Feedback from a long-time fan: It is time to revolutionize terrain and vehicle physics

[jakub25]

Dear GIANTS Software Team,I have been a loyal player of the Farming Simulator franchise since its early days. I love the agriculture industry and appreciate the massive amount of licensed machinery and production chains you have brought to the game over the years.However, as a player who has been with the series since 2009, I feel it is time to be completely honest about the state of the game's core engine. While visual details, maps, and brands improve with every new release, the vehicle physics and terrain behavior feel fundamentally unchanged for over a decade. Driving still feels like "moving on rails," with zero realistic tire sinkage, no dynamic mud, and no actual interaction between heavy machinery and the soil.With the release of Farming Simulator 25, the community is once again forced to rely heavily on third-party scripts (like Real Mud or physics overhauls) to make the gameplay feel remotely realistic.For the next installment of the franchise, I strongly urge the development team to look for inspiration outside of your current bubble. Games like SnowRunner (Saber Interactive) have proven that a truly dynamic terrain simulation—where tire pressure, differential locks, mud depth, and vehicle weight actually matter—is not only possible but incredibly fun and engaging.Please consider either collaborating with physics experts or completely overhauling your own engine for the next game. Farming is a battle with nature and soil, but right now, your terrain feels like painted concrete. We don't just need more brands; we need a true simulation.Thank you for your time, your hard work, and for considering this feedback from a passionate fan.Best regards,

[FBtheSQL]

Ultimate Farmer, using the Unreal 5 engine is in the planning phase.
Unreal 5, the state of the art engine that can't do what the Giants engine can do, according to Giants developers. Many here actually believed them.

[Guil]

Must look up that, presume it's on steam?

[FBtheSQL]

It's not on Steam, but they have a site with info.
As I said, it's in planning phase currently. I'm not getting my hopes up yet, but my fingers are crossed.

[Massey44]

Ultimate Farmer has a lot of potential and it seems they're well aware of how optimised it has to be, which is always an issue with some devs using Unreal Engine 5. There's also news floating around about Heartland which sounds like it might be a new farming game from Focus.

[gile]

@jakub25
I hear you; I also want more realistic physics—what we have now looks like a bad joke. For the time being, I’m helping myself out a bit with a nice mod called Tractor Terrain Dynamics.

But this *Ultimate Farmer*... that’s going to be the end of Giants if they don’t do something about the physics in the next game...

[baltic1284]

I agree they need to up the realism of the game terrain and feel of the equipment, but I also want them to stop picking and choosing what equipment is in the game ie if they say we added CaseIH then all of CaseIH needs be in the game all their equipment tractors combines specialty equipment when appliable, including tillage equipment and planter's seeder and such. So far all they do from my view is minimum work and minimum adding of brands I don't mind if they add brands from Europe or Asia but add all that brand has that pertains to farming, not just some here and some there.
Maps do need a lot of work in realism itself in both Soil animation and effect of equipment added and better treatment of the soil when it comes to Manure and such like Realistic Soil & Fertilizer for the game and not just Precision Soil simplified to the most minimum of things, yes not all players want that level but you can add options to turn it on or off.

[Drmattymd]

@jakub25
I hear you; I also want more realistic physics—what we have now looks like a bad joke. For the time being, I’m helping myself out a bit with a nice mod called Tractor Terrain Dynamics.

But this *Ultimate Farmer*... that’s going to be the end of Giants if they don’t do something about the physics in the next game...

Dont hold your breath just yet, so far all they have is some pretty environment.

[FBtheSQL]

@jakub25
I hear you; I also want more realistic physics—what we have now looks like a bad joke. For the time being, I’m helping myself out a bit with a nice mod called Tractor Terrain Dynamics.

But this *Ultimate Farmer*... that’s going to be the end of Giants if they don’t do something about the physics in the next game...

Dont hold your breath just yet, so far all they have is some pretty environment.

We'll hopefully know more about Ultimate Farmer by the time Farmer Simulator 2008v9 is pasted and released to testers who pre-ordered.

[Rickenbacker]

Ultimate Farmer, using the Unreal 5 engine is in the planning phase.
Unreal 5, the state of the art engine that can't do what the Giants engine can do, according to Giants developers. Many here actually believed them.

Sounds great! But we've had at least three different attempts at this, with way better physics, and graphics, and none of them have managed to hit the playability balance that Giants does every time. I hope this is the one, but I'll believe it when I see it.

Edit: Checked the site, did some digging. All that exists seems to be AI generated nonsense and a few AI generated images. This project will never get off the ground.

[BreadedVirus]

Dear GIANTS Software Team,I have been a loyal player of the Farming Simulator franchise since its early days. I love the agriculture industry and appreciate the massive amount of licensed machinery and production chains you have brought to the game over the years.However, as a player who has been with the series since 2009, I feel it is time to be completely honest about the state of the game's core engine. While visual details, maps, and brands improve with every new release, the vehicle physics and terrain behavior feel fundamentally unchanged for over a decade. Driving still feels like "moving on rails," with zero realistic tire sinkage, no dynamic mud, and no actual interaction between heavy machinery and the soil.With the release of Farming Simulator 25, the community is once again forced to rely heavily on third-party scripts (like Real Mud or physics overhauls) to make the gameplay feel remotely realistic.For the next installment of the franchise, I strongly urge the development team to look for inspiration outside of your current bubble. Games like SnowRunner (Saber Interactive) have proven that a truly dynamic terrain simulation—where tire pressure, differential locks, mud depth, and vehicle weight actually matter—is not only possible but incredibly fun and engaging.Please consider either collaborating with physics experts or completely overhauling your own engine for the next game. Farming is a battle with nature and soil, but right now, your terrain feels like painted concrete. We don't just need more brands; we need a true simulation.Thank you for your time, your hard work, and for considering this feedback from a passionate fan.Best regards,

The question is, can their game engine be tuned to enhance vehicle physics and terrain behaviour and if not why do they insist on not turning to a game engine that can deliver?

[freddykr]

[...] if not why do they insist on not turning to a game engine that can deliver?

Because every engine has their advantages and disadvantages. If they, theoreticaly, change to UE5 some things will work better, but other things are not so easy there (or general not possible).
I'm not a developer, but some points to reflect:
- Performance on low-end PC (UE5 needs a lot of performance)
- switching between points on a map without loading screen
- most players of FS are ###### gamers. There is really the questions, whether they want more realistics (e.g. like Snowrunner) (this forum is not the majority of the gamers)
- Easy Moddingsupport - actual everybody is able to create mods or can edit existing mods via XML-Files.This should be a "must have" for another engine. Don't know, how easy it is for modding in UE5.

I also want more realistics for the machines, but I don't want to pay a lot of money for every ultra realistic addon, like in MS Flightsimulator.
So, for me the FS is a good compromize between realism (simulation) and ###### gaming.

[FBtheSQL]

How many here are seasoned enough to have seen this topic come up again and again?
Time for THE COUCILE OF THE ELDERS to chime in again.

[Rickenbacker]

How many here are seasoned enough to have seen this topic come up again and again?
Time for THE COUCILE OF THE ELDERS to chime in again.

Yeah, the long and short of it is that the Farming Simulator engine is good enough to sell several million copies of the game every 2-3 years. They're not going to change it just because they can.

[don_apple]

How many here are seasoned enough to have seen this topic come up again and again?
Time for THE COUCILE OF THE ELDERS to chime in again.

Excuse my ignorance, I know what a COUNCIL is, but what exactly is a COUCILE ?