful features which will have to be modded back into the game by modders. I no longer have a dedicated screen to see ALL the information about my own vehicles for example?

Once the mods start rolling out and the real game begins it might be worth another look I would wait a few months for Giants to get off the lazy butts and patch the performance, wait for the super talented modders to get some content into the game and wait for the price to drop a bit. Don't waste your money on the expanded/annual pass type versions as all content which will be released through these will be inferior to the mods and Giants really need to hear the message that their laziness has been noted and there needs to be some real REVOLUTION with these games rather than the teeny weeny evolutions we have received in 19, 22 and now 25. I'm going back to 22 for a bit and will check back in with 25 in a few months, I suggest you all do the same

After 50 hours of gameplay in the first 5 days I can say, this game is amazing and will suck you in for many hundred, if not thousands of hours. Out of the gate, it is a huge improvement over the previous version (FS22) with much improved graphics, performance, and new features. My only real complaint is that it takes a lot of tinkering with the settings to get the best graphics and performance as the default settings are not well optimized for any computer. But as someone with many thousands of hours spent on FS22, I have no desire to ever go back to FS22, which pretty much sums up my reaction to FS25 and says a lot about how good it is, and that is without any mods yet!!

Farming Simulator 25 is not bad.

Farming Simulator 25 is not good.

It's hard to know what it really is because it's broken and buggy in so many ways.

They spent the majority of the last few years rebuilding the game engine, which if you like graphical upgrades you have a lot to be excited for. I think. It's hard to tell due to all the graphical glitches and performance issues.

Ground deformation is on of the big new additions, and it's cool. The issue is that it is purely cosmetic, and really has no affect on gameplay. After a few hours I stopped even noticing it.

Rice is also a new addition, and it adds a new type of gameplay where you need to flood a field in order to plant the crops. And you have to keep the field flooded during the growth for healthy crops. It has very specialized equipment for one type, and one type that uses the same old equipment as before.

Lot of new crops were added to greenhouses, but they only need water like all greenhouse crops. You can grow your own rice seedlings if you want, which may save you some money, or make you some if you sell the pallets you don't need.

Animals have growth stages, from babies to teens to adults. It's a nice touch, visually, to see different stage animals in the field. To make animals even more attractive, you can now build barns and pastures where you get to draw out the fence line and fill it with meadow grass for the animals to graze on. This is absolutely useless for every animal except sheep and goats, as any other animal will eat it and never improve. You may as well not feed them at all to let them have just meadow grass.

The new animals, by the way, are decent additions. Water Buffalo and Goats have their own products, but the care is exactly the same as existing animals. It's nice to have more variety however. You can make additional products, so there are reasons to raise them.

The disappointment with animals is still the same as it has been, only cattle have any special process for feeding, in making TMR. While it's easy, it would be nice to have animals that require more work than just dropping some crops in the food trough and move along.

Now, the most polarizing part of the new game is the UI. It's not hard to get used to, and some changes are smart and welcome changes. It will take a while to get used to, because the location of certain menus and data have been moved from where they have been for a decade.

It's a love it or hate type of deal. There are some steps backwards, such as not being able to see the horsepower of your tractor without going to the shop and choosing customize. Yes, that's the only way. I personally have no issue with the new store layout, though some apparently do.

You scroll up and down a list now instead of side to side as before. Scrolling is scrolling, and I don't understand the hate for one direction over another.

The vehicle list feels like a major step backwards from the previous game. Let me just make some broad examples, because equipment typically comes down to personal preference. For example, there are no JCB tractors anymore. So, if you're a fan of those...sorry, you have to wait for mods.

But there are some very non-sensical choices here.

There is only ONE baler that has a built in wrapper.

There is no belt to pick up crops from the ground. If you like potatoes, for example, and put them on the ground...you're going to be shoveling those with a bucket because there is no belt to use on them. This choice is even more bizarre when you realize they left the other two belts in the game. Which makes them virtually useless without the ground feed belt.

They add an all electric Volvo semi, but then removed nearly all the other electric vehicles. A step forward, two steps back.

While the base game does have plenty of new vehicles and equipment, starting with more than the previous game had at launch, many of the removals seems odd choices. The major brands are here, but in many ways greatly reduced options. Kubota, for example, has only one single tractor now. While it was a DLC for Farm Sim 22, the pack had half a dozen tractors across small to medium ranges. Now, you get the biggest. That's it.

The USA map that is part of most of the promotional material, is a buggy mess. Visually, it's great. Barges roaming by, ferries to carry you across the river, detailed in a lot of areas that they have never done before. It's a map that feels alive. Once those bugs are fixed, it should be a favorite map for many. It's not filled with giant fields, it's organic and feels like a real place.

But that also leads to the discussion of weird choices. The map is an old farming town, filled with rusted metal buildings and worn down barns, etc. But the equipment you can use on it are new. They feel very out of place on this map. The options for old farm equipment is very limited. It's a huge miss. Sure, brands want their biggest and shiniest new stuff in the game, but players also want some old school options.

Baling requires you to now buy netting to make bales, it's not optional, it cannot be turned off. There are several options to choose from in game, which adds some color and style to your bales, and adds some realism. Just don't put your bales in the storage building, you can't get them out. Yeah, it's a bug that will be fixed eventually, but honestly it should have been hot-fixed already. Imagine having your entire winters worth of silage bales stored, only to find you can't get them out when you need to fee the cattle. Not the end of the world, because you CAN buy bales...but it definitely breaks the flow and make for a frustrating experience, and makes you wonder how it made it past testing...

And right now, that's a huge thing. There are some very game breaking bugs here. I personally reported over 75 bugs, and the game has been out less than a week. Giants always send the game out early to content creators, but either they aren't very good at finding and reporting bugs, or Giants just hasn't worked on them. Because this is the worst launch Giants has ever had for a game.

Tractors getting locked on the ferry and can't be moved, resetting crashes the game. Just stuck.

Baby sheep can sometimes grow up to be cows instead, which aren't legally allowed in a sheep barn. You can't sell them or move them, they are just there. Can't even feed them, so you get nothing from them.

Direct seeders don't work on a mulched field...and any crop that doesn't leave straw will leave behind a mulched field when you harvest it.

Field stones, which were bugged in FS22, are still bugged here...if you know.

And so many more....from small annoyances to completely game-breaking.

The game will get fixed, I do believe that, but as a gamer I am tired of games releasing in a state that is so bad it ruins the fun. I have had to start over three times in my 40 hours of play, not because I did something wrong, but because the game broke in a way that set me back so far it wasn't worth continuing, or was just flat out was unplayable.

And we might as well throw it in the bucket too, achievements still give you no clue how to get them. Just driving down the road and trigger three achievement unlocks, no idea why or how, even after unlocking them.

Overall, the game will be good eventually. It will probably be an adored addition to the franchise in a month or so when they work out the bugs and performance issues. But right now, it's a frustrating mess. It's on par with most new games released these days, but I can help but feel disrespected by the terrible state this game is in.

And it's tiresome that this is how games are released these days. That's my major beef with the game, how much fun it COULD be is ruined by frustrating crap that never should have made it release. Even if you love the changes, there is no excusing this buggy mess of a release. And for that reason I cannot recommend it.

It's time for developers to get the message that it's not acceptable.