If you love living out your fantasy as a farmer, the farming simulator genre is packed with options. One of the newest and most robust is Farming Simulator 22. Here’s how it works, and what sort of mods and shortcuts can get you from small-time farming to an agricultural empire.
Farming Simulator 22 Summary
Farming Simulator 22 is a 2022 release of the latest Farming Simulator title. These sim games are incredibly in-depth creations from Giants Software. They’re famous for being packed with content, which has drawn a crowd of fans (and quite a lot of merch, too).
Living the quiet life has been a gaming fantasy since Stardew Valley and far beyond. But Farming Simulator takes the experience to the next level. It allows players to build detailed, realistic farming plots and carefully manage them, in and out of season, to produce maximum yields.
Players don’t just manage a wide variety of plants, crops, fertilizers, and livestock. They also take care of very realistic machinery, including maintenance, fuel, leasing arrangements, new wheels, and more. Plus, there are a number of final items players can purchase or create, from cheese and cakes to fabric and furniture. Spend enough time in the sim world, and you can craft your own farm home down to the smallest detail.
Of course, challenges also await. Farmers must handle contract issues, poor weather, equipment breakdowns, and other trials that can put their farms into jeopardy. But overall, it’s a fairly casual playthrough and an excellent game for players who love details and don’t mind learning. The game is available on a variety of platforms, including PC, mobile, Mac, Xbox, PlayStation, Switch, and more. It also offers a variety of additional media for the truly obsessed, including magazines, podcasts, and more. Yeah, it’s big.
Farming Simulator 22 Premise
Farming Simulator 22 looks pretty daunting for newcomers, but the game actually works hard to help out new players. This latest iteration of farming sims is packed with details, but follows a basic starting roadmap (and lots of tutorials).
First, you choose a farming specialty that you want to pursue on your way to a massive enterprise. You can pick between agriculture, animal husbandry, and forestry (primarily timber harvesting).
You can start with a new farmer mode, which gives you several of the most important machines you need to get started. Players looking for a challenge can pick other situations which require more knowledge and often more work. The game recommends starting with agriculture, too, and moving onto a different specialty once you get the basics down. For the agriculture mode example, you need machines like a tractor, cultivator, seeder, weeder, fertilizer spreader, harvester, and trailer. Most of these are provided in the newcomer mode. From here, you can start taking lessons in operation. Eventually many other types of machinery will be available to purchase, almost all based on real-world brands and models.
The game works in a HUD to manage your machinery and other elements, plus a map to view your plots of land, study the weather, and keep track of growth. There are also in-depth menus and massive amounts of icons to learn as you start purchasing tools, fertilizers, and more.
The first and most important goal is to make cash and start visiting the shop to upgrade your equipment, and eventually buy more land. You also have the option to lease equipment over time to access more powerful machinery early on. This can be difficult, but new farmers can also make more money by taking on “contracts” or specific working jobs from digital characters. These contracts allow you to borrow some equipment you may not have yet, so they’re a good way to get experience, too.
As your farm grows, you can adopt AI “workers” who can help manage your farm for you. These workers come with their own complex menu where you can tweak their settings, and give them automatic tasks.
Research is vital when growing your farming business. If you’re growing crops, you need to pick key crops and crop rotations, then study the growing cycles and fertilizers they need. That includes crop calendars to study so you know what tasks to prepare for as months pass. If you’re raising animals, you need to learn about your specific breed, the housing and food they need, and how to successfully breed them. Likewise, forestry requires you to learn about tree species, the best ways to fall, mulch, and transport timber, and more. It’s a lot! But people who play the games love digging into everything they need and setting up a farm that functions smoothly.
One of the most fun parts of the game is browsing through the store and finding a favorite brand to start purchasing equipment from. You can upgrade equipment in a variety of ways, and find new models available for your specific farming needs. Machines are carefully modeled and surprisingly beautiful.
In addition to all this, Farming Simulator 22 also has a couple of ongoing activities for more experienced gamers to keep having fun. First are seasons, which typically last an entire year. Purchasing a season pass gets you access to new brands, new crops, and other goodies along with some extra milestones to pursue. Then there are Leagues, which are composed of teams that work together to try to make the most powerful farming empire. You are able to join a team and compete against rival teams in this mode.
Like other massive computer-based sims, the game also has access to a number of mods, which can change the experience substantially. We’ll talk about that more below, as it’s directly connected to how cheats work in the game.
Farming Simulator 22: Games in the Series
Just how many farming simulators are there? Contrary to the name, there aren’t actually 22 titles in this series, although there are a lot. Currently, there are 13 different versions of the standard Farming Simulator game, with releases around every three years. They have odd numbers based primarily on the year that they were released, including older games like Farming Simulator 8, Farming Simulator 12, Farming Simulator 17, and so on.
But things get even more complicated. On mobile platforms, Farming Simulator games have a different cycle of release, so they get different titles, six in total. And their latest title is Farming Simulator 23, while other platforms are on Farming Simulator 22.
To cut through all this clutter, we’re going to be focusing on the PC/console version of Farming Simulator 22. If you’re playing on mobile, this guide won’t apply. Read on to get more details.
Farming Simulator 22 Cheats & Codes
With such a complicated game, you better believe there are ways to advance in Farming Simulator 22. These range from tweaks in the settings to powerful mods to outright cheat codes with console commands. We’ll cover everything you can do and how effective it is when mastering the game.
