Scandinavia Refresh: Aarhus

As part of the Project Scandinavia Refresh for Euro Truck Simulator 2, we’re excited to introduce a brand-new addition to the map: the city of Aarhus, Denmark’s second-largest city! Our talented teams have been hard at work bringing this fresh location to life, and today we're happy to share a look at their progress.

Known as the City of Smiles, Aarhus will be accessible to drivers travelling along the E45 motorway, with two major highway junctions leading into the city. Aarhus itself features a blend of modern infrastructure and thriving industry, making it a must-visit destination for truckers!

One of the major landmarks in our recreation of Aarhus is Dokk1, a striking multi-purpose library and cultural hub located on the harborfront. It is the largest public library in Scandinavia and was named Public Library of the Year in 2016. Nearby, you’ll also spot the Havnearbejdernes Klub Århus, a historic waterfront building that once served as a social space for dock workers.

An industry we couldn’t leave out is the Port of Aarhus, Denmark’s largest container port, responsible for handling more than 50% of the country’s container traffic. Consistently ranked among the most productive container terminals in Europe for crane moves per hour and overall berth efficiency, it plays a vital role in national logistics and supports a strong local economy. We're sure drivers will find plenty of job offers here!

Surrounding the port are numerous industrial sites, large and small, including a chemical factory, which players will be able to deliver to and from. Be sure to brush up on your ADR skills before heading in!

Our team has also included several cultural and architectural highlights to give the city a distinct identity. Drivers can come across sculptures such as “Historiske Spor” by Danish artist Jens Galschiøt, as well as two unique art murals that bring a splash of local character to the streets. While exploring, you might also catch glimpses of other distant landmarks such as the International Student Centre, Domen Aarhus, Aarhus City Hall (with its tower visible on the skyline), and even the spire of Aarhus Cathedral.

In the heart of the city, players will also find the Aarhus Bus Station. This central hub has been carefully recreated with attention to detail and will eventually play a role in the recently announced 'Project Coaches' module. Whether you're delivering goods or preparing to transport passengers, Aarhus should have something for everyone!

We’re happy to bring this much-requested addition to the Scandinavia DLC as part of the ongoing refresh project, and we look forward to sharing more from this development in the future. We always appreciate your support and feedback and until next time, keep on truckin’!

Project Scandinavia Refresh: Road Network

Earlier this year, we announced our Scandinavia Refresh project for Euro Truck Simulator 2, aiming to bring major improvements to one of our earliest DLCs. Since then, we’ve shared a Meet the Team blog to introduce the workforce behind the project, but today, we’re excited to share with you a look at some of the road networks we’ve been working on!

Before we get into the details, please keep in mind that everything you see here is still very much a work in progress and is subject to change. That said, let’s have a closer look at some of the refreshed road networks, shall we?

When the original Scandinavia DLC was first created, most of its junctions were built using the same prefabs, meaning that many of the intersections players drove through felt very similar. For the Refresh, we decided to take a much more detailed approach; all the old prefabs have been removed, and in their place, we’ve built custom-made junctions based on real-life layouts.

A lot of this incredible work was led by our externist Maarten (known in the community as Mandelsoft), whose expertise and passion for road design made a big difference across the refreshed areas.

First stop: Denmark! Our team has been hard at work refreshing the road network here. One major area of change is the E20 and E45 junction, which has been completely rebuilt. In reality, this junction, located near the city of Kolding, consists of three different junctions spread about 8 km apart. However, to better fit the scale of our map, our team has reimagined it as one large, triangular interchange.

Moving north, drivers can travel on the impressive Nørresund junction near Aalborg, which has been recreated on an almost 1:1 scale! We’ve also included the gas station and truck stop, which is located along the E45 between Aalborg and Aarhus. Whilst we’re still working on in-game branding, we are sure this will become a popular stop for truckers.

Over at the Germany-Denmark border, drivers will find a reworked border crossing that now includes proper border control setups, matching the details of their real life counterparts. We have also created two new inland routes, Road 16 and 26, which connect through the town of Viborg where you can find a new gas station too! Finally, the iconic Oddesund drawbridge has also been fully reworked, including a working bridge lift and detailed surrounding landscape.

