Farming Simulator 22
Giants Software · Simulation, Management, Sandbox
Overview
Create your farm and let the good times grow! Harvest crops, tend to animals, manage productions, and take on seasonal challenges.
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Take on the role of a modern farmer! Agriculture, animal husbandry and forestry offer a huge variety of farming activities while you face the challenges of the four seasons, especially when winter sets in. Creatively build your own farm and extend your farming operations with production chains - forming an agricultural empire! Even run your farm together with friends and enjoy crossplatform multiplayer together.
Whether you create a lush vineyard or an olive orchard in the Mediterranean south of France, a vast farmland full of wheat, corn, potatoes and cotton in the US-Midwest or a lively animal farm in the hilly landscape of the European Alpine region: More than 400 machines and tools from over 100 real agricultural brands like Case IH, CLAAS, Fendt, John Deere, Massey Ferguson, New Holland, Valtra and many more are available for your farm.
Farming Simulator 22 brings a multitude of new gameplay features and offers more content and player freedom than ever before, including new ground working features like mulching or stone picking, an improved build-mode adding greenhouses and beehives, as well as a new character creator to bring your own, individual farmer to life.
A large variety of free community-created modifications, officially tested by the developer GIANTS Software, will extend your farming experience many times over. Rise to the challenges of becoming a successful farmer, start farming and let the good times grow!
From the game's Steam store page.
THE GAMEQ VERDICT9,999 reviews analyzed
What players are actually saying
1. Summary
The longer reviews talk about mods more than anything else, praising the built-in ModHub and the community maps, machines and scripts it opens up. Next come the real, licensed tractors and implements, farming with friends and family, the work beyond the fields (animals, vineyards, production chains, forestry) and a slow pace that 13% of the longer reviews call relaxing or calming. Some reviewers who farm in real life say it feels close to the job. Comparisons with Farming Simulator 25 run through the later reviews, and more of those reviewers say they are staying on 22 than tell buyers to move up, citing the mod library and how well it runs.
Bugs, crashes and maps that stop loading are the most common complaint in the longer reviews and appear in a third of the detailed negative ones, and a smaller, angry group lost save files. After that come the DLC and bundle setup, a tutorial that sends newcomers to YouTube, and AI helpers that get stuck or drive into rivers. Some long-time series players add that much of it still plays like Farming Simulator 19. Reviewers differ on how much patching, modding and outside help the game needs before it is fun.
2. What keeps coming up
What players praise
Mods and the built-in ModHub carry the gameHigh
28% of the longer reviews (476) talk about mods, the most-discussed topic in the reviews. Players praise the in-game ModHub that installs mods in a click and pulls a server's mods automatically when friends join, the community maps from Calmsden to No Man's Land, and script mods such as Courseplay and AutoDrive that patch the game's weaker systems. Mods also let people turn the game into something else: mining, trucking, 1980s farms, roleplay servers. "The vanilla game is good, but the hundreds of mods available take it to a whole new level," one reviewer writes. Players who moved from console to PC (21 reviews) point to the bigger mod library there.
34 reviews say outright that the base game is boring or barely playable without mods, and some credit the modders more than the studio: "Without mods, the game would kinda suck. but the mods and community makes this game so much better." Heavy mod lists also come up as a suspect when saves stop loading (see the crash complaints below).
Licensed machines to buy, drive and upgradeHigh
22% of the longer reviews (376) talk about the tractors, combines, trucks and implements. Reviewers like the detail: real John Deere, Fendt, Claas, New Holland and Kubota models, working gearboxes, animated implements, and the satisfaction of finally affording a bigger combine. Wheel and joystick owners say the machines feel best with dedicated hardware. The gaps players point to are specific: more older and vintage equipment, more American trucks, and a thin choice of machines for specialty crops, which one reviewer called "a garbage selection of vehicles and equipment for things such as grapes, olives, cotton, beets, and potatoes."
Better with friends, family and cross-playHigh
14% of the longer reviews (239) bring up friends, partners, kids or multiplayer. Reviewers describe co-op farms where one person harvests while another hauls grain, parents playing with young children, and cross-platform sessions with Xbox and PlayStation friends. "This game works perfectly fine solo player, but it's sooooo much better to have a laugh with your friends," one writes. Some solo players find it lonely or slow, and players who could not get a session to connect are covered under the multiplayer complaints below.
More to do than plough: animals, production chains, forestry and seasonsHigh
14% of the longer reviews (233) talk about the wider systems. Production chains (bakeries, spinneries, sugar mills) get credit as a step up from earlier games, with one reviewer writing that "Production chains were a great addition." Grapes, olives, greenhouses, bees and the seasonal calendar get warm mentions. Forestry splits people: players who love logging praise the Platinum expansion, while others find the cranes, log physics and chipper clumsy. A few think production chains make money too easily, turning the late game into "forklift simulator".
A calm, zen paceHigh
13% of the longer reviews (227) describe the game as relaxing, calming, chill or stress-relieving. People play it after work, with podcasts or country radio on, or as a break from competitive shooters. "It rewards patience, routine, and that beautiful feeling of building something slowly," one reviewer writes. Several say they never expected to enjoy a farming game and lost whole evenings to it.
