Yeehaw, American Truck Simulator is going to Texas
If there's one things Texans love, it's the whole world thinking that a state of 30 million-odd folks is exclusively populated by cowboy boot-wearing, Tex Mex guzzling, country music-listening rednecks. Of course that's not true: There's Austin.
Sorry, sorry, put the six-shooters away. Aren't Texans also famed for their manners and sense of humour?
Following the recent announcement of the heart of Russia expansion for Euro Truck Simulator 2, American Truck Simulator is heading to the Lone Star State. As the second-largest US state both by area and population, there's an enormous variety of locations coming: "From the cities to the coastal beaches, mountains, and desert, Texas is both geographically and culturally diverse," says developer SCS.
SCS has been expanding American Truck Simulator since its 2016 launch (the game's 'main' map is California), with the Colorado expansion arriving in November and a Wyoming expansion upcoming, but Texas is going to be the biggest addition yet to the game. As such, it's almost definitely not coming this year.
"Whilst the Wyoming DLC is a little further along production-wise, it should be emphasized that the Texas DLC is still very early in development," writes SCS. "Being one of the largest US states, it will bring its own challenges during the various stages of production. Whilst we know many of you are very excited about this HUGE addition to American Truck Simulator, we cannot commit to a release date that is within the year."
In slightly more current news, there's also a trailer for the new lighting system coming to both American Truck Simulator and Euro Truck Simulator 2. If you like extremely shiny trucks, this is the video for you.
There's a huge amount of technical detail about exactly how this is changing things in an SCS blog post, which also includes some nice photographs of the three very proud-looking coders who were the main driving force behind the update. The 1.40 update does not have a release date yet but is currently live on the games' beta branches, so expect it to debut officially very soon.