Next stop, Sweden! This region has also seen significant improvements, particularly around the city of Gothenburg. This busy hub has undergone a partial rework, with special attention given to the dense network of highways around the E6/E20 corridor. As a result, the connections between the E20 and Road 40 have also been updated to reflect their real-world layout.

Along the E4, one of Sweden’s main arterial routes, four of our already existing truck stops have been reworked. One notable example is a famous truck stop featuring a candy shop shaped like an aircraft. Previously, this landmark could only be seen from the highway in Euro Truck Simulator 2. However, we are now pleased to share that we have reworked it into a fully functioning truck stop with a gas station, much like its real-life counterpart.

In the area of Brahehus, not only has the gas station been improved, but also the nearby castle ruins. This area will not only serve as a landmark and rest point, but also a depot! The truck stop located nearby Nyköping has also received a similar treatment.

And this is just the beginning! There are still lots more we’d love to share with you in the future as development continues, so stay tuned! Be sure to keep up to date with the latest news by subscribing to our newsletter or by following us on our socials on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Bluesky, and YouTube. Until next time, keep on truckin’!

Scandinavia Refresh: Meet The Team

Not so long ago, we announced that we have been working on the Scandinavia Refresh Project for some time which should smoothen the transition when crossing this map expansion's area to the upcoming Nordic Horizons map. Now, we would like you to meet the team working on the refresh of this region!

The team currently consists of eight people who have been refreshing the Scandinavia DLC for a few months. However, the production phase of the project began in January 2024, when just two people focused on this project. As time passed, more people joined the team. Today, some of them have a short message for our #BestCommunityEver.

Vojta - Map DLC Lead

"After completing my education in philosophy and theatre studies, game development was the obvious choice. In 2020, I joined SCS Software as a map designer and now I run the Scandinavia Refresh project as a map lead. It's exciting because apart from reskinning most of the content, we also want to introduce new places for players to explore. And Scandinavia has tons of beautiful, diverse scenery, and we enjoy implementing some of it. I feel a great sense of responsibility in refreshing our best-selling and most popular DLC and I hope that players will be happy with the result. With a team full of skilled and enthusiastic people working on Scandinavia Refresh, we're bringing out the full brilliance of this gem."

Albert

"My love for creative games and city-building strategies has led me to this point in my life of being one of the many talented map designers of the Euro Truck Simulator 2 rework team. I have been bestowed the great honour of reworking the magnificent capital city of Denmark, Copenhagen. Over the past few months the city has truly grown on me and I've completely fallen in love with its unique architecture, intricate bike paths and unique landmarks. I have worked on bringing all these elements into the game while respecting the original in-game city. No landmarks have been removed, only improved, and many more have been added for you to explore"

Tomáš

"Scandinavia refresh is the first project I'm working on here at SCS and I am very excited to be a part of this project and learn all that this area has to offer. I can't wait for our players to enjoy it in its new and exciting form. I love working on small details that players can discover and enjoy and I hope I can capture as many details as possible. My current task involves an island leading up to a bridge and I am having an incredible amount of fun working on it and I am already looking forward to many upcoming and equally exciting tasks."

Lukáš

"Hi everyone, it’s me, Lukáš. A few years back I was an aspiring investigative journalist, and although it was fun while it lasted and I enjoyed every aspect of it, I gradually found out I wanted something else from life. And guess what I also like, apart from writing long texts trying to explain things that are sometimes too complex and cumbersome to explain properly? That’s right! Video games! So I decided to make a change. I went from exposing crooked politicians to straightening crooked roads of Scandinavia. All the fun without any of the stress, what more could you possibly want? So far I have managed to refresh a few roads and cities in Sweden, build a few new ones in Denmark, and I may be adding a small Swedish city of K… What, Vojta? Oh, I cannot talk about this one yet? Well, I guess now you’ll never know what we are cooking!"

