Farming Simulator 25 has been announced! The newest release of the game comes with many different features – and many of them are spearheaded by GIANTS Engine 10, the latest engine from the game’s developers. In this article, we’ll take a look at what this version will bring to the latest game.
FarmCon 24 has revealed plenty of new and exciting stuff about the upcoming FS25 game – and for many, ourselves included, the main star of the show was deformable soil. For the first time ever in the Farming Simulator franchise, your machinery will actually interact with the soil, leaving real tracks. This was previously only simulated as a basic structure. Now, the soil dynamics will be significantly different. For example, when a tractor goes through a field, the soil will actually get deformed, and the tyre tracks get pressed into the ground. It’s a real deformation, not a texture. And it’s going to stay here for a long time, remaining just like the tyre tracks would in real life.
Water is an important part of the environment in the game, and the latest updates make it a lot more realistic, giving your aquatic maps an even better immersion. The latest GIANTS Engine 10 massively enhances the water appearance, and makes it significantly more dynamic. Here’s a good example: whenever a vehicle drives into a flooded rice paddy, the water pushes out naturally, and forms new puddles. Together with dynamic soil, this will make for a very realistic and improved nature experience.
The GIANTS Engine 10 was showcased extensively on FarmCon 24, and the daytime sky has received a lot of amazing improvements. There are new cloud animations, and the realistic light coming from the sun and bouncing off the clouds offer beautiful and realistic reflections, leading to an even more visually striking appearance. The clouds won’t just be one solid block not letting the sun go through – the light will actually be able to go right through some of the thinner clouds. The fog and moisture mechanics are massively upgraded as well, with the realistic volumetric fog filling the fields and the dew on the plants, the morning farming routines will get even more picturesque.
Night time will not be more than just the absence of light. On Farming Simulator 25, a lot more attention will be brought to the way the night sky looks. You will see the stars, and the Milky Way. Moon light is also added – giving you a soft additional light source, bouncing off your vehicle. On the released images, we can see the massive Claas Xerion working at night, with its headlights on. There you can see the light of the moon illuminating the entire scene, and the shadows it creates.
Some released scenes don’t have either sun, or the moon providing any light, instead showing what it’s like to work in absolute darkness. But in fact, we actually loved seeing how the environment interacts with all types of different light sources. Like how a Massey Ferguson rolls around with street lighting illuminating it. Even the road appears to be reflecting some of the light coming from the tractor as well. Of course, it’s important to not get overly excited by the promo images: sometimes, these changes don’t look as dramatic in the finished game on your computer. That being said, all sources of light in the game look particularly good, especially at night. The street lights, the stoplights, and the headlights on your vehicle all appear to be very realistic and react perfectly with the environment. Can’t wait to test it out!
Rain is obviously a crucial part of any Farming Simulator game – and Farming Simulator 25 will finally give it a well overdue massive upgrade. Raindrops will have upgraded physics, splashing of hard surfaces, giving them a wet appearance, and changing the way they reflect light. The pictured Fendt 720 Vario on the released pictures showcase the dark and shiny tyres. Both your fields and your machinery will look and interact with the environment differently during and after the rain, making it a lot more realistic.
Farming Simulator 25 will continue the trend of maps with large, sweeping forests. This is good for aesthetic reasons – as well as it’s incredibly useful if you plan to use forestry as an important source of income on your FS25 farm. The latest GIANTS Engine 10 updates the way trees grow and look. The treetops and branches will all look slightly different, and a lot more realistic, growing at different rates, and pointing in different directions.
Compared to FS22, the latest game has higher system requirements, and a lot of the extra resources required will help to make the lush forests look better than ever before. The level of detail is massively improved, making the forest look good from both far away, and up close and personal. The smooth long boundaries won’t break off as instantly as before, making the gaming experience a lot smoother.
This is one of the most-mentioned features on FS25, and we totally understand why. Sun rays, when done well, can give your farm a wonderful and completely brand new atmosphere. Especially at dawn and dusk, when the sun is low, shining through the treetops and the fog, lighting up the wonderful natural landscapes. The so-called God Rays shining through gaps, plants, and clouds look like they’re taken right out of a painting. The previously mentioned cloud mechanic also looks significantly better when paired up with the new lighting mechanic. This is very clear when comparing the old game with the new one. Shadows look significantly better as well, and you can really see the improvement between the new versions. Only time will tell how much of this will reflect in real-life FS25 gameplay scenarios for all of us, but we’re excited to find out.
In the showcase, we saw the camera go through a wheat field – this gave us an opportunity to witness the new sharper textures. There is also information that the crops won’t act as an uniform texture – no field will look identical to the other one, with unique growing patterns, and individual stalks pointing in different directions, your fields will look a lot better. It’s a more realistic and diversified style. Large wheat fields might cause frame drops at lower-end PCs, but we expect things to be fairly optimized as the full game rolls out.
There is still no information whether Farming Simulator 25 will use some of the same exhaust animations we have seen in the previous game. That being said, the released media of the Massey Ferguson shows some great exhaust animations, which react well to the rear fog light.
One thing that seems to be unchanged is the field angle. FS25 will have the exact same field angles as FS22, meaning that it will not be possible to draw a perfect circle using a single share plow. That sounds like a good idea for a mod – or a feature at a later Farming Simulator game.
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Farming Simulator 25 Mods