As part of its ongoing efforts to spruce up the earliest assets of the ageing American Truck Simulator, SCS is continuing to hammer away at bringing the California road network up to snuff. As one of the three initial states that were included in the sim’s launch, there is much to be done to revitalize its design and visual fidelity to help it better match the sim’s current standard when it comes to world complexity.
In a recent blog post, SCS outlined some of what it’s doing surrounding the state’s road network, and how the map is changing due to the update.
“Road closed for construction”
Much like a real roadworks project, this virtual edition for American Truck Simulator involves figuratively tearing up the old asphalt and laying down fresh, new pavement. This will come in the form of reworking the “roads, highways…and junctions” of virtual California. The team is focused on not just making these features simply look better, but to actually be more closely accurate to that of the real-world road networks they’re meant to represent.
This will include making them more complex and “realistic,” and also adding in more scenery assets such as “crossroads, bridges, agriculture stations, rest areas and more.” Additional small settlements will now be added along the routes between the larger cities; while they won’t be new points on the map, they’ll serve as more eye candy to add to the immersion factor for players.
As more towns will spring up, one major city is being torn down: San Rafael. This will be replaced by a yet-to-be-revealed locale to be included further down the line. In the meantime, the area surrounding it is being heavily altered in an effort to make it more accurate.
With this ongoing work on California, SCS is clearly dedicated to really fleshing out what’s possible with the likes of American Truck Simulator despite the sim growing more mature with each passing year. Of course, the studio is also continually expanding the map itself with entire new states. There are two currently in active development, Texas and Montana. Neither have a release date yet, but Montana is likely to be completed first considering the sheer size of Texas.
American Truck Simulator along with its sister-title Euro Truck Simulator 2 has seen a lot of quality of life improvements in recent times. This includes a graphical overhaul, the long-awaited inclusion of official online multiplayer support, and other upgrades to enhance gameplay. SCS recently stated that its committed to advancing these sims as time goes on, and with each new update and expansion, that overarching goal is shown to be taken seriously.
