Christmas Grand Giving Event 2019

It's better to give than receive. It's a truth best learnt through experience, and it benefits all involved. That’s why this year we are doing something very new and very special for our 2019 Christmas Grand Giving event in Euro Truck Simulator 2 and American Truck Simulator.

So, we are asking the community to spread the spirit of Christmas giving across all trucking territories! We have trailer loads of big gifts to give and we will be awarding stars to each city, based on the number of deliveries it gives. The more a city gives, the more stars that city gets. A great list of rewards await you.

Let's do the cities of the world justice and prove that they can, one and all, be the grandest of givers during this season of giving! You’ll be able to track the community progress on World of Trucks or directly in the game using the updated External Contracts interface:

To celebrate the beginning of this festive event, we will be broadcasting a special Christmas Grand Giving stream. Along with taking part in the event, delivering jobs and having fun, we’ll also provide the community with more information on our end-of-year #XmasGrandGiving sharing giveaway.

Loads of awesome prizes await, including T-shirts, Steam keys, computer accessories and much more. Be sure to watch our Christmas live-stream on Thursday the 19th of December at 17:00 CET with special guests, festive fun, surprises, prizes and perhaps even a glance into the future. Watch us on either Steam or Twitch, you won't want to miss out!

Grand Giving Event Rules:

Using external contracts with a World of Trucks-connected profile in Euro Truck Simulator 2, American Truck Simulator or both, the community aim is to get as many stars as possible awarded to as many cities as possible across all trucking territories. Every city can achieve up to 5 stars!

For a city to gain one star, the community must make 1000 Gifts deliveries from it, using the provided Christmas Gifts trailer. Each tier of 200 achieved stars will unlock a unique community reward, with a special reward at the 1000 stars mark.

To achieve your Personal goal, complete at least 12 deliveries of Gifts in either Euro Truck Simulator 2 or American Truck Simulator.

Rewards: 

Personal goal: Your contribution of 12 or more deliveries of Gifts will gain you:

• A World of Trucks Achievement
• Your very own hanging Christmas Sock accessory, that’s packed with goodies.
• A Christmas themed, Metallic Paint job to help you carry out more Gift deliveries during the event.

Community goals: 

• Each tier of 200 stars will unlock unique community rewards. 
• At the milestone of 1000 stars the community will receive a further 2 special rewards.

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.

The event will be concluded on Wednesday the 15th of January at 23:59 UTC.

Road to the Black Sea: Community Showcase

With the recent release of Road to the Black Sea for Euro Truck Simulator 2, our social media channels have been filled to the brim with your photos, videos, GIF's and other content. We love to take a look through them during our work day, and even share them with each other across our internal team channels for inspiration and positivity.

We'd love to share just a handful of content from our #BestCommunityEver with you here, such as these beautiful screenshots.

and across YouTube, Twitch, Mixer and more you can find a handful of video content made by some very talented community members!

We love all the pictures and videos you send us, and thank you for your hard work in creating them; and look forward to seeing many more as you explore more of Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey.

If you want to see many more screenshots and videos like the ones featured above, you can find more of them shared on our Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, or share them with us using the hashtag #RoadtotheBlackSea.

The International LoneStar has arrived

When you see this truck on the road, there is no mistaking what it might be. It's a truck with a look like no other and with a reputation across the industry. Today, we are excited to announce that the International LoneStar is now available in American Truck Simulator.

International® and all International Truck trademarks are trademarks licensed by INTERNATIONAL TRUCK INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY COMPANY, LLC

Based on the high-precision 3D CAD references kindly provided by International, the quality and detail of the LoneStar in our game shall please every truck enthusiasts. Visit your nearest International Trucks dealer in-game to take a look at this new arrival. Available in a wide range of configurations including 3 cabin types, 6 chassis variants, 10 engine variations, 12 transmissions and 3 interior options with 2 colour variants.

The International LoneStar arrives as a free DLC addition for every owner of American Truck Simulator. Find the latest update on your Steam Client (which may require a restart for some users)  to receive this new addition to your library.

Share your first journeys with us on Social Media using the hashtag #ATSLoneStar

The LoneStar is arriving in American Truck Simulator

There is a star that is shining brighter than all the rest, but you won't find this star in the sky. Easily recognisable by its shape, size and unique large front grill, this truck stands out wherever it travels.

We are excited to announce that the International LoneStar will be arriving in American Truck Simulator as the sixth truck to join the fleet.

This new addition will be made available soon at your nearest International Trucks dealership as a free update for every owner of American Truck Simulator. Take a moment to enjoy these photos of the International LoneStar roaming the roads of ATS in all of its beauty.

