Another two cities will be getting a brand-new look in our upcoming 1.53 update for American Truck Simulator. The California Rework project just doesn't stop, so let's take a look at how our map designers and assets teams remade Los Angeles and San Diego!
San Diego
"America's Finest City" was rebuilt from the ground up. We managed to use the best areas from the original version while also adding new locations which have been highly requested by our community.
Truckers can look forward to cruising through San Diego on I-5, almost reaching the Mexican border, or taking in the views of the Snapdragon Stadium as they drive along I-8. CA-905 will take you right to the border, passing through a sprawling warehouse district. And for a fresh perspective, you'll now be able to cross the iconic Coronado Bridge, offering stunning views of San Diego from a whole new angle.
Los Angeles
Like San Diego, the City of Angels was completely revamped. Some places from the original L.A. remain (although rebuilt as well) like Santa Monica, the beginning of I-10, and the major intersection of routes I-10, I-5, and US-101.
On top of that, we added some iconic Los Angeles areas such as the L.A. airport, the L.A. River, Port of Long Beach, and one of the busiest roads in the U.S., the I-405, plus many other places. Thanks to the great work of our asset makers and map designers, truckers will discover plenty of landmarks and depots in the reworked city of Los Angeles.
We hope you are excited about the release of the next phase of the California Rework project and to visit the reimagined cities of San Diego and Los Angeles. Stay tuned for more updates on the world in American Truck Simulator on our social media (X/Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok). We'll see you on the road!
Over the last few years, our dedicated rework team has been hard at work revitalizing one of the base game areas in American Truck Simulator. We're of course referring to the California Rework project, and today, we're excited to give you a more detailed preview of what they've accomplished in the final phase of this project.
Phase 4 of the California Rework project focuses on the southern region of California and includes 10 cities, 3 of which are entirely new to the ATS economy. As you can imagine, this has been a monumental task for the team. Similar to previous phases, much of the original base map was removed and reworked entirely from the ground up.
Drivers working in this region can look forward to making deliveries to and from the cities of Bakersfield, Santa Maria, Oxnard, Mojave, Barstow, Indio, Blythe, Los Angeles, San Diego, and El Centro. This has been by no means a small feat; our team has meticulously utilized a huge area during this rework phase to incorporate as many details as possible, including accurate city layouts, industries, and road networks, all while working within the limitations of our game engine, map scale and of course, realistic trucking routes.
Road networks are just as important as the cities themselves, ensuring drivers can reach their destinations quickly and safely. Our team focused on reworking key routes, including major coastal highways such as the US-101, CA-1, and I-5. In addition, several other important routes have been revamped, such as the CA-58, CA-14, and CA-99, along with interstates I-10, I-15, I-40, and I-8, which serve as vital connections to neighboring U.S. states.
You'll also encounter numerous rest areas and truck stops, which have been thoroughly reworked as part of this update. Additionally, California's agriculture inspection stations, crucial for protecting the state's crops, wildlife, and produce, have received the same detailed attention. These stations play a vital role in safeguarding California’s agricultural industry.
The final phase of the California Rework is scheduled to arrive with the 1.53 Update, which will be free for all owners of American Truck Simulator. In the meantime, we still have another blog post planned that will highlight a couple of the larger cities that have been reworked, trust us, you won't want to miss it!
Until then, we hope you enjoy the screenshots and work the team have put into California Rework. Be sure to share your comments and initial reactions with us on our official social media channels and our official forums, as we'd love to hear them! Until then, keep on truckin'.
Happy Hauloween Event
Greetings truckers, and welcome to our Happy Hauloween - World of Trucks event! The fun all starts today, Thursday 24th October...
As twilight fades and shadows grow You realise that it’s time to go And join the crowd of jolly ghosts That beckon you, as kindly hosts, With spooky pumpkins all in hand, What fun awaits this merry band! They float and glide with eerie grace, In search of treats from place to place. So, start your rig and take the lead, With all the hungry mouths to feed. Tonight’s the night, and you’re the one To bring to all some spectral fun!
For Hauloween is in the air, And there’s no time to flee nor dare To hide away from all the treats That wait for you, but not to eat, NO, they must be hauled, delivered quick, Then parked away, now that’s the trick!
To our #BestCommunityEver, we’d love for you all to join us in celebrating Halloween this year by delivering our famously delicious Halloween Treats throughout all trucking territories. This time we have a combined community goal of 1,300,000 deliveries to make. That’s 300,000 more than last year, but we’re sure you can smash it! Our artists have created an extremely cool, ghostly Halloween-themed trailer that will carry your special treats cargo.
