In addition to our main Game of the Year Awards 2024, each member of the PC Gamer team is shining a spotlight on a game they loved this year. We'll post new personal picks, alongside our main awards, throughout the rest of the month.
If Moore's Law predicts that the number of transistors on an integrated circuit will double every two years then we should go ahead and coin Barone's law saying that the number of games like Stardew Valley launching doubles every year. As the farm sim contender count continues to rise, it gets harder and harder for me to separate wheat from chaff but each year there's always one really standout farmlife sim and in 2024 it was the early access for Fields of Mistria.
Even in early access, Mistria has been incredibly in touch with its roots. I already had high hopes for Fields of Mistria when I found out about its dual inspirations of '90s farm sims and magical girl anime. The townie-focused stories of romance and revitalization in farm sims are a perfect pairing with the trope-y character archetypes of pre-millenium anime.
It begins as genre convention demands: Your customized farmer arrives in town to take over an old property that needs some serious TLC. You'll meet all the local townies like the grocery owner (Holt and Nora), carpenter (Ryis), blacksmith (March and Olric), and rancher (Hayden) all ready to help you upgrade your gear and property so you can dump all your profits right back into the local economy.
After playing more of them than I care to count, I've found that so many farm sims start with a cool concept but fumble their fundamentals like overly long chopping animations or clunky menus. Mistria fires on all cylinders immediately. Tool interactions are snappy fast, the interface is visually appealing, and the story introduction doesn't drag on with too much dialogue.
Moments into playing I realized just how much Mistria is a farm simmer's farm sim, incorporating all sorts of features that Stardew Valley players have long considered must-have mods like seeing NPC locations on their map or being able to jump over fences instead of walking around them.
But more than just quality-of-life improvements to genre staples, Mistria brings some genuine little moments of glee. I remember nearly kicking my feet squealing when I first noticed that the mysterious dragon statue on my property has a relationship meter that's a heart instead of a normal relationship gem? We still don't know what's up with that but the fervor to find out is second only to everyone chanting and begging to romance March's brother Olric.
Another favorite feature of mine is animal breeding. Not many farm sims go in on playing with genetics with your livestock and I love how simple but rewarding Mistria makes it. There aren't lengthy stats for farm animals, just colors, but there are so many colors that I've been obsessed with figuring out the combinations that will unlock all the different variants like red chickens, or blue-spotted cows. I can't wait to start breeding rare rabbits. It's another example of just how finely-tuned Mistria is in finding features that are obvious catnip to farm sim players and giving just enough depth to them without turning any one aspect of the game into a slog.
All that clarity of design would have been wasted if Mistra weren't also completely confident in its personality. Fields of Mistria is so intimately in touch with its roots, both the classic farm sims it's emulating and the magical girl anime of the '90s. It's so rare for a game that wears its inspirations on its sleeve like this not to get mired in reproduction but Mistria deftly hops over that pitfall too.
Mistria's characters could have come off as flat callbacks to anime of yore but its characters are all so much more than sale rack Sailor Moon. Standoffish blacksmith March has an archetypal aversion to your player character but he isn't just one note: letting loose with a few drinks at the Friday night gathering at the inn. Mistria's other characters are equally easy to pigeonhole at first glance but all open up a lot more as the seasons progress. One of the ruling family twins Eiland seems shallow and foppish initially but has a genuine interest in archaeology and a stubborn streak when it comes to pursuing Mistria's historical secrets.
Those personalities come out even more in my favorite weekly tradition: Friday night Dungeons and Drama sessions. The whole town gathers at the inn each week, separating out into different social activities of which the most amusing is the weekly tabletop RPG session. Eiland begins as a beleaguered DM ("drama manager") initially as the group contends with stat dumpers, new players, and murderous rampages. But as the seasons progress the campaign ends, giving Eiland his turn on the player side of the table while Balor the merchant relishes the opportunity to surprise everyone with twist character reveals.
Mistria isn't some masterclass in dialogue writing, nor is it even something that reminded me of why I love a great fantasy novel the way Roadwarden did in 2022, but the way its characters speak and interact feels right at every moment. It toes the line between sincerity and hokey the way that the great anime of the '90s it's emulating also can.
Fields of Mistria recently got its first major update with new relationship cutscenes for its characters and other additions but it does have a ways to go yet to go before it arrives at a 1.0 launch. That's expected to be sometime next year, according to its developer. Until then though, Mistria has already been the best farm sim of my year by a country mile.
