Trucking Digest

Kicking off 2021 and wishing everyone a Happy New Year 🙂 Anyone who follows gaming, and probably quite a few non-gamers too, will have seen the disasterous release of the much hyped Cyberpunk 2077. Yet another Triple A games publisher demonstrates a lack of care for their customers and a belated offer of refunds will not heal the damage done to their reputation. If you’re wondering why I’m writing about a role-playing game when I’m supposed to be talking trucking, it’s because SCS Software also chose to apologise to their customers at the end of November. But rather than cause a tarnished reputation – it served to further enhance the good opinion of the company held by the community 🙂

The ‘apology’ came in a tweet with an attached blog post detailing some of the forthcoming developments while explaining that sadly, the Iberia DLC was going to be delayed. The community response was very positive and full of understanding. It has – not to put too fine a point on it – been a difficult year with much of the development work having to be done from home. In the face of those difficulties, what SCS have achieved is amazing and the only slight gripe to be heard regards the lack of new things for Euro Truck. American Truck has seen three new trucks added to the game as free updates, The Mack Anthem,..

…the Western Star 49X…

…and, most recently, the Freightliner Cascadia…

…The image of which, with that gift laden trailer tells you that SCS have again given us a christmas event too!

Also in ATS, we’ve had two new states as paid DLC’s, Idaho (which I posted about back in July) and Colorado with associated community events to take part in. Here are some screenshots from Colorado…

It’s impossible to do justice with just a few screenshots but I can tell you it is a stunning addition to the game.

Although Euro Truck didn’t get much with Iberia originally planned for delivery during the year, a number of French cities got a reskin to bring them up to the latest standard. Moving into 2021, The Ruhr area of Duisburg and Dortmund, along with the cities of Dusseldorf and Cologne, will get the map rebuild to bring that part of Germany up to the latest standard. Hopefully Iberia will finally be released and it looks like there will be a further map addition in the East (SCS are only teasing about that presently).

In ATS, California is going to be updated to the latest mapping standard and we know that the next state, already being worked on, will be Wyoming. Both games benefitted from new trailers and improved sounds too in the past year. There will be a major update to the lighting in both games in 2021 – something that has played a part in the Iberia delay. Given all that was delivered in 2020 and what is planned for 2021 – I really don’t think SCS had anything to apologise for! Here’s to a great 2021 – Keep on Truckin’ everyone 🙂