Farm Together 2 is a cozy and relaxing farming game which dispenses with almost any kind of gaming stress you can think of and improves over the original Farm Together (FT1) in several ways. You can play it single player, local co-op, and online. The default single-player experience is also online which can allow other players to visit your farm at any time and help out according to permissions you specify (which can be different for friends list members as opposed to other visitors). You can play single-player in offline mode if you wish.
You build a farm with crops, animals, flowers, trees, fish, and decorations of various types. More items of each type are gradually unlocked as each is leveled up by harvesting them. Higher level items give higher level currency and xp. The xp earned is applied to both your farmer and your farm. As your farmer level goes up you can store more fuel in the tractor and as your farm level increases you unlock more decoration options and item types to place on the farm as well as unlocking the ability to purchase more land to expand the farm.
I spent many hours playing FT1 on the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 and when I got wind of a sequel for PC on Steam I bought it in Early Access and started playing right away. I immediately saw many improvements over the original.
In-game shops are the way to turn excess resources into other currency such as diamonds, which can be used to buy things like fences, paths, and other features. In FT1 the shops were placed on the farm itself. Farm Together 2 introduces a separate town area for all of these shops to stay in, along with residents that have various small scale trades on offer. You can jump to the town at any time from your farm, and you unlock more specialized storefronts over time. These include a shop allowing you to take on additional quests, a shop to upgrade storage, a shop to upgrade tractor speed, a currency exchange, and -- most impressive of all -- a town hall allowing you to purchase and switch between 3 more farms.
The original Farm Together incentivized online play in a couple of key ways. At its most basic, you earn xp and currency for the farm and player you’re visiting – selected from an in-game list -- and you earn xp for your own farmer. You also fill an energy meter. When you returned to your own farm that energy meter would start counting down in real time and while it was in effect you would earn more xp when harvesting, earn more currency when harvesting, and double the resources you are harvesting. This made you want to browse online farms and jump in to help others because you were gaining that doubler energy to take back to your own farm.
Farm Together 2 massively improves on this mechanic by earning Favor Points instead of energy which you can hold on to as long as you wish and – using a shop in town – convert however many or few points you wish into doubler energy or into a wide variety of other resources including other currencies used to buy other types of farm items. This makes altruistic online play working on others farms even more valuable. Want to earn medals to buy another fuel tank to put on the farm for your tractor? You can do that by turning favor points into medals. Need more diamonds to finish that fencing around your new cows? You can turn favor points into diamonds as well. Need more apples in a pinch? Favor points can be converted into that as well.
By far my favorite advancement for Farm Together 2 is the tractor’s automatic mode. With the press of a button on your controller (or keyboard) you can set your tractor to continue running forward, harvesting in 2x3 blocks, or laying down new types of grass, and so on. It can even place the new and improved sprinkler types at regular intervals. This vast improvement means we don’t have to roll to a new 3x3 block and push a button each time to harvest, then plow, then plant, then water. You just push the button and the tractor rolls forward doing what your settings dictate as long as it has fuel to do so. My aging wrists and hands thank the developers very much and this alone was more than enough to get me on board with the game.
Another highlight is a greatly improved user interface and more useful farm items. You can now see which crops are part of a quest on the main screen as you walk around and work on the farm and not just the map mode thanks to a different colored basket icon on those crops. Many more quests can be tracked on-screen thanks to a new mode that hides line items that have been satisfied. In addition to signs you can specify a crop icon on for guidance to helpful farmers, you can now buy a sign which locks a certain sized adjacent plot of land to up to 4 crop types you specify.
It may already be on console platforms by the time you read this, but I spent my time playing on PC and on the Steam Deck. There are seasonal events to unlock new items, and I expect they will offer paid DLC packs of items as they did in FT1. I highly recommend you jump on board with Farm Together 2 if you’re looking for a relaxing game with lots to do in a pleasant and cheerful atmosphere.