Agricultural Simulator: Historical Farming delivers ancient tractor action, plays mean banjo

Bored of shooters? Killed enough dragons? Perhaps you're looking for something fresh. Something more rural , with classy overtones of nostalgia. Perhaps you're keen to get away from war and blood and and death and that. What you need, my friend, is a tractor and a field to plough, and an incessant banjo twanging away in the background. The banjo is especially important.

Enter Agricultural Simulator: Historical Farming, a glossy look at "the golden age of mechanized farming." It claims to be "the ultimate agricultural driving, workflow and business simulation." If you don't like the idea of words like "workflow" appearing in your out-of-work entertainment, hold off judgement until you've seen the first screenshots showing a those classic tractors lingering in empty garages, unused and alone. And before you ask, YES. There is a playable demo .

It wouldn't be a proper farming simulator without animal husbandry, of course. The official Agricultural Simulator site has word of some of the extra tasks you can take on as king farmer. It's in German, so you can thank Google translate for the skewed expressions.

"Build on another leg, and you are operating a livestock: cows, horses, sheep, chickens, geese, including game, you can keep on your farm and maintain." says the site.

"If all goes well, you will be able to obtain offspring in some species," it adds. Move over, Call of Duty, there's a new horse in town. There's even a co-op mode that'll let you and a friend tend to your yard together. Agricultural Simulator: Historical Farming is out on May 18.

Part of the UK team, Tom was with PC Gamer at the very beginning of the website's launch—first as a news writer, and then as online editor until his departure in 2020. His specialties are strategy games, action RPGs, hack ‘n slash games, digital card games… basically anything that he can fit on a hard drive. His final boss form is Deckard Cain.