Euro Truck Simulator is a Simulation Game in which you drive trucks in Europe. Developed and published by SCS Software, two installments of the series exist so far: The original, released in 2008, and its 2012 sequel, Euro Truck Simulator 2, which is the "official" and current installment of the series, adding improved graphics, official truck licenses, and RPG Elements. Though either dismissed as Fun for Some or enjoyed ironically through Mundane Made Awesome Major League Gaming parody videos and drunken livestreams by most gamers, Euro Truck Simulator 2 has received consistent critical praise such that it has been in continuous content development for a decade as of 2022, with many reviews upholding the game as a real-life Lethal Joke Item: an addictive and deep driving game which will reward players who do not immediately dismiss it as yet another simulation game with a mundane premise.
It has a coffee-swilling cousin over the Atlantic known as American Truck Simulator. Not unexpectedly, this sequel is the one that takes place in the United States of America. Along with replacing the cab-over trucks found in Europe with American conventional trucks, it also introduced weigh stations to the series, because America has weigh stations.
Do not confuse with Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing, a less-than-polished attempt to depict rigs in video games. Or Big Mutha Truckers, a more fantastic take on the Big Badass Rig in video games.
Euro Truck Simulator and its sequels provide examples of:
- Absurdly High Level Cap: The final truck customization options unlock at level 30, but the game's maximum level sits somewhere above 600,000. Exceeding the cap crashes the game, but you would need to play for literal real-world years to reach it, so this shouldn't normally be a problem.
- Acceptable Breaks from Reality: One of the main reasons why this game became successful despite being so incredibly niche was precisely because Euro Truck Simulator is not afraid of sacrificing realism in the name of fun.
- Unlike most other "simulation" games, you can pause, save, and quit the game anytime and resume the game anytime, with actual non-stop driving (except stopping in rest areas) as a
Self-Imposed Challenge instead. - Many, but most notable is the incredibly condensed passage of time and size of Europe, a design decision likely made because most of the map is created by hand and a 1:1 scale would take the small team years to do.
- If you're not into perfect simulation, control of the trucks can be simplified so that changing gears is optional.
- Fragile cargo can only be damaged by direct bumps against the trailer — the only difference it has with normal cargo is that fragile cargo takes multiple times the damage. You can truck ski around at 160 km/h and it won't damage as long as you don't hit anything with the trailer. This is in order to allow speeding with fragile cargo if you feel like it.
- As noted in a later section, post-1.9 traffic AI is much smarter than most IRL motorists. It turned out to be really not fun to run into someone blocking an intersection or bumping your trailer and damaging your fragile cargo because they didn't notice you changing lanes.
- Speaking of traffic, motorways at peak time, unless modded, have about the same traffic as country roads in the middle of the night. For example, in real life the M25 around London is at a standstill even when it's moving. Presumably they realised that while driving a truck might interest people, waiting in traffic is less so. Or maybe even with generous AI cars that actually get out of the way, they wouldn't be able to realistically simulate that much traffic flow without issues.
- Cities in the base game are accurate to scale, i.e. one in-game kilometer of city translates to one IRL kilometer of the actual city. This resulted in tiny, repetitive cities that turned out to be little more than a place to have warehouses, service stations and a motel in. Later expansions took notice of that phenomenon and switched instead to cities that look and feel much more realistic despite being much bigger in the map than their actual counterparts.
- Because it can be a little hard for most players to figure out that "Санкт-Петербург" stands for St. Petersburg, a fair amount of road signs in Russia are in both Russian and English. In real life, road signs in Russia only have Russian on them. (You still need at least a cursory knowledge of Cyrillic alphabet if you prefer taking the small back roads).
- Ferries don’t run to a specific timetable that could delay your journey by a day if you show up a minute late; you simply drive to the terminal and choose your destination.
- Border crossings in non-Schengen countries are always successful; the ones in Russia function in practice as toll booths where you have to wait about 15-30 seconds to pass. Of course, it would be quite frustrating to fail a delivery to Russia due to Obstructive Bureaucrats. The Turkish border is a bit more involved, as you may be selected for x-ray screenings and physical searches. Nonetheless you will never fail the crossing.
- Daytime running lights in the game had been only enforced when it's raining. The 1.40 update seems to reflect real life, driving without lights on a clear day can result in a fine.
- Diesel Exhaust Fluid, used to reduce emissions, is consumed along with diesel itself as you drive but topping off on AdBlue is streamlined as part of refueling your truck at any petrol station.
- You can use H-Shifter controls, even though the transmissions for all trucks in vanilla are either automated manuals, or torque-convertor autos.
- On the subject of the above, you can use any engine with the Allison (or Scania) torque automatics, even though they're not meant to handle the power and torque of high-end engines.
- Although there are road laws to follow in the game, a lot of smaller road laws aren't applied in the game. This means it's okay to drive with your high-beams on all the time (the most oncoming traffic will do is flash their high-beams back to remind you), it's okay to use the retarder and/or cruise control in inclement weather, etc.
- Unlike most other "simulation" games, you can pause, save, and quit the game anytime and resume the game anytime, with actual non-stop driving (except stopping in rest areas) as a
- Ace Custom: Late-game trucks in the sequel become a Mundane Made Awesome version of this, with cosmetic features and improved engines and transmissions.
