There’s a tendency to view weird, complicated games that simulate real jobs as a niche market, but the Farming Simulator series has proven time and again: it’s mainstream, baby. Farming Simulator 2025 launched one week ago and has already harvested more than two million players on all platforms. The sim also attracted over 125,000 concurrent players on Steam the day it launched.
That makes it the biggest launch in the history of the Farming Simulator series, which has been plowing along since way back in 2008.
“Farming Simulator 25 marks our most successful launch yet and proves that our bond with the community has grown even stronger,” Giants Software said in an email sent to PC Gamer, also noting that FS 25 surpassed sales of its last game, Farming Simulator 22, which sold 1.5 million copies in its first week. The entire series, meanwhile, has sold over 40 million copies. That’s a whole lotta farmers.
As seems to happen with nearly all big releases these days, Farming Simulator 25 was met initially with “Mixed” reviews on Steam, though it’s currently leveled out at “Mostly Positive.” Some early complaints were that the sim hasn’t really leapt forward technologically to provide the deeper and more complex sim experience some fans have been hoping for, but most players seem happy with the new features like weather systems and ground deformation.
I’m ashamed to say I haven’t played it yet myself—I really enjoyed Farming Simulator 22—but I plan to jump in once I’ve got more time. Maybe after I’ve checked out another big sim game launching this week, Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024, though it’s having a bit of trouble getting off the ground.