Realism that teaches real farmingHigh
10% of the longer reviews (172) call the game realistic or say it taught them about agriculture, from soil prep and crop rotation to identifying machinery on the road. Some reviewers farm in real life: "As a farmer of 20 years I do love this game," one writes, and others come home from the fields and keep farming on screen. Dissent also comes from people who know the real work. Some say the economy and simulation are shallow, and a negative reviewer who cites an agronomy degree writes: "Basically, it's a living brochure of farming equipment."
Where players are split
Farming Simulator 22 or 25?High
10% of the longer reviews (176) compare the game with Farming Simulator 25. Across all reviews, 75 say 22 is the better game or tell people to skip 25, while 56 point buyers toward 25. Those staying on 22 give similar reasons: the bigger mod library, better performance on older PCs, a lower price, and reports of crashes and an awkward interface in 25's early months. "It's like Farming Simulator 2025, but without the bugs, more content, runs better, and does more!" one reviewer writes. The other side praises 25's graphics, workers and new crops, and some say that once the price gap closed, "now that farming sim 25 is the same price your better off buying that." Before 25 came out, the comparison showed up as anticipation: 54 reviews written before its release say the reviewer was waiting for it or for the next game.
Repetitive by designMedium
9% of the longer reviews (151) call the game repetitive, grindy, tedious or boring. For some of them that is the appeal: "Very grindy and repetitive, but strangely addictive." For others the loop of cultivate, seed, wait and harvest wears thin, especially solo, during the slow early cash grind or while sleeping through months for crops to grow. A separate group says money comes too easily for there to be any challenge: solar panels, wind turbines and production income make money too easily, as in "Start any career mode, buy solar panels sleep rinse repeat 100 million dollars in 3 years."
A real step up from FS19, or FS19 again?Medium
8% of the longer reviews (142) compare the game with Farming Simulator 19 or talk about its engine and physics. One camp calls it a clear upgrade thanks to production chains, seasons, gearboxes, forestry and graphics. The other says it is the same game with new content, summed up bluntly as "Same game different number." Criticism centres on the physics: vehicles that feel weightless, logs that slide out of grabbers, tractors that flip or launch into the air, and no damage model. One reviewer writes that "the abymssal vehicle physics haven't even remotely been touched." Several of these reviewers say they have played the series since earlier entries.
Runs on a potato, or stutters on a high-end PCMedium
8% of the longer reviews (130) discuss performance, and they pull in opposite directions. About half of those (68) say it runs well on modest laptops, integrated graphics, Apple Silicon Macs, the Steam Deck or Linux through Proton, some comparing it favourably with 25: "this game is super fun and even runs smooth on my igpu." Others report stutter that no setting fixes, even on RTX 4080 and 4090 cards, with blame put on shader compilation and a mostly single-threaded engine: "Major stuttering issues that do not go away no matter the resolution or graphics settings." Large mod lists and big maps make it worse.
What frustrates players
Crashes, loading hangs and lost savesHigh
13% of the longer reviews (227) report bugs, glitches, crashes or a game that will not launch, and the problem appears in 34% of the detailed negative reviews (103). The specifics repeat: maps that freeze partway through loading, a "black sky" bug that hides the sky and vehicle wheels, cotton contracts that cannot be finished because a harvester will not drop a partial bale, controller bindings that reset, and crashes when placing buildings or opening the shop. A cluster of reviews written in July and August 2024 describe the game crashing at 21 to 28% while loading a map after a graphics driver update, with fixes such as "Did you update to the latest Nvidia Driver? Yes? Me too.. Rollback or reinstall an older version and you will be good!" and switching the renderer to DirectX 11.
38 reviews describe a save that was deleted, corrupted or would not load, and they blame the save system itself: "Saving is not a safe process." Reviewers report autosaves that trigger whenever the menu opens, no manual restore points, and that "when you alt+f4 when the game is saving your save game gets deleted." A few longer reviews note that the game launched in rough shape in 2021 and was patched into much better form, while others say known bugs were left unfixed once work moved to 25.
DLC, season passes and bundles that punish early buyersMedium
9% of the longer reviews (144) talk about DLC, season passes, bundles or server licences, and the topic appears in 21% of the detailed negative reviews (63). One specific complaint is the bundle rule: reviewers say owners of the base game cannot buy the discounted Premium or Platinum editions, so completing the collection costs more than a new buyer pays. "when it's cheaper for a new player to get access to the DLCs than someone who's had the game for years, it's a problem," one reviewer writes. Others struggle with the naming of editions, expansions and Year 1 and Year 2 passes: "Doing 2 hours of research before knowing what to buy without overpaying is just absurd." Further gripes include the total price of the DLC catalogue, passenger seats sold as part of a DLC, friends needing the same DLC to share a server, and in-game billboards advertising DLC. Some reviewers answer that free mods replace most packs, and several advise buying the Premium Edition on sale from the start.
