American Truck Simulator Will Soon Be About More Than Just Trucks

Most of us, at one point or another, have likely fantasised about a big American road trip – up the Pacific Coast Highway, or across Route 66. Doing it for real, though, is an expensive and time-consuming business. Happily, there’s a way to do it virtually, and in a condensed form, by booting up American Truck Simulator.

The only caveat with this is that you’ll be taking your digital road trip in a big 18-wheeler, rather than something like a convertible Mustang or a V8 pickup. That’s soon set to change, though, as ATS’ developer, SCS Software, has announced it’s working on Project Road Trip, a new mode that’ll see other types of vehicles brought to the title.

ATS features a shrunken – but still massive by video game standards – recreation of much of the lower 48 US states, stretching from California, Oregon and Washington on the west coast over to Missouri and Arkansas on the western side of the Mississippi river.

So far, as the name suggests, the sim’s focus has been traversing this landscape and making deliveries in the kind of massive articulated trucks that populate the US’ highway network, but Project Road Trip looks to expand this, allowing players to explore the map in “a powerful pickup or even a sports car.”

SCS is also exploring ways of gamifying the new types of vehicles’ inclusion, providing new types of tasks to complete with them in addition to aimlessly exploring the map. At least part of this looks like it'll be based around an 'exploration journal', encouraging you to visit different regions of the map.

The developer has given us glimpses at some of the vehicles it’s working on. Among them we can make out cars pretty clearly inspired by an original Dodge Challenger, a more modern Ford F-150 pickup and the one-time car of choice for police departments, taxi companies and FBI types across America, the Ford Crown Victoria.

It remains to be seen whether these cars will be officially licensed or just very close badgeless recreations of the real things, as is the case with the unplayable traffic cars that populate the roads in ATS and its sibling title, Euro Truck Simulator 2.

Either way, Project Road Trip should bring a new dimension to ATS, expanding its remit as an oddly relaxing, laid back gaming experience. We’re clearly a while off getting the full update yet, but just in case you’re a trucking hardcore balking at the idea of other vehicles finding their way into the game, SCS says it’s assembled a separate, dedicated team to work on the expansion, so progress with the core cargo-hauling elements is uninterrupted.