GIANTS Software recently launched their latest simulation experience, Farming Simulator 26, on Android, iOS, and Nintendo Switch on May 19, 2026. As someone who has spent a ridiculous amount of time driving tractors in previous games of the franchise, I was curious to see whether this new Farming Simulator edition was a solid upgrade.
After spending about six to eight hours farming on my Samsung M55, a decent mid-range device, I got enough time to explore the game’s systems, mechanics, quality-of-life changes, optimization, and overall value for money. Here’s my review of whether Farming Simulator 26 is worth picking up as a premium offering.
Familiar farming gameplay with very few noticeable improvements
If you have played any previous Farming Simulator Games, you will be at home since this game is exactly the same, but with very neat additions, challenges, and quality of life changes, but also a bit more frustrating things. For newcomers to the simulator genre, this game will be a great starting point.
The gameplay at large is very simple: you start a career, go through a list of various objectives, do chores on the field, and have an increasing list of difficult tasks while expanding your farming business. Remember, this is not an arcade game where everything happens with a single click from the menus.
In the game, you have to manually do everything, which includes driving the tractor manually with on-board controls, guiding your workers to properly do the work, and cultivating the crops by hand. The game will drop random events like rain to force you to ruin your crops, or sometimes your worker driving the tractor in a lake, making you think that it’s a fishing simulator game.
While farming is progressive, driving a tractor isn’t
Now driving the tractor is a bit hectic, the controls are not very responsive at times, and it can get frustrating if you are not paying attention, especially during the plowing parts. There are a lot of tractor addons that you need to manage and workers to switch from at a speedy pace.
The game is more of a free-play type of game. You can be a typical crop farmer, an animal husbandry farmer, or a forest farmer. The game lets you be whatever you want, with no restrictions, but you need to make sure you don’t go bankrupt while doing all these. That’s basically game over.
Strong content variety offers plenty to manage and explore
On the surface, when you boot up the game for the first time, you will think there’s not much in terms of challenges and just a career option. But once you clear the tutorial and properly start your farming career, the game fully opens up, showing just how many activities and systems the game has to offer. The game also offers two maps to choose from for your farming career, so that’s a plus too.
There are daily challenges that you can clear to earn a lot of money to grow your farm, and then there are achievements that also reward you plenty. Other than that, there’s a lot of variety for you to work with on the farm. These include three different types of farming, like crop farming, animal farming, and plantations. Each category offers plenty of activities and systems to manage.
There are 7 different animals, 3 different plantations, and 19 different plants. The game features a live day and night cycle, which can be tuned in the game settings for your customisation and can make the game very easy or hard depending on your chosen setting. With all that comes a lot of ways to earn money as well, just make sure you don’t buy more than you can handle.
Graphics and optimization struggle to justify a new release
The game has subpar graphics, similar to the previous game they had released on mobile. The optimisation is a hit or miss. If I am playing on medium settings, there are no hitches or fps drops, but the moment I set it to high, the frame drops and stuttering becomes very noticeable, so there definitely needs to be some improvements.
There are not a lot of options in the settings either. All you have is a selection of presets for your graphics to select between: low, medium, and high. That’s it. A game from such a major franchise releasing on mobile should have more graphics settings than the number of drivable vehicles they have, which is just one tractor.
UI lacks polish, while the audio design feels inconsistent
The game UI feels like cheaply designed and lacks polish. The texts aren’t aligned on the screen sometimes, and some of the menus can go off-screen. This can feel frustrating when you try to follow the tutorial.
As for sound, the tractors’ sounds and other plantation equipment sounds are great, and help the farming work feel satisfying, but the lack of ambient environmental audio hurts immersion. Then there’s the sfx on the menu opening and closing, and there’s not a lot of sound variation there, so we get to hear all of them the same.
The scaling of the texts on the screen is harder to read. The biggest downside is that many important pieces of information are hidden behind submenus. You would want them upfront and visible in the menu instead of having to load into a game first. Why did they do this, I wonder?
The overall simulation and immersion are just not good enough
The game’s main focus is simulation, yet most of the things here feel arcadey and hand-held. You can load most of the important tasks to an NPC and let the game’s AI handle the work for you. This feature would have worked better as a late-game unlock and not be available from the start, as it makes the game come off too easy and makes the simulation aspect feel less important. Why play the game when it can play itself?
Then there are random NPCs and vehicles; we have zero interaction with them. You can approach the NPCs, but you can do nothing to get a reaction; they just go through their walk forward and backward loop on the sidewalk. That’s it. They have no purpose other than to show something is moving in the world. They also look like they belong to a 2006 game.
As for the premium feel, as expected, Farming Simulator 26 follows a premium model with a one-time purchase and no ads. So that’s a big bonus.
Final Verdict
Farming Simulator 26 does have the number 26 in its title, but it feels like the same game from 2023. While there are a few quality-of-life improvements, added activities, and expanded systems, many of these additions already existed in earlier Farming Simulator games. However, for newcomers to the farming simulator genre, there is still plenty to enjoy here.
The amount of content, relaxed progression, and freedom in how you build your farming business make it a decent entry point, especially for the $7.99 price tag. At its current state, Farming Simulator 26 feels easier to recommend to first-time players. For everyone else, this is probably a game best picked up during a sale.
Farming Simulator 26 Review by GamingonPhone
Gameplay Mechanics - 7
Content and Replayability - 7
Graphics and Music - 6.5
Controls and UI - 5
Value for money - 7
6.5
Average
Farming Simulator 26 feels more like a comfortable return to the fields than a major evolution for the series. The farming loop remains relaxing and content-rich, especially for newcomers, but dated presentation, weak immersion, and minimal upgrades over previous entries doesn't help its case to be a strong simulation title contender.
Did you find my Farming Simulator 26 review helpful? Do let us know in the comments!
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