A tutorial that sends newcomers to YouTubeMedium
7% of the longer reviews (110) complain about the tutorial, the learning curve or having to look things up, and they make up 12% of the detailed negative reviews (37). About a third of them (38) come from players with under ten hours in the game. They describe a short tutorial that covers the basics and stops, help pages with no search, contracts and leased equipment with no explanation of where to find them, and implements whose compatibility is unclear. One frustrated newcomer writes, "The entire tutorial is just using 3 tractors and hiring employees to do it for you." Even happy players echo it: "Extremely addicting once you figure it out, but the tutorial is terrible. Google is your best friend with this game." Several recommend specific YouTube beginner guides.
AI helpers that need babysittingMedium
5% of the longer reviews (88) talk about the hired helpers, and most of what they say is critical. The in-game message "Helper A is blocked by an object" turns up in a few reviews as a joke: "Helper A is blocked by an object, Has been most of the game." Players describe helpers that give up on odd-shaped fields, leave unworked strips, report a target as unreachable, flip machines or drive them into rivers, and cannot handle baling, silage hauling or multi-step jobs. Solo players say the problem hits them hardest, since the helpers are what lets one person run a large farm: "In reality a worker can barely handle driving from one field to the next let alone drive across the map or handle delivering anything." Ten reviews recommend the Courseplay or AutoDrive mods instead. The AI road traffic draws similar complaints, with cars that ignore the player and act as immovable walls in a crash.
Pallets, bales, logs and terrain toolsLow
Some detailed reviews complain about the physical handling of goods and land. Pallets and bales are fiddly to load, bales roll away, logs slip out of cranes, and train wagons are hard to unload: "Loading bails made me cry." The construction and landscaping tools draw similar complaints, with buildings that sink or raise the ground into bumps, no way to flatten land cleanly, no undo, and items such as fences that cannot be sold back. As one reviewer puts it, "Terrain manipulation tools are a straight drama".
Keyboard driving and wheel setupLow
4% of the longer reviews (72) talk about controls. Keyboard steering draws complaints ("The driving is the absolute worst experience on keyboard and mouse."), and several reviewers simply advise a controller, wheel or joystick. Wheel owners in turn report a large default deadzone, weak force feedback and settings that reset when the device moves to another USB port. A few say their keybindings reset on their own, and left-handed players struggle to remap controls.
Multiplayer that will not connectLow
2% of the longer reviews (38) describe multiplayer failing: friends' servers that never appear, cross-play sessions that will not join, mod mismatches that block entry, lag and desync. Running a dedicated server needs a second licence of the game and its DLC, which reviewers call a cash grab, and others note there is no direct IP connection. "singleplayer is alright, multiplayer is a horrible experience," one player writes.
3. The player conversation
The tone is friendly, with tractor jokes, Clarkson's Farm references, parents playing with their children and players who say a farming game surprised them. The negative reviews come back to a handful of concrete problems, and 16% of the positive longer reviews (217) also mention bugs, the AI or DLC. Newer players raise the tutorial, the controls and the confusing early game. Series veterans with years of earlier entries behind them raise the FS19 comparison, the physics, the DLC economics and the helpers. Mods come up across both groups.
Reviews written in July and August 2024 contain the cluster of map-loading crashes linked to a graphics driver update, and the weekly positive share in those reviews dipped to 86% in the week of 22 July 2024 before returning above 90% in early August. From mid-2024 reviewers began looking ahead to Farming Simulator 25, and after its release the comparison became a fixture, with more reviewers defending 22 than sending buyers on to 25.
4. What the developers could do
- Fix the map-loading crashes and driver conflicts. Crashes and launch failures are the most common complaint in the detailed reviews, and a cluster of players lost access to their farms at 21 to 28% loading after a graphics driver update.
- Make saving crash-proof and recoverable. Players lost long-running farms to corrupted saves and describe a system that overwrites the old file in place, autosaves on every menu open and deletes the save if the game closes mid-write.
- Let existing owners complete their collection at the bundle price. DLC, bundles and passes appear in a fifth of the detailed negative reviews, including from players who say they otherwise love the game.
- Build a real onboarding path. Newcomers who refunded or gave up say the tutorial stops after the basics and leaves contracts, leasing, storage and equipment compatibility for YouTube to explain.
- Give the AI helpers better pathfinding and more jobs. Solo players need helpers that handle odd-shaped fields and obstacles without stalling and can bale and haul, and some install Courseplay to get it.
- Drop the second licence for dedicated servers and make joining reliable. Co-op is a major draw in the positive reviews, and reviewers who could not connect or had to buy the game twice to host say it soured the whole experience.
- Smooth out pallet, bale, log and terrain handling. Fiddly loading, sliding logs, bumpy terrain edits and the lack of an undo come up in the detailed reviews as daily annoyances.
- Fix wheel deadzone and force-feedback defaults and improve keyboard steering. Wheel owners report a large default deadzone and weak force feedback, and keyboard players say the driving is hard to control without extra hardware.
