Running in parallel to the history of mainstream video games—Super Mario Bros., Doom, George Plimpton’s Video Falconry, and so on—there’s always been a secret world. From homebrew classics like Scorched Earth to home-school disasters like Bible Adventures, the Trystero to the AAA developers’ postal service is much older than indie games. But the weirdest under-the-radar subgenre is undoubtedly games that simulate banal and tedious jobs, the spiritual descendants of Penn & Teller’s intentionally boring driving game Desert Bus. For years, and for mysterious reasons, developers have been giving forklift operators, street cleaners, and European bus drivers the kind of treatment usually reserved for people with more glamorous careers like serial killers, misogynists, and misogynistic serial killers. Now, video gamers who’ve always dreamed of driving a Lamborghini (Mach VRT 230 tractor) can live out their fantasies in Farming Simulator 17, the upcoming game from Giants Software. Connoisseurs of the genre will recognize them as the Swiss video game studio behind other thrill-a-minute funrides like Ski Region Simulator 2012 and Demolition Company so: limitless potential. The game will be available for PS4, Xbox One, Windows, and OS X.
Farming Simulator 17 is the eighth game in the series (“17” refers to the year) and the first Farming Simulator game to include pigs and trains. It also allows players to choose a female protagonist, an option still unavailable in much higher-profile franchises like Grand Theft Auto (though GTA’s developers took the time to include both pigs and trains). From the trailer, Farming Simulator 17 looks like a fine addition to the “why is this a game?” genre, but at least it’s not about space marines. On Oct. 25, players will get a chance to experience Farming Simulator 17 for themselves, including the finale, already critically acclaimed for its social realism, in which representatives of the bank flatten the old family home and send the player off in a jalopy on a doomed journey to the California orange groves.
