“American Truck Simulator? What, are people that desperate to escape the Triple-A hell-hole that they’ll just play anything!?” Yes? No? Sort of? It’s not that simple, but one thing is certain: Don’t you dare disrespect my GOAT ATS like that! Despite how it sounds, American Truck Simulator –while not for everyone– is legitimately a great game that offers something unique from the typical menu of playable moving pictures. It’s slower-paced without being boring, the world is detailed, expansive, and fairly lively; the trucks are even more detailed and strangely fun to drive (in an unorthodox way perhaps), and the graphics can be stunning even when “only” in their “high” setting. Simply put: It’s just an exceptionally well executed concept that turns out to be way more fun than the title would lead you to believe.
However, circling back to the world for a minute, there’s been a missed opportunity within the game that I’ve been griping about for years: The fact the game isn’t quite about road-tripping. Don’t get me wrong, if you want to drive from California to Wyoming or from Oregon to Texas in a big 18-Wheeler there’s nothing stopping you (nothing stopping you after they added all those states that is). If you wanted to do that same drive in a regular car though? You were mostly out of luck. Sure, there are driveable car mods for ATS (and for its sister game Euro Truck Simulator 2 or ETS 2), but the physics of those cars are often wrong because they’re essentially just re-skins of the trucks. Handling like the big tractor-trailers but with the vantage point of a RAM 1500 or S197 GT500 Mustang. Safe to say, not ideal.
This is a real bummer because, with the depth and scale of the map, SCS have the opportunity to create one of the best road-tripping games since FUEL. Yeah, remember that title? Or in more recent times, the best road-tripping experience since The Crew (1 and 2). They’d produce a welcome antidote to the sim-cade, super/hypercar obsessed, barely-any-curve-having world of Forza Horizon. Not to mention a road-tripping game with physics not sloppy and awkward like the previously mentioned Ubisoft title.
And yesterday, finally, it seems the team behind SCS Software realized this, as they announced a road-trip focused update will be coming to American Truck Simulator in the future! They’re still in the early stages of development right now, so no release date for any sort of early version was given, but I think we can all rest easy knowing such an under utilized concept is now being explored.
Thing is, you didn’t exactly read that title and click this article to hear news about a long overdue update (despite it being necessary to know contextually). You clicked on this article because, as a result of said update, SCS Software will be adding a Gen 2 Dodge Viper to ATS!
Obviously these are only teaser images, but there’s no mistaking these shots for anything other than the American poster car we know and love! Better still, because this is SCS we’re talking about, there won’t be any truck physics shenanigans going on once the update drops. So all those incredible roads you’ve been traversing in your trucks will become intoxicating to drive with car handling models! I can’t even begin to express how excited I am for this!
The development team shared some other photos of cars they’re also working on, which I’ll dive into in another article, but I’ll leave you with one question I’ve been pondering since I saw the pics: What will the car list look like?
In any case, that’s what I have for you all today. Exciting times are up ahead!