Sara

"When I was younger, my mom always told me: "Go study, video games won’t pay your bills." Well, look at me now. I joined SCS a few months ago and instantly fell in love with my job. I'm excited to be working on the Scandinavia refresh since I get to work with beautiful landscapes and cities. I promise I’ll try to make my parts of the map as pretty as possible to give you the best experience."

Lukáš

"Hey, my name is Lukáš. I am a map designer at SCS Software. I began my working journey here just half a year ago, my first project being the Scandinavia Refresh. I am looking forward to capturing the vast Scandinavian landscapes, for you to enjoy in our game, and making the beautiful cities even more beautiful, so you can re-experience the adventure that Scandinavia is all over again."

We hope you have enjoyed meeting the map team and that you are already looking forward to explore the refreshed Scandinavia! Remember to follow us on our Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Bluesky, and YouTube, so you won't miss out on any Euro Truck Simulator 2 news. We'd also really appreciate it if you could sign up for our newsletter to stay informed, even when you're not able to check out the blog or our socials. Drive safe!

Project Scandinavia Refresh

Today, we're delighted to share with you a little more information about a project we have been working on for a while, the Scandinavia DLC Refresh. We have hinted at its existence during our recent Special Christmas 2024 Live Stream, so we thought we may just as well explain what it is all about. The motivation for starting this project was to bring the existing Scandinavia DLC content closer to our current standards, so that when you pass through it on the way to the new region covered by Nordic Horizons DLC, the difference is not too abrupt.

As one of our most popular and oldest expansions for ETS2, with over 5 million copies sold, we wanted to refresh the Scandinavia DLC to bring the region closer in quality with our newer additions. The ambition is not a total rework, but we aim for an extensive touch up, a “reskin” of the region with updated textures and technology. This will create a smoother driving transition for players travelling between the Scandinavia DLC and our upcoming Nordic Horizons DLC.

What changes and additions are coming with this project? Our rework team is hard at work reskinning the region with updated materials for vegetation, road textures, various assets, and more. We are also creating and adding a few new rest stops and fuel stations along the road network, along with new and updated road junctions.

While some places will only receive cosmetic improvements, some places will be reworked from ground up. Want an example? We are excited to share that the team will be reworking the capital city of Denmark, Copenhagen! As with previous rework projects, the older version of the city will be removed and rebuilt from scratch. This is undoubtedly a significant task for the team, but the end result should be well worth the time and effort!

We look forward to sharing more information and screenshots from our progress of refreshing the Scandinavia DLC for Euro Truck Simulator, which will ultimately come as a free update to all owners of this map expansion. Keep an eye on our official Social Media Channels for the latest news on all our upcoming projects for both ETS2 and ATS! Until then, keep on truckin'.

ETS2 Special Transport revisited

Last December's add-on release for Euro Truck Simulator 2 - the Special Transport DLC - has been accepted very positively in the fan community. As you may remember, a comparable game expansion is also in the works for American Truck Simulator, but meanwhile, the team behind Special Transport still keeps on tweaking and improving their creation.

We are happy to reveal that along with the upcoming ETS2 1.31 Update, the Special Transport DLC will also be updated with new jobs. There are new routes added to the core map, and several new routes will also be accessible for owners of other map DLCs.

This is not our last take on Special Transport, you can count on further tweaks and improvements down the road!

World of Trucks Newsletter #1

Greetings,

Some of you may have found our very first newsletter in your inbox during the recent week. It's been a bit complicated for us to mail out over 170 thousand e-mails (and that's still only about half of users registered on World of Trucks!), even using Amazon's back-end service, it took several days to go through the long list.

So far we have received mostly compliments from our readers, indicating that there's hunger for such information updates. Some of our fans come here to read our blog, other people mostly stick to Facebook, some prefer Twitter, but it would take a real obsession to follow everything we do on a daily basis. So we believe that the newsletter, covering a broader range of topics and sent out every couple of months, will be a good additional channel to keep in touch with the fanbase, especially with the players who do not play the game or engage in the community so frequently, but still don't want to miss out on new cool things happening that could spark their interest in playing the game again more intensively.