This year’s #HappyHauloween also offers a cool new, ghoulishly good, desktop theme that matches our celebrations for the event duration – we sure love it and hope you do too!
Your personal goal is to complete 13 deliveries of our yummy Halloween Treats cargo, and we’re offering some spooktacular event specific rewards, including a World of Trucks Achievement for this. All jobs for the event will be 100Km each (62.1 mile) or more, and be sure to check out the rules below.
Rules
Using External Contracts, with a World of Trucks-connected profile in Euro Truck Simulator 2, American Truck Simulator or both, the community goal is to achieve 1,300,000 deliveries of Halloween Treats cargo, from any city in any trucking territory.
When a player completes 13 deliveries of Halloween Treats cargo across any trucking territories in either game, it will complete their personal goal.
Rewards
Personal: Players that complete 13 or more deliveries of Halloween Treats cargo will gain a unique World of Trucks Achievement as well as a spooky Booing Ghost cabin item as a Steam inventory item for Euro Truck Simulator 2 and American Truck Simulator.
Community: When the community goal of achieving 1,300,000 deliveries of Halloween Treats cargo from any city is met, and if the player has also achieved their personal goal, then they will receive a Grumpy Ghost hanging toy as a Steam inventory item for their cabin.
Note: In order to qualify for any community reward, you must complete at least your personal goal in Euro Truck Simulator 2, American Truck Simulator or both. Each reward will be a Steam inventory item for both Euro Truck Simulator 2 and American Truck Simulator. Once completed, claim your reward in the Events page on your World of Trucks profile.
The event will be concluded on Sunday, 17th of November at 23:59 UTC.
But that's not all! This year, we're excited to host a special SCS Hauloween Sale on Steam with big discounts on our base games, map expansions, and other DLCs in celebration of Halloween and our Happy Hauloween WoTr event. Complete your collection of ETS2 and ATS DLCs here!
The bundles and Hauloween Sale will be available on Steam on the 24th of October from 19:00 CEST.
This year’s event is packed with ghostly spectral fun, for both American Truck Simulator and Euro Truck Simulator 2, with deliveries counted in both games. You can even join in with the celebrations across both sides of the Atlantic, so we look forward to seeing all your pics on our Facebook ATS / ETS2, X (formerly Twitter), and Instagram profiles and we will share our favourite ones.
Missouri - Poplar Bluff
We have another glimpse for you of the upcoming Missouri map expansion for American Truck Simulator! This time, we will take you to the town of Poplar Bluff which will be included in this DLC. What is awaiting you there? Let's take a look!
Located in southern Missouri, Poplar Bluff is home to around 17,000 people. The town was established in the 19th century and named after an uninhabited bluff on the Black River where it was built and the beautiful poplar trees that grew there. Today, it serves as a regional hub for education, health care, and business.
How did our team recreate this charming town? You can look forward to some beautiful buildings inspired by real ones such as the Poplar Bluff bank, courthouse, sheriff department, theatre, and also a couple of stunning historic churches.
Looking at what the industry has to offer in and around the city, truckers hauling goods from Poplar Bluff will be able to find jobs in six companies. In the city, you will find a warehouse, sawmill, metalwork, and construction site that all need your help with delivering supplies. And if you don't feel like going to the city center, you will surely find a job at the timber harvest site or furniture factory in the suburbs.
We hope you are looking forward to trucking in the Missouri DLC and visiting this town. If you do, make sure to add this map expansion to your Steam Wishlist! And don't forget to follow us on our X/Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube, so you won't miss out on any American Truck Simulator news. Until next time, drive safe!
Today, we are very happy to announce that Driving Academy is now available for American Truck Simulator! A few weeks ago, we announced this new game module in this blog and showed you a preview of it in some of our live streams, and now you can finally try it out for yourself.
As was mentioned in the previous blog we released about Driving Academy, we are venturing into new territory, inspired by years of feedback from players who have told us that our games have helped them grasp the basics of truck driving. Many have used it to get a sense of handling a truck and trailer, learning how to maneuver and reverse. With this in mind, we thought we'd take it a step further with this free update which includes sets of scenarios designed to improve and expand these skills in a fun and captivating way.
We've prepared a short video just for you, explaining everything you need to know about Driving Academy. It also includes a brief yet comprehensive guide on how to get started and make the most out of the game module.
This new game module will provide you with various scenarios of increasing difficulty inspired by instructions given to real-life students. You will go from basic driving to navigating intricate courses and complex parking maneuvers with a detailed explanation via driving instructions including diagrams, pointers, and directions. We also wanted to allow drivers to analyze their drive so we have implemented a new replay feature into this game module as well.
If we get positive feedback from our community, we would love to continue creating additional scenarios and special challenges in the future that real-life truck drivers may encounter on the road. Our dream is for this game module to offer a deeper understanding of both truck driving and the underlying systems, as well as when to use them. But that is still a long way to go.
We hope you will enjoy this new game module. Make sure to share your videos or photos with us by tagging us on social media (X/Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube), we are really eager to see those! Also, keep your eyes on our channels so you do not miss out on more upcoming Driving Academy content.
ATS: Introducing The Fifth Generation Cascadia
We're thrilled to announce the arrival of the The Fifth Generation Cascadia from Freightliner in American Truck Simulator, which is now available to purchase and drive in-game. This release is especially exciting, as we've worked closely with the team at Freightliner to synchronize its real-life premiere and launch with our virtual implementation.
Ready to hit the road? Let's take a closer look at the newest generation of this iconic on-highway truck.
The Fifth Generation Cascadia is the most advanced on-highway truck Freightliner has ever offered, featuring a cutting edge aerodynamic package with chassis fairings, skirts, cabin extenders, roof fairings, front wheel closeouts and a new aerodynamic hood. These features help streamline airflow and reduce drag, extending the fuel efficiency and range on each journey.
Drivers can also take advantage of the new MirrorEye® digital camera system on the Fifth Generation Cascadia, which provides considerably better vision for the driver, even when light or weather conditions are challenging.
The design of The Fifth Generation Cascadia has been inspired and tested by The SuperTruck II, a prototype truck from Freightliner which is used to push the boundaries of Freightliner's vision for sustainable design by optimizing current technologies.
We'd like to thank our friends at Freightliner and Daimler Truck North America for allowing us to work with them closely to launch this truck both the real world and virtual American Truck Simulator world with early access reference material. We know our community are going to really enjoy this new addition!
We were also given the opportunity to collect our own reference shots and record sounds with the Fifth Generation Cascadia at the High Desert Proving Ground in Madras, Oregon. We look forward to sharing more about our trip and our time with the Cascadia in a future SCS On The Road episode!
It's time to get trucking! We are looking forward to hearing about your first experiences with The Fifth Generation Cascadia from Freightliner. Share with us and Freightliner your screenshots, videos and more, and we'd love to share them. See you on the road!
SCS On The Road: Mack® Pinnacle Walk-Around
We're back in the USA for our newest SCS On The Road episode! Join us in Allentown, Pennsylvania, at the Mack Experience Centre as we check out the legendary Mack® Pinnacle, which was recently added as a driveable truck in American Truck Simulator as part of a free recent update (see our blog about it here).
During our visit, we had the pleasure of meeting with Christopher Bzik, the Manager of Sales Engineering at Mack Trucks, who gave us an in-depth tour of the Mack® Pinnacle, both inside and out. This episode is packed with valuable insights, including the rich history of Mack Trucks and what makes the Pinnacle such an iconic truck, along with much more, so be sure to watch it all!
We'd like to thank our partners at Mack Trucks for allowing us to film and share this episode with you, and for the team's kind hospitality when we visited them in Allentown. We really learnt a lot about this incredible truck, and we are sure you will too.
If you enjoyed this episode, we'd love to hear your comments! Be sure to let us know something new you learned about the Mack® Pinnacle, along with a like and a subscribe, it really helps support our channel and videos. We will see you soon for the next episode, until then, keep on truckin'!
Whilst Maryville isn't the biggest city in our upcoming Missouri DLC for American Truck Simulator, it still has plenty to offer to both truckers and visitors alike! Today we're happy to share with you more about this area, which our team has recreated in detail. Let's take a closer look, shall we?
Located in the rolling hills of the northwest, Maryville is a small town with big hospitality. Whether you’re visiting or passing through on a long-haul drive, be sure to take a moment to admire everything this city has to offer.
In Maryville you'll come across several recreated landmarks such as the local church, which was originally built in 1897 (but has since been upgraded and expanded over time). The historic Nodaway County Courthouse, with its iconic structure and clocktower, and other notetable landmarks such as the local firehouse and the Maryville Treatment Center can also be found there.
If you're looking to pick up some work while you are there, Maryville has no shortage of industries that are looking for drivers! Downtown you'll find a range of industries from warehouses to construction sites and even car parts factory. If you happen to be travelling on the outskirts, you can find other industries such as farms with livestock and a wind power plant.
If you're just in town for a break, be sure to take advantage of the local truck stop, where you can rest up for the journey ahead!
We look forward to sharing more previews from the Missouri DLC for American Truck Simulator in the near future. If you like what you see, you can support us by adding Missouri to your Steam Wishlist. A big thank you to everyone who has already, it really means a lot! Until next time, keep on truckin'.
We know you have probably been wondering what our next state will be in American Truck Simulator after the teaser we published some time ago. Well, most of you guessed it right! Today we are excited to announce that our team is hard at work creating...
Louisiana for American Truck Simulator
Embark on a journey to the Pelican State nestled in the south of the U.S.. Discover the subtropical climate of the state which has provided the magnificent brooding scenery of the coastal bayous, and the lush, dank vegetation.
Truckers can look forward to the beautiful and iconic landscape of this southern state, historical cities like New Orleans and Baton Rouge, miles and miles of long stretching roads, and also the Mississippi River delta that has helped shaped how the area looks today.
The diverse landscape contributes to the unique beauty of this state, as visitors can find three types of regions there. The lowlands consist of the coastal marshes and the Mississippi floodplain. The Red River valley is typical for its red soil and many raft lakes. In the northern part of the state, you will mainly find some rolling hills.
Louisiana has a diverse variety of industries ranging from agricultural production, fishing, or forestry, to petroleum, gas, and coal. Thanks to this, drivers can haul plenty of different cargo types in and out of the Pelican State. We cannot understate the importance of waterways in this state, especially its canal system and the crucial role ports play, such as the port of New Orleans, which ranks among the busiest in the country in terms of volume of seaborne freight handled, so there is plenty of cargo to transport for everyone!
We look forward to sharing more from this state with you in future blog posts. But for now, please remember that everything you see here is still very much a work in progress and may not represent the final product when it is released.
Excited about Louisiana? Then be sure to add this map expansion to your Steam Wishlist as it really helps support our future projects. To stay in touch with all the latest news, don't forget to give our X/Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok a follow as you'll receive any announcements or updates straight to your feed! We look forward to sharing more with you down the road.
Every October since 1985, organizations and people from around the world help raise awareness and support local charities in the fight against Breast Cancer. Known as Pinktober, this special month is marked by the iconic pink ribbon, a symbol of unity and strength. It also serves as a reminder that breast cancer impacts many lives, and that we should educate, inform, and empower individuals to make proactive choices about their health.
At the heart of Pinktober is the importance of knowledge and awareness. Recognizing the signs and symptoms of breast cancer can lead to early detection, which significantly improves outcomes. By committing to regular self-exams and professional check-ups, we can play a crucial role in safeguarding our own health. Moreover, sharing this vital information with those around us helps amplify the mission of breast cancer awareness.
Pinktober reminds us all that taking care of our health should be a top priority. Encouraging regular screenings, health check-ups, and advocating for these practices within our communities, friends and families is at the core of what this campaign stands for.
Since 2019, we've been proud to actively support and bring awareness to this important cause. Our community has been at the core in helping us raise funds for our local charity of choice, the Alliance of Women with Breast Cancer, by purchasing our special Pinktober DLCs for American Truck Simulator and Euro Truck Simulator 2 from which 100% of the income goes to charity every year.
We've had the pleasure of meeting with those involved in this charity organisation, as well as hosting numerous educational talks at our offices in the past. We encourage you to check out their work at their website, which you can find here.
We'd like to express our sincerest gratitude to every player who has purchased these special charity packs, your contributions have helped save lives and support those who are directly impacted by Breast Cancer.
If you're looking to make a tangible impact and add some unique flair to your trucks, now is a perfect time to purchase or gift these DLCs. By customizing your trucks with Pink Ribbon designs and sharing them online using #Pinktober2024, you can help spread awareness while supporting the cause.
We are deeply grateful to everyone who has supported Pinktober over the years. Whether through donations, awareness campaigns, or participating in educational events, your efforts have a lasting impact. Together, we continue to bring hope and change to the lives of those affected by breast cancer.
