Farming Simulator
Giants used FarmCon 24 to walk through Riverbend Springs, the American map shipping with Farming Simulator 25. Most new maps are a change of scenery. This one is built around a single idea — water — and that idea reaches into how you move, sell and work.
A map organised around a river
The layout follows a sweeping river bend, with smaller streams and brooks feeding through the landscape. That is not decoration; several systems hang off it.
Grain elevators sit on the water, and barges dock there to load. Selling grain becomes a place you drive to on the river rather than a generic tipping point.
Ferries carry vehicles. You can drive a tractor onto a ferry and cross, which functions much like the train networks in earlier games — a fixed route that saves a long drive if you plan around it.
Around all of that: piers, jetties, houseboats, floating restaurants and ferry docking stations, plus small weirs and working waterwheels. The waterways read as a functioning system rather than a texture.
What changed visually
The graphics team went through the map in detail.
Trees are now species-specific. Leaves, branching and crown shape differ by type, and each is built to catch light differently — which is what stops a treeline looking like the same asset repeated.
Ground, foliage and crop detail doubled in resolution, which means four times the pixels. Even ordinary grass casts clearer shadows, so it sits on the ground instead of hovering above it.
New crops like spinach forced updates to existing models too, keeping the whole set at a consistent level rather than leaving older assets looking dated next to new ones.
Buildings that look used, not abandoned
Structures carry rust, watermarks and gradual wear. The judgement call the team described is the interesting part: enough wear that a barn looks worked in, not so much that the farm looks derelict.
A farm settlement on this map can run for hundreds of metres, with connected buildings rather than isolated boxes. There is also more variety in fences and small structural pieces, which is what makes two farms on the same map look different.
Farmers markets you can actually stock
This is the mechanical addition worth noticing. Interactive farmers markets let you deliver produce — tomatoes, for example — and watch the shelves and display baskets physically fill as you supply them.
It closes the loop between growing something and seeing it sold, which the series has always handled abstractly.
Small production on your own yard
Alongside the large factories, you can now set up small production sites on your farm — a carpentry shop, a cheese factory. They work like their industrial counterparts, just at your scale.
That matters for how a farm develops: you no longer have to choose between selling raw crops and building an industrial operation. There is a step in between.
Wood processing from Silverrun Forest
Forestry from the Silverrun Forest DLC is built into the map, including automated handling that pulls floating logs out of the water and into sawmills.
Old buildings you can go inside
The architecture leans deliberately vintage — old barns, wooden grain elevators, timber structures. They are built to be entered and used rather than admired from the road.
Watch the presentation
Riverbend Springs arrived with Farming Simulator 25 on 12 November 2024. There is more FS25 coverage here, and the mod library section collects what the community has built since.