It was not a coincidence that we wanted to get the first newsletter issue out alongside the release of our Euro Truck Simulator 2 Scandinavia expansion, a little bit of additional PR never hurts, but we think that you could appreciate that we focused on slightly different and deeper aspect of its development, as well as provided an overview of other projects that we are cooking for you under SCS Software's roof.

To prevent excessive email bounce rate we opted to send the newsletter only to active World of Trucks users - those who logged in to World of Trucks at least once during the last six months. In case you were among people who missed it, fear not, we are going to store all our future newsletters on our forum, where you have an option to comment or discuss its content.

So here you go:

Comment on our forum here

Read newsletter here

Here we go: ETS2 Scandinavia map expansion published!

The release of the much-anticipated Scandinavia map expansion DLC for Euro Truck Simulator 2 is finally here.

The activation keys in retail box editions of the game sold across Europe should start working right now, and your game should automatically update to the DLC content to be compatible with latest game version just after installation.

The launch date for digital portals is May 7 as well, so you will start to see the game appearing now as well on many 3rd party distribution sites.

We are of course offering the game for sale directly ourselves through our two official channels:

1. You can buy the Expansion from ETS2 Scandinavia Steam page.

2. Alternatively, if you want to avoid installing the game through Steam, we are still offering the Scandinavia expansion through our legacy activation system on the official Euro Truck Simulator 2 website.

For technical reasons we are unable to provide all the wide and growing palette of additional DLCs for the game outside of Steam, so you are limiting your options to further enrich the game. But we respect that some of you have a strong opinion about Steam and prefer the standalone version of the game. That's why we are releasing the crucial map expansions also this way.

On a related topic: We have an interesting option for how to update the game for non-Steam users: the Updater. We have been working on the Updater tool for some time, it's been used extensively in our small-group closed beta testing, so we have reasons to believe that it's robust and stable now, but it's still a little Spartan with no shiny interface. So we intended to "soft-launch" it (happening here and now) before recommending it as the primary download/update method on the official website. Updater uses peer-to-peer protocol for speeding up the download especially with more people connected to get the game files, which should considerably shorten the download time especially during peak demand periods. Please find the ETS2 Updater for download here. Put this file into the folder where you have installed the game and run it to update the game from any previous version.



Finally, the release of Scandinavia DLC is a great opportunity to increase the pool of available country-specific paint-job DLCs for the game:

• Danish Paint Jobs Pack
• Norwegian Paint Jobs Pack
• Swedish Paint Jobs Pack

As well as special, custom paintjob pack - Viking Legends Paintjobs

Almost There!

In one week, the day we have all been looking forward to for so long will finally be here, and the Scandinavia map expansion for Euro Truck Simulator 2 will be released.

What took us so long? It's fair to admit that we have taken much longer to build it than we planned. We are pursuing a lot of goals at the same time, perhaps more than is healthy for a predictable, robust release schedule.

In the past two years, we have doubled the man-power in the company, but we have quadrupled the number of projects we try to handle at the same time. Some of the focus was traded for wider reach. We are committed to expanding ETS2 world with more areas, we have started working on American Truck Simulator, we have several people working on coach buses project, we have the long-term vision for World of Trucks to become the ultimate trucking meta-game with persistent massive-multiplayer online capabilities. We have experimented with virtual reality, we dedicated time to create better tools for the modders, we talk to way more transportation-related companies now about having their brands appear in our games. In the middle of this all, a core team of engineers is constantly working on upgrading our in-house game engine, to improve the graphics and sound capabilities, teach the AI new tricks, make the physics simulation more detailed, while introducing new features and tools for the content creation team - only to have them live through the pain of having to re-do parts of the work to upgrade to the new data formats and processes.

We thought that after over 15 years of making games, we were quite experienced, but switching from the mode of small company with a start-up mindset into a bigger multi-project team has not been an easy ride; obviously we still have a lot to learn. The good thing is, we are still around, stronger than ever, with multiple projects staffed by passionate development teams who want to see them through to completion, and even if the wait was long, we still managed to nurture a very loyal hardcore fan community motivating us in turn to keep pushing.

