Farm Manager 2022 is the latest offering in the Farm Manager series by Ultimate Games. Does it knock it out of the park? Maybe, but that kind of depends on your perspective, what you like in a farm simulator, and probably most important, what platform you’re playing on.
Right off, let’s talk about the elephant in the room. How does it compare to Farming Simulator 22, which we also reviewed? Well, on the surface the two games seem like they’d be virtually identical, but that’s not the case. They have very different focuses.
The Farming Simulator series leans hard into equipment, planting, and crop choices, and weather. The Farm Manager series focuses more on resources management and production. Is there overlap? Of course, but simulation fans know that the primary focus of a simulation is what makes the game. Playing Farm Simulator and playing Farm Manager are actually really different. Which one is better? That depends on how you like to play.
But this is a review of Farm Manager 2022, so let’s get into it. First off, I think the tutorial is better than the one is FS22, but it’s a low bar. Actually, my biggest issue with the Farm Manager tutorial is my biggest issue with the game in general and that’s the platform. I have a PlayStation 5 connected to a large flatscreen, perfect for playing games like Horizon Forbidden West, however, it’s not great for simulation games that have deep menus, and friends, Farm Manager 2022 has some very deep menus.
Moving through the menus with a controller is just clunky. There’s no two ways about it, and even on my big TV, it can be hard to read the screen because there are so many menus the writing is small. It just doesn’t scale up well on the big screen. Don’t think I’m picking on Farm Manager or Ultimate Games though. That is an almost universal problem with playing simulations on consoles. They are the only games I prefer to play on a desktop. I love my PS5, but not for simulations. It’s too clunky.
As for gameplay beyond the controller clunkiness, I found it a little uneven. The difficulty also doesn’t scale well. It starts off simple enough but rapidly becomes overwhelming.
This game is deep with tons of staff to manage, loads of animals, equipment, buildings, and multiple crops to reap and sell. Moving through all the parts and tracking everything is not for the casual gamer. This is not a simulation you play for a couple of hours and then come back to a few days later. This game is a commitment if you have any hope of remembering everything you have going on and to be successful managing it.
That said, hardcore simulation gamers live for that kind of depth, so whether you will love this or hate it, really depends on whether you enjoy that kind of intensity.
Are you a hardcore simulation gamer? What is your preferred platform? Am I a baby for not enjoying the process on console or do you agree that desktop is the way to go for simulations? Let us know in the comments below.
Developers: Cleversan Software
Platforms: PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X
I got myself a copy of the Farm Manager 2022 an played it in the last week quite intense and ended up with many CTDs (is it the same wording on consoles?) and a final one which pops up every time I load my safe – so I guess, the safe – I invest my last 20 hours of playtime – is bugged.
Bugs are also in the game. For instance:
Routing: Tractors and Harvesters drive to the nearest corner of the map and then turn back to the street which cuts the map in two halves.
When a harvester and a Tractor with a trailer needs to work at a field, the Tractor don’t follow the Harvester and wait beside the Field instead he is waiting close to the parking lot.
The frozen food processor building has a wrong capacity value.
Relocating permanent employees are bugged also, you can do it once or twice at the very beginning of a session, but need to reload the game for more relocations… This is annoying if you plan to reorganize the ways of your employees due to restructuring of your fields, garages or processing buildings.