Speed Up the Days Per Month
The game’s menu has a built-in way to adjust how many real-life days it takes for a month to pass. You can easily use this to your advantage to craft a game progression that works best for you. Want to speed time up through slow months? Set the clock to pass a month for each day (default settings usually pick this). Want to slow down time to learn the ropes? Set the clock to take several days or so for each month. You can easily bounce back and forth depending on what makes you the most efficient.
Pick Out Helpful Mods
Farming Simulator 22 has tons of officially endorsed mods which are more or less guaranteed to work with the game. Many of these mods are free, many are paid for, and they span categories from new equipment to additional maps. Browse the mods, and you can find many tools and tricks to help you excel at the game.
Some equipment mods give you a more efficient farming process. Certain storage or map options may be better than standard versions. Some mods even add extra capabilities like skipping sleep or the ability to literally sell the whole farm. It’s a trove of unique enhancements, and dedicated players will enjoy finding what works best for them. The downside is that you may have to pay for some of the best ones. We suggest starting with the most popular mods, and then looking for specific mods that will make your gameplay easier or add assets that you really need. This is especially helpful when you move beyond agriculture to other ways to play.
Use Console Commands
With the right settings, you also have the ability to input console commands when you are playing the game. These allow you to change things on the fly, including some excellent powerups to give your game an advantage.
Please remember, console commands are primarily a PC-only cheat option. They won’t work on other devices like consoles, so your mileage may vary. They’re also disabled for league and other types of activities.
- Find your Farming Simulator 22 game file in your documents. Its location should be in the C drive on PC, which usually has a games section in Documents.
- Inside Farm Simulator 22, find the file called game.xml and open it via a basic text editor (Notepad works well here).
- You’ll need to make a couple of careful edits. Don’t change anything else here or risk major problems. Use the Find function to locate the section that says, “<development><controls>false</controls>” and change it to, “<development><controls>true</controls>” then save. This gives enables console commands for the game.
- Go to your Steam version of the game (this step may work in other platforms but Steam is the most reliable). Right-click on the game and choose Properties.
- In the General tab, find the section called Launch Options, where you can type in a command. Here, simply type in “-cheats” to activate console commands. You can close the menu when you’re finished.
- Now when you’re in the game, you can press the “~” or tilde symbol to open the console command window, and again to input a command. Several commands can be very helpful here.
- gsTimeSEt <hour> – </hour> can switch the time of day whenever you want.
- gsTeleport “field #” will immediately teleport you to a field of your choice.
- gsFarmlandBuyAll will buy all farmland on the current map immediately.
- GsMoneyAdd <amount>#</amount> lets you add whatever amount of money you want.
Direct File Edits for Money Management
This is another option that’s only available for computer players with the right access, but it’s relatively fast and allows for instant results. Of course, directly editing game files isn’t usually a smart idea: It’s very easy to wreck your saved game and can be difficult or impossible to reverse. That’s why we’re focusing on one particular trick that’s relatively safe and yields immense results. Here’s what to do:
- Once again, find your Farming Simulator 22 game file in your documents in the C Drive on your PC.
- This time, open the folder and look for the folder for your saved game. You can have multiple saved games, and they’re number with titles like “savegame1.” Choose the current game you’re working on and open the folder.
- Go to the farms.xml file and open it via a text editor like Notepad.
- Use the Find function to search for the keyword, “Money.” You can also look for, “Loan.” Locate the section that includes “farmId” and provides info on your “loan,” “money,” and “loanAnnualInterestRate.”
- Any of these numbers can be adjusted. Of course, the easiest number to adjust is your money, which you can set to almost anything your want (leave the decimal integers out to the same extent, to avoid issues). You can also change your interest rate to make things easier over time without the same kind of overt cheating.
- Save the game file when you’re done. Launch your game again to make sure everything is working properly.
Farming Simulator 22 Cheats FAQ
Let’s wrap up with a few common questions about how all this works on Farming Simulator 22.
Do I Need the Latest Version of Farming Simulator for These Cheats to Work?
Yes, you need to play Farming Simulator 22 on computer or console for the cheat options we’ve gone over above. Some of the cheats may work on earlier versions of the game, such as console commands, but we can’t guarantee it. Also, many current mods won’t work on older versions of the game, so compatibility is important, too.
What Do I Grow If I Want to Make Money as Fast as I Can?
The most common advice is to start with grass. Grass grows very quickly, doesn’t take a lot of work to maintain, and sells easily at the market. It’s a great way to bring in a lot of cash while you’re still learning the basics of the game and expanding your business. However, with our tips above you can grow almost anything you want and still succeed, so prioritize your fun.
Do I Need to Have Season Cycles in Farming Simulator 22?
Season cycles require you to grow and harvest your crops at certain times throughout the year or risk losing them. It helps keep the game more aligned with real-life farming and puts some challenge and time constraints on your play. That’s why many players love the season cycles. However, in settings you can find options to turn the season cycles off entirely if you want. That’s not exactly cheating, but it is like enabling an easy mode in the game that can help you if you’re struggling.
I’m Raising Animals: Which is the Best to Raise?
To make the most profit, you should probably start out with chickens. Once you have amassed a lot of land to devote to livestock, you can switch to cattle for some of the best returns. Goats and bees can also be surprisingly profitable, especially for those raising livestock on the side.
The image featured at the top of this post is ©https://store.steampowered.com/app/1248130/Farming_Simulator_22/.