The next few days are going to be very hectic for us. We are still polishing the 1.17 update to be released early next week, we are working on zero-day update for Scandinavia to make sure it's as optimized as possible on release, we are preparing to re-launch the Euro Truck Simulator 2 website with all new presentation graphics, we have to orchestrate the release of multiple "SKUs" across many digital and retail channels, while loudly trumpeting the PR message that the Scandinavia DLC is better than sliced bread. (Not to speak about having to arrange for an open beta test of update 1.18 which will start immediately after Scandinavia release, wink wink, so that the Mercedes-Benz New Actros truck is introduced into the game at last without additional delays!)

What can you do for us to help spread the message and make Scandinavia a success? Add Scandinavia DLC to your wishlist on its Steam store page, check out and like the new official promotional trailer embedded below, follow us on our SCS Software Twitter account, like us on our Facebook page and make an account on World of Trucks if you haven't done so already, register on forum and give us feedback on the currently running Open Beta of ETS2 1.17 update, pester your favorite star YouTuber or streamer to take a look at our game!

Also, if you live nearby, come to Truckfest Peterborough to say "Hi!" and meet SCS Software's CEO Pavel Sebor in the DAF Showtrekker trailer - a presentation of DAF Euro 6 truck as featured in the latest version of Euro Truck Simulator 2 will be taking place there with Pavel as a guest.

Scandinavia DLC early videos

Recent weeks have been awfully busy at our office while we apply final touches to the content of Scandinavia DLC as the release date draws closer and closer. At the same time, our team has been working round the clock to put together the public beta of the upcoming 1.17 update.

We have to apologize for being over-optimistic about the timeframe of the open beta release - we expected to have it out already as of last week, but we ended up needing more time. Important optimizations in the rendering code have been taken more time, sorry about raising your hopes too early. We definitely want to make a good impression even with this first beta (and there may be more), so having the performance closer to what we expect to ship with eventually is really important.

Meanwhile, we have lifted the embargo imposed on our inner-circle closed-beta testing group, the guys and girls helping us to comb Scandinavia for bugs, and they have started producing some really amazing videos! Perhaps they can shorten the wait a little for those anticipating the release of DLC Scandinavia.

Below you can see a short teaser trailer created by Adam, one of our trusted community testers. His short video showcases the environments nicely with the use of scenic camera...


The second video is a gameplay clip from Squirrel - one of the community's favorite YouTubers and streamers - taking you on a short delivery across beautiful Swedish landscape, visiting the Scania factory:

Scandinavian diversity + The release date

Greetings,

We are stabilizing the 1.17 ETS2 update with the goal of releasing another open beta soon. In fact we hoped to surprise you and get it out still this week, but late on Friday it became clear that we are not ready yet.

The graphics rendering pipeline is undergoing quite some overhaul to speed things up ahead of release of Scandinavia. We see that it improved framerate stability on low-end computer configurations, the jury is still out whether it helps the same way on high-end computers. We are battling some last-minute bugs creeping in now, and the programmers insist on spending a couple of extra days to have a build stable enough for public consumption. We expect 1.17 public Steam beta will see the light of day next week, fingers crossed that the coders fix all the problems by then.

The good news is - our ultimate goal is clear and we are on path: release of Scandinavia DLC is scheduled for May 7, 2015. Yesterday we already released a little teaser just about that. If you haven't noticed it already, check it out:


Let's talk a bit more about what's coming in the new DLC: Scandinavian diversity.  

The asset variation across Scandinavia territory is unprecedented for our games. The man-power we have poured into creation of new models and textures is exceeding even the work invested into the original ETS2. You can see that the look and feel of north of Scandinavia is very different comparing to the southern regions. Forests, fields and lakes of the south are giving way to mountainous regions filled with rock formations, cliffs, mountain valleys, and long twisty tunnels - which sometimes have even crossroads inside.
We have prepared a new set of screenshots for your viewing pleasure:

Happy Easter to everybody!