Excited? Join us this Thursday at 17:00 CET where we will give you an exclusive look at the International Lonestar on the roads of American Truck Simulator. You can watch us either on Twitch or on Steam, see you there!

International® and all International Truck trademarks are trademarks licensed by INTERNATIONAL TRUCK INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY COMPANY, LLC

Road to the Black Sea Release

Are you ready to start your engines and travel through three new unique countries in Euro Truck Simulator 2?

 The Road to the Black Sea map expansion has been released!

With 20 new major cities and many more towns and rural villages to discover on your journey, Road to the Black Sea has something for everyone. If you prefer a more scenic journey, route your GPS to avoid the highway to travel past coastal views and forested countrysides, or marvel at Europe's largest city, Istanbul.

We look forward to you sharing all your photos and videos across our Social Media channels! Be sure to tag us and use the hashtag #RoadtotheBlackSea and we will share our favourite ones.

Check out the store page for Road to the Black Sea by clicking on the widget below.

Euro Truck Simulator 2 Update 1.36

Road to the Black Sea is approaching fast so it's time to close the Beta and move on to the next best thing! Euro Truck Simulator 2 Update 1.36 is out now!

As always, we'd like to thank every single one of you for all your help with your bug reports, opinions and general feedback during the Public Beta. This time, the update brings probably the biggest system change we have ever implemented, together with some nice features.

The main feature is the upgrade to DirectX 11, which allowed the complete removal of support for DirectX 9 and all its limitations. While it may need a little tweak here and there, general feedback is very positive (FPS increase, smoother gameplay, better long-range LOD behaviours) as we hoped, since listed minimum requirements for Windows already support DX11.

And to spice things up a bit (as "invisible" changes aren't as appreciated as they should be), there are two bigger features and a number of smaller ones.

Corsica, a beautiful island in the Mediterranean is now available to all existing and future owners of the Vive la France! map expansion as a free addition.

Detours are also coming to Euro Truck Simulator 2 after a long testing period in its American twin. Do tell us if it's ok as it is, or what adjustments you'd like us to make still.

Besides that, you'll get a number of other nice features - such as a long-requested feature for drivers, trucks and trailers to be visible on the manager map, avoidance pins for your GPS and more. For those wishing to see a more detailed changelog, please read the Public Beta article, or check out our changelog video!

To enjoy the 1.36 update, make sure to OPT OUT of beta branches and your game will be automatically updated on Steam.

For the legacy non-Steam edition of ETS2, the update should be ready in a few days.

Some mods, however, may have not caught up yet - this update may effectively break them. So remember that you can always stay on 1.35 or an even older branch. The way to access and select them is: Steam client → LIBRARY → right-click on Euro Truck Simulator 2 → Properties → Betas tab → select the version you want.

Also, check our modding wiki to get details pertaining to mods for the game.

Changelog:

MAP

• Corsica (Vive la France! DLC)

FEATURES

• Detours
• Avoidance navigation pins
• New AI vehicles
• Drivers / Trucks / Trailer visible on manager maps
• DX11 full support (DX9 removed)
• Chinese and other non-Latin character input (IME)
• Anti-aliasing improvements (SMAA, electrical wires)
• Improved Tobii support and configuration page

MOD

• Sun profile changes (HDR)
• LP changes for AI (data-driven types, background texture data)
• Dash display UI elements (digital gauges, fuel consumption bar)
• Map editor history (undo/redo)
• Continuous selection of nodes 

Road to the Black Sea: Iasi to Târgu Mureș

It's time for us to start our engines and shift into gear for our upcoming release for Euro Truck Simulator 2, Road to the Black Sea on December 5th.

We are excited to share with you today gameplay footage from the eye of the driver travelling from Iasi to Târgu Mureș in the country of Romania. Can you recognise any areas or landmarks along the way? Some say you may even pass the legendary Piatra Teiului, which some locals claim changes places each night.

Be sure to add Road to the Black Sea to your Steam Wishlist to be notified of when it releases this Thursday on December 5th! You can also nominate us for the Labour of Love category in this years Steam Awards, Vote for your favorite games here.

Road To The Black Sea: Release Date Announcement

We know that our community has been very eager to hear news about the upcoming map expansion for Euro Truck Simulator 2. With the final touches being made, we are ready and excited to announce a release date...

