i'm a farming sim fanatic
On August 5th, 2024, Fields of Mistria entered early access on Steam. I am a SUCKER for farming sims - give me the same setup where I move onto a dilapidated farm overrun with weeds, need to grow crops and catch fish and/or bugs, have a barn or coop with livestock, and can also befriend some cutie townsfolk (and maybe be more than friends) and I will eat it up every time. My farming sim journey is as follows: Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town, Harvest Moon DS, Rune Factory 4, Stardew Valley, and lastly, Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town.
My Steam wishlist easily has at least a dozen farming sims on it at any given time. I'll always give a farming sim a shot. It's formulaic and I don't care because I love the formula that much. I remember being in college in 2017, playing Stardew Valley on my janky old laptop in my free time (also, sometimes during class when I was all the way in the back row of the lecture hall. I was not a good student) and recommending it to any other friends who played video games. When I was unemployed in fall of 2019 and applying to jobs, I had a lot of down time as I waited to hear back from employers, and I would play Pioneers of Olive Town with that free time. But when Fields of Mistria entered early access in August 2024 and I gave it a shot, it felt like it changed the game.
As a farming sim, it felt incredibly refreshing. I played around 50 hours of the very first version that released, making it to Spring of Year 2 before I realized I had played most of, if not all, of the available content at that point in time. I have fond memories of living by myself for the very first time in my own little apartment, sitting on my bed in front of the TV with my Steam Deck docked, playing Fields of Mistria after finishing with work for the day. The game continued to update in early access throughout 2024, 2025, and even 2026. As badly as I wanted to play, I decided to wait until the final 1.0 version was released until I picked it back up.
What was Fields of Mistria doing differently from other farming sims that made it so refreshing? I like that it feels like you're part of an actual community when you move to Mistria. Every Friday night, everyone meets up at the inn, and from week to week you can listen in as some townspeople go through a D&D (that's Dungeons & Drama) campaign, others are playing various card games, and yet another group is attempting to one up each other with expensive vintage wines. The dialogue and interactions in this game are incredibly charming.
Characters will even bring up certain things you've donated to the museum, like artifacts or fish. I don't think I've seen another farming sim do that, although Animal Crossing definitely has. It feels like the characters are really engaging with your contributions to the town, whether in the form of museum donations, improvements to the infrastructure, upgrades to certain buildings, and more.
Fields of Mistria is such a pretty game, too. Not just in terms of what the characters look like, but the decor, the buildings, the animals.
Look at this cute little cow, or this capybara and rabbit playing on a seesaw.
Apparently you can also breed your livestock to get rare and unique colors, like a pink cow. I'm not far enough into the ranching/livestock portion to be able to speak from experience, but I'm definitely looking forward to it!
Also, yes every romanceable character is cute.
I'm still not sure which of the 12 bachelor/bachelorettes I will romance.
When it was announced earlier in 2026 that Fields of Mistria finally had an official release date of August 5th, 2026, I immediately entered time off for August 6th. In my daily planner and in my calendar app, I wrote "MISTRIA DAY" for the 5th. I was looking forward to this for so long, and the date was finally here!
After work last Wednesday (the 5th), I updated Fields of Mistria in my Steam library and got to playing. I decided to start a new save file so I could experience all of the new content while being re-introduced to the game. Gah, it's so good. I spent most of Thursday the 6th playing, too. I've finished Spring of Year 1 and I've got about a week left of Summer.
I'm really glad I waited for these 2 years - it was absolutely worth the wait, and I've fallen in love with Mistria and its residents!