'Farming Simulator' is revving up its own esports league

Hang onto your straw hats, folks, Farming Simulator is getting its own esports league.

After testing the water with the Farming Simulator Championships in 2018, the folks at Giants Software announced the Farming Simulator League for 2019, a new esports league that pits teams of Farming Simulator players against each other in farm-related activities for huge cash prizes.

If you don't know what Farming Simulator is, it's a video game series where players simulate the day-to-day activities of operating a modern farm, which involves a whole lot of driving realistic tractors back and forth across fields. It may not sound like much to people who haven't played it, but the series is wildly popular in Europe and has been picking up steam in other areas of the world in recent years.

To make the game into something that you can actually compete in, Giants Software had players baling hay and stacking those hay bales for the Farming Simulator Championship. You can check out the funny promo video to see what that looks like in action.

Giants Software said in its announcement that competitors won't be baling hay in the new Farming Simulator League, and instead there will be a new competitive 3v3 mode, although they didn't go into much more detail than that.

"The game will, of course, stand true to its roots in farming and combine real field work like harvesting with fun and challenging game elements," Giants Software noted.

For its first year, the Farming Simulator League will have 10 tournaments across Europe which will culminate in a final competition to become Farming Simulator champion with prizes totaling €100,000. Including the other tournaments, the League will be awarding €250,000 in prizes.