An honest first look

[TheBarbarian_EL]

I've been an FS player for some time. I believe my steam account at least goes back to FS13? I fell in love with the franchise with FS19. I was excited to see what Giant's freedom from a publisher would do in FS22. We are now entering the next generation of aggrosim with FS25.

My impressions prior to release with what Giant's showcased had me underwhelmed. I was seeing evidence that they are listening to the community, but also not understanding what we are requesting. Overall the pre-release trailers, screenshots, and even the content creators showing it off this past week only showed me something that was a nominal step forward from FS22. I did not let pre-release information form my opinion and I did my best to enter the actual release unbiased by what I had seen in previews.

The first hour:
In my first hour of playing I ran into few issues that concerned me. The stutter from having the cache build up when you first start a new map has been something we've seen in FS for... as long as I can remember. Something about the Giant's engine does not seem to manage this process in an optimal way. I saw few graphical anomalies, but they were present. Sometimes witnessing a full black or full white frame flicker. Overall, these were not issues that would sway my opinion as they can be fixed. Giant's can only test so many combinations of hardware after all.

Game play was overall smooth. You can feel that there is some optimization between FS22 and FS25, but again, it is nominal to the end user. The driving mechanics of the farm equipment feels better. Driving the starter John Deere 30 series feels akin to my Kubota HST tractor around my property. That I will grant them an improvement. I've not acquired a truck or car yet so I do not know if Giants has a unique driving mechanic for those or if a FWD sedan will drive like a Quadtrac still.

The largest immediate noticeable change is the color grading and lighting. They have gone with a warmer, more natural and de-saturated path here. This helps make the equipment and buildings look natural and less "plasticy". The foliage density is also obvious to us immediately. The trees look more dense as do the ready to harvest crops. The stubble even looks more dense.

The next thing that everyone is rushing to see is the ground deformation. They did a good enough job of this to satisfy our constant begging for it. However, it appears to be purely cosmetic. Considering crops are still on a growth stage system and there is no mention of ground compaction, the deformation doesn't really have a purpose beyond saying "See... we did what you asked."

The next, I have not experienced yet, but I've seen creators experience 3-4 times in a single season. Tornadoes. This screams "We were listening, but don't understand the words coming out of your mouth." The community asked for more relevant weather. Up until this release the weather was overall unimportant and cosmetic only. Rain/Snow meant you couldn't harvest without a yield penalty. That's it. I know I saw many requests for influential weather like drought or floods. I think this was primarily players not knowing what they wanted. I believe we wanted to have a system for soil conditions influenced by too little or too much rain. Perhaps conditions where the frost made the soil unworkable until the temps warmed things up again. Yes, I even believe we wanted our yields to be influenced by this. I don't believe anyone asked for a natural disaster to be added that can do major unpredictable damage. I'm not against the introduction of natural disasters, but now this new thing makes the rest of the weather irrelevant. Only one crop requires any form of irrigation regardless of the weather. Why have weather if it does nothing? I do believe that being able to disable the damage of tornadoes was a wise choice, but it would be nice to just disable them outright. They server no purpose, and likely tank performance while active.

I think my greatest disappointment is that FS25's base game is not inclusive of all FS22's released content. We do get to keep the vegetables released at the back end of the FS22 life. Most of the other items were machinery, which just isn't as complete in FS25. I understand that this could be entirely due to licensing so I don't think we can be too upset by the missing machinery. Licensing is a difficult thing, and must be acquired anew for each project. That said, the available equipment is limited. Mods will resolve this, as will DLC. One of the biggest items missing from the release of FS25, for me, is Precision Farming. It just isn't there. 1.5 years of FS22 playing with the "slightly more realistic" means of soil quality management and FS25 is back to the "paint the map blue 2x's" for fertilizing. I do believe Precision Farming came out as a free DLC in both FS22 and FS19. I'm sure there is a developmental reason for it not being available on release, but that doesn't make it less disappointing. When a primary feature goes "missing" in the modern game market, we tend to expect to be charged for it.

The final "review":
I am not ready to do an official review on the store page yet, but I have my thoughts to share with others that may come here looking for insightful input.

If you are like myself, and you have clocked thousands of hours across multiple releases of this franchise, you will most likely find value and enjoyment by acquiring FS25 and even the Year One pass. Like myself, you will clock the time, and it is stable enough and performing well enough that it is a nominal step up from FS22 to be worth the jump.

If you fall into that camp above your reliance of mods may be the deciding factor for WHEN you want to purchase FS25. Obviously, there is very little available at this time, but it is also a non-zero state. Yes, there are a few "non-Giant's" mods present, but not many. I believe I saw 2. Within the next few weeks we will start seeing the first mods coming in. If mods ONLY enhance your fun, buy it now and you'll get them when you get them. If mods are integral to your enjoyment, wait a month.

If you DO NOT have thousands of hours, or even close to it AND you own FS22 or even FS19, WAIT! This is not something that you will find full retail value out of. I'm sorry to say it, but that is just fact. This is marginally better than FS22. Such a small increment up that I've advised my "non-obsessed" friends to not buy this yet. Wait for a sale, or until things flesh out in the hot fixes, DLCs, and mods.

If you don't have any FS games and are completely new, buy the base game. If you can get to whatever hour marker you need to go "huh, I didn't realize I was playing that much"... Congrats, your a digital farmer now. It isn't the most absurd price tag, but if you're unsure... flip a coin and you'll know the answer before it hits the ground. If you are nervous that you will have buyers remorse, you will. You have two choices really, buy it and make the most out of it you can or don't buy it, and move along.

TLDR of the review:

If you've got thousands of hours: Buy it, you'll get the value.
If you rely on mods to have a good time: Wait a couple of months.
If you have low hours and play casually: Wait for a sale.
If you're new and not worried about buyers remorse: Come on in, the waters fine.
If you're new and concerned you won't enjoy it: Wait for a sale so it stings less, or move along... your anxiety will ruin it for you.

Thanks for reading!

[baddraw46]

underwhelming is an understatement, how about highway robbery, giants software isnt even close to what it once was. fs25 will not run without crashing on my laptop despite it meeting the minimum requirements. contacted support within 2 hours of downloading and they refuse to issue a refund. so in my opinion they are thieves.