Road to the Black Sea will be released on the 5th of December 2019

We have also released our official trailer for you to enjoy, this will give you a small insight of what this map expansion features:

Road to the Black Sea will have plenty for drivers to explore, main features include: 

• Over 10.000 kilometers of roads to drive on
• Romania, Bulgaria, and European part of Turkey to explore
• Europe's largest city, Istanbul
• 11 new local company docks and industries
• 20 new major cities and many smaller towns and settlements
• Famous landmarks and recognizable places
• Characteristic Balkan architecture
• Brand new unique 3D-assets
• Lush regional vegetation
• Local AI trains, trams, and traffic cars
• Horse carts - for Bulgarian and Romanian countrysides
• Border crossings - including feature-rich border controls
• River ferry over the Danube (Dunaj)
• Black Sea region achievements to unlock

We can't wait for you to explore the countries of Romania, Bulgaria, and Turkey. From traditional architecture to historic landmarks, there will be many roads to discover and industries to deliver to. Make sure to add Road to the Black Sea to your wishlist on Steam and be the first to be notified of its release on December 5th.

The 2019 Steam Award Nominations!

It's that time of year again where players across the world nominate their favorite games in 8 different categories in the Steam Awards! We believe this is a great opportunity for players to recognise and reward game studios and developers for creating a title they really enjoy playing.

This year, our titles Euro Truck Simulator 2 and American Truck Simulator are eligible to be nominated for the Labour of Love category which is described as "This game, to this day, is still getting new content after all these years" which we believe fits both of our games very well and with your support will continue for many years to come. If you choose to nominate us for this years awards, we will be very thankful for your vote.

As we approach the end of 2019, we thought to take a small look back on our updates for both games this year.

At the beginning of the year we announced Washington State for ATS, which was released in June. It includes many miles of new roads, unique industries, landmarks and more! We also released the Forest Machinery DLC along with the 1.35 update which included a ton of new content and updates.

In July, we announced Utah for ATS which was a SCS Software first for releasing two maps in one year. It features many miles of road networks, cities large and small, new oil and mining industries and over 260 recognizable landmarks! Alongside it, we also introduced 1.36 which included map revamps, new ownable trailers, Direct X 11 support and more.

And just around the corner, is the release of the highly anticipated Road to the Black Sea for ETS2. Featuring the countries of Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey. As you've seen from more recently blogs, it includes more complicated border control checks, unique river ferry crossings, new industries and much more.

And there has been so much more, such as new trucks for both titles, countless updates, the Pink Ribbon Event, competitions, live-streams, RGB peripheral integration, our on the road tour, World of Trucks events, GPS voice navigation, tuning packs, Sardinia and Corsica and more!

So for those who have already decided to vote for us, thank you, and if you wish to nominate us you have until the 3rd of December at 10am PST to do so! If you also have some spare time, we would really appreciate a Steam review of our latest releases, it really helps us and other users who may be thinking of giving one of them a try.

Road to the Black Sea: Trains & Tram

There's a theme from Road to the Black Sea we didn't touch on yet - and you can probably guess what it is from the pictures.

The regions seen here are a beautiful mix of the old & the new, and so are the different kinds of rail transport that pass through these areas. They really give every city a different kind of living atmosphere, don't you think?

We've picked the cities of Cluj, Galati, Iasi and Timișoara to show you the differences. Anyone here able to say which picture belongs to what city? :)

Bulgarian Paint Jobs

With Road to the Black Sea approaching fast, we're filling in one of the missing national paint jobs pack coming nicely along with this map expansion - Bulgaria!

For now, we have this batch of pictures featuring new paint jobs on Bulgarian soil, but fear not. An actual release date for our upcoming DLC is coming soon - and release itself won't be long after!

Road to the Black Sea: Plovdiv to Istanbul

It's time we take a closer look at our upcoming expansion for Euro Truck Simulator 2, Road to the Black Sea. Featuring the countries of Romania, Bulgaria and the European part of Turkey, there will be plenty to see on your travels.

We are excited to give you a glimpse behind the wheel of a driver travelling between the cities of Plovdiv in Bulgaria and Istanbul in Turkey. Be sure to keep an eye out when approaching the border, you may find that stricter searches are in place when crossing. Please note that this DLC footage features work still in progress.

Like what you see? Then join us for our special live stream tomorrow (20th November) from 16:00 UTC as we explore Bulgaria with a couple of special guests from the SCS development team. You will also have the chance to win yourself a Steam key for this upcoming DLC, so be sure to tune in on our Twitch or Steam broadcasting channels.

We also have some important information to share with you regarding release dates of upcoming DLC's you may be seeing online from third party websites. The dates given by various online stores are incorrect and are merely their own speculation. Official release announcements for our content will be found posted first here on our blog and on our official social media channels. You can find a small statement about this topic & the dangers of key reseller websites at our SCS forum here.

Be sure to add Road to the Black Sea to your Steam Wishlist to be notified of its release!

On The Road: Gamevention

As our SCS On The Road season comes to a close for 2019, we are excited to announce that we will be adding one more stop to our calendar!

On the 23rd and 24th of November we have been kindly invited to Gamevention 2019 hosted in Hamburg, Germany. This has been made possible by the team at HyperX and Allied Esports who have invited us to exhibit alongside their famous, Big Betty Truck.

Much like our SCS truck, Big Betty is a Kenworth W900 trucking around Europe hauling the best in HyperX gear and PC gaming rigs. They also host Esports competitions, allow players to have the opportunity to play and be coached by professionals and even win some great prizes.

We are excited to be showcasing our latest map expansions PLUS an opportunity to win prizes in our reverse-parking challenge. We hope to meet many of you from our community there, alongside HyperX and many other great developers and fun games.

You can find out more info and how to get tickets to Gamevention 2019 at their website: https://gamevention.de/ - We hope to see you there!

Utah: Community showcase

We are happy to see how much our community has been enjoying driving in American Truck Simulator with the recent release of Utah. New drivers also had the opportunity to hit the road with a free weekend and take advantage of sales to our ATS collection on Steam (available until Thursday!).

There was also a small surprise hidden in Utah - and we promised to tell you how to get it, right?

A great number of you got their Bee cabin toy already and the rest of you, early adopters who get Utah before the end of November, can get it very fast too - just follow this guide:

• Create an account to World of Trucks (if you don't have one already)
• In the game connect your in-game profile to your World of Trucks account
• Using External Contracts complete one delivery from Salt Lake city
• Redeem your reward on your World of Trucks event page

There's also a great period of time after we release a new map expansion when a number of community-made videos, pictures, gifs and other fan art appear - so as always, we're posting some of those. Hope you'll enjoy them as much as we did!

Gameplay videos:

Trailer videos:

Pink Ribbon Charity Event: Conclusion

Inspired by truck manufacturers and truckers from around the world, this month of October we joined the international Pink Ribbon campaign and we asked you, our community, to take part and support this great cause by delivering Pink Ribbon goods across Europe and America in our World of Trucks event.

We also created a Pink Ribbon Charity Pack DLC for both Euro Truck Simulator 2 and American Truck Simulator with the intention for all the proceeds to go to reputable Breast Cancer research and awareness charities dedicated to fighting this disease, to give you an option to do a good thing and get ting a little reward for it.

The Pink Ribbon Charity event concluded on Sunday the 20th of October, and we have to say that it was an incredible success! We could not have wished for a better response from the community. The first week saw us all reach massive 730,000 deliveries and the final numbers were...well see for yourselves!

Almost 70,000 players reached their personal goal with an average of 3,314 personal goals achieved every day. Wow, that’s an average of more than 55,000 deliveries per day with a final delivery count of nearly 1.2 million, well over and above our community goal of 1 million deliveries.

And, while educating and spreading the word was even more important than attending the event this time, we're happy to say the numbers were really tremendous there too! Just check them out:

So again, a big thank you to every single person from our #BestCommunityEver who joined in and shared a screenshot or video under the #PinkMyTruck hashtag!

It was also great to see other companies raising awareness like NHS England and MetLife, running unique donation campaigns, like Chevrolet or generally bringing more attention to this important theme, like Renault Trucks, MAN Trucks & Bus, DAF Trucks, Mack Trucks , Scania Group and many others.

Thanks to you, our community, we were able to collect much more than what we initially expected - over 45K US Dollars! So, we've decided to split that amount to include more than the initial two charities that were announced - Breast Cancer Research Foundation (US)  and Alliance of Women with Breast Cancer (CZ). The first of the new beneficiaries is Breast Cancer Germany (DE), with more to follow from our shortlist.

For us, one of the best parts of the event was a visit from representatives of the Czech Rep based charity, Alliance of Women with Breast Cancer (Aliance žen s rakovinou prsu). They explained to us their supportive role, their experiences with patients, and the symptoms of breast cancer, including a hands-on self-examination tutorial. We learnt quite a few things that we didn't know before and it was great to hear how much our #BestCommunityEver's donation will help.  We can't stress enough how important it is to do regular self-exams and to seek a full doctor check-up in case of any suspicions.

If you somehow missed the event but still want to donate, don’t worry, you can! Both charity packs will stay on Steam and Humble Bundle, and their sales will remain 100% dedicated to funding reputable Breast Cancer charities. Every time a sufficient amount is collected, we're going to send it to a charity dedicated to Breast Cancer research, awareness and patient support.

Utah release

The day has come - and so has Utah! Preparations for the release party are in full speed, as well as for the events that will follow the release.

Utah map expansion will be released today at around 18:00 UTC (19:00 CET)

Free Weekend for American Truck Simulator from 7.11. 18:00 to 11.11. 18:00 UTC

To commemorate the 4th map expansion (5th should we count Arizona), with kind cooperation with Valve, we're having a FREE Weekend (7.11. 18:00 UTC to 11.11. 18:00 UTC)! Which means that ANYONE can download American Truck Simulator on Steam and play it throughout the weekend with everything you get when you buy the base game. The Free Weekend will start at the same moment as Utah's release.

Getting into Utah soon will get you a nice little gift too - a Bee cabin toy to accompany you on your travels!

We'll give you the guide shortly, but we're going to leave a few days to those curious souls willing to find a way to get the Bee by themselves!

Road to The Black Sea: Brăila Ferry

Located in the east of Romania, you'll find the city of Brăila. Built along the banks of the River Danube, it was originally best known for its fishing industry. Today, it serves as an important hub for many surrounding towns and small villages.

One such small commune is located right across the River. However, you will find that there are no bridges or tunnels to travel across into the village Smârdan. So how does one exactly cross the river? By boat of course!

The BAC river ferry will be the first of its kind to feature in our upcoming map expansion, Road to the Black Sea. Drivers using this service will be able to take a small break from driving and enjoy a 2 minute cutscene, featuring views of your journey across the Danube river in either direction.

There is plenty more to explore in our upcoming DLC, so be sure to add Road to the Black Sea for Euro Truck Simulator 2 to your Steam Wishlist!

American Truck Simulator Update 1.36

You saw what's coming (that's right - Utah is almost here!) and you know what needs to come before - American Truck Simulator Update 1.36 is here!

And before we get to the details, we'd like to thank every single one of you for all your help - with your bug reports, opinions and general feedback during the Public Beta. While the changelog isn't as big as the previous one, the system changes are huge and the impacts unpredictable in some parts of our game so your help was vital in catching all the major issues.

The most important change is the upgrade to DirectX 11, which allows us to drop DirectX 9 completely and the limitations it presented. Public Beta feedback shows that most of our players have enjoyed a nice FPS increase. Since our game's minimum requirements for Windows already support DX11, we do hope you'll all enjoy the improved performance.

Besides that, you'll get three new trailers, some map improvements and rebuilds, plus a nice number of new features, including a long-requested feature for drivers, trucks and trailers to be visible on the manager map!

For those wishing to see a more detailed changelog, please read the Public Beta article, or check out our changelog video!

To enjoy Update 1.36,  make sure to OPT OUT of beta branches and your game will be automatically updated on Steam.

Some mods, however, may not have been updated yet - this update can effectively break them; remember that you can always stay on 1.35 or an even older branch. Follow these instructions to access and select them: Steam client → LIBRARY → right-click on American Truck Simulator → Properties → Betas tab → select the version you want.

Also, check our modding wiki to get details pertaining to mods for the game.

Changelog:

MAP

• Santa Cruz (CA) revamped
• Flagstaff (AZ) revamped 
• California speed limit improvements
• Oregon and New Mexico speed limit and general sign improvements
• New Special Transport routes (Utah DLC)

VEHICLES

• Grain hopper trailer (ownable)
• Bulk feed trailer (ownable)
• Frac-tank trailer

FEATURES

• Avoid pins for GPS navigation
• New AI vehicles + all police paint jobs corrected
• Drivers / Trucks / Trailer visible on manager map
• DirectX 11 full support (DirectX 9 removed)
• Chinese and other non-Latin character input (IME)
• Anti-aliasing improvements (SMAA, electric-wires)
• New loading screens

MOD

• Sun profile changes (HDR)
• License plate changes for AI (data-driven types, background texture data)
• Dashboard display UI elements (digital gauges, fuel consumption bar)
• Map editor history (undo/redo)
• Continuous selection of nodes

Utah: Urban Areas

If you were to look at a population density map of Utah, you will find that a majority of citizens live in the northern part of the state in larger cities such as Salt Lake City and Provo. However this doesn't make the rest of the state a ghost town, you can find towns small and large spread across the entire region.

From country homes to sprawling residential areas, you will come across many different kinds of dwellings on your travels in Utah. Each residential area has its own unique look and feel, with some homes even being historic to the town.

Want to learn about the creation process of Utah? Join us for our stream which will be broadcasted LIVE on Twitch and Steam with SCS team members, Alex (LondonLad), Duff and Raven on the 5th of November (tomorrow) from 16:00 UTC (17:00 CET) who will be talking about the states' development and design.

Be sure to add Utah to your Steam Wishlist to be notified of its release on November 7th!