- Anti-Frustration Features:
- The arcade driving game-style "Simple Automatic" transmission, and the ability to auto-park and easy-park the truck.
- Double trailers only show up on deliveries within Scandinavia, and for good reason — as of right now, only Scandinavia's roads have interchanges with wide turns specially designed to make it easy enough to move an eighteen wheeler. In addition, the game won't even allow you to park the whole double trailer on the correct spot, you can only park it on the easy spot.
- In Finland, High Capacity Trailers will never show up on the job market, and must instead be purchased due to the skill required to tow them.
- The game is programmed to simulate your truck's fuel consumption based on a number of factors, including your engine's RPM and how much weight you are carrying, meaning that fuel consumption can be highly variable across a journey. If you'd rather make fuel consumption a predictable statistic based solely on mileage so you don't overestimate how much further you can travel on your tank, you can turn 'Realistic Fuel Consumption' off in the menu.
- Tollbooths are much less frustrating and pace-breaking if you use the Telepass lane, which is always functional.
- The barriers that stop you from going down the roads that are just set pieces won't cause any damage if you drive into them, just in case you weren't sure what they were.
- You can choose to have the satnav display the speed limit so you can better avoid speeding fines. It also helpfully allows you to not have to convert between miles and kilometers between your dashboard and the road signs.
- If you add or remove mods / DLC that changes the map, the game will cancel your current job and place you back at your garage so you don't end up out of bounds or find that you can't complete your delivery because there's no path or something.
- In 1.44, removing a mod or DLC that adds parts to vanilla trucks will now let you refund the parts that are missing and remove them, making it possible to copy the config to the rest of your fleet again.
- During the June 2020 World of Trucks event, you had to drive through a toll road to get to one of the bridge sites. Since you were going to come back the other way once you've delivered the cargo, and probably picked up an outgoing load, there was no fee for passing through.
- If there are two or more concurrent World of Trucks events, a single job can count for progress in both events if it meets the criteria for each (i.e. delivering Halloween Treats for Happy Hauloween to and/or from a city in West Balkans for Cruising West Balkans).
- And Your Reward Is Interior Decorating: Aside from paint jobs, most reward items from World of Trucks events in both this game and American consist of cabin decorations.
- Anti Poop-Socking: The driver fatigue mechanic, which forces the player to park the truck about every 45 minutes, is also meant to periodically break your focus in order to encourage you to take a break.
- April Fools' Day: 2022 saw the "announcement
" of a ZX Spectrum port of the game, which also doubled as a sincere tribute to the system's 40th anniversary and to the late Sir Clive Sinclair. - Artificial Stupidity: Until patch 1.9, the traffic AI could be very dumb. Despite it being the AI's fault for lousy overtaking, it would still cost you money with the fine and damage to your trailer. SCS have now fixed the AI, making them not only smarter, but also faster so that they can overtake you more easily. It's also not always your fault in a crash.
- Patch 1.9 has not entirely averted this. If you're driving next to the insert lane and block a car from merging onto the highway, when it reaches the end of the insertion lane, it will try to merge in anyway, consequences (and fines and damage to your truck) be damned.
- A Taste of Power: After you buy your first truck, you will almost immediately miss the fancier, more powerful trucks your employers provided when you were freelancing for quick jobs. You cannot afford/unlock those trucks and customization parts until considerably later.
- Badass Driver: Mundane Made Awesome version. Haul fragile, perishable, and dangerous cargo across an entire continent, arriving just in time without ever breaking the rules of the road...
- Big Badass Rig: The point of the game. American players who do not find the European-style cab-overs big or badass enough have created Game Mods introducing bigger, more badass conventional trucks, complete with American-flag paint schemes. Naturally, SCS made American Truck Simulator in response to this.
- Some of the trucks in this game can use a long 8x4 chassis with four rear drive wheels and four front steerable wheels. While it sacrifices maneuverability, it gives the truck better weight distribution and load carrying ability.
- Bland-Name Product:
- Freight companies are as a rule fictional. There is, however, a slightly suspicious similitude between real-life French supermarket chain Carrefour and a delivery-only destination that looks like a big box shop called "Kaarfor".
- "LKW" is based off LKW Walter. The in-game logo is similar, but the name is a bit more of a Brand X, because LKW is just the German word for "truck"note .
- Ika Bohag doesn't even try to hide its role as an ersatz Ikea.
- The toll booths allow payment with not-Visa, not-Mastercard, not-American Express, not-Discover and not-PayPal.
- Some cargo item brands are slightly modified versions of the actual one, like the ̶V̶o̶s̶s̶l̶o̶h̶ Bossloc locomotive or the ̶W̶i̶r̶t̶g̶e̶n̶ Writigen asphalt miller.
- The common tractor you can transport on loading beds and occasionally spot in fields are a badgeless Bland-Name Product of Deutz-Fahr tractors and a Palette Swap (just like in Real Life, thanks to the SDF Group owning both brands) gives them a blank, white paintjob, making it resemble a modern Lamborghini tractor.
- At launch, FCP was a blatant DHL stand-in. This changed in Update 1.44 when a range of base game companies were given rebrands, and FCP now appears to be a car manufacturing company (it is used as a stand-in for both Graz's Magna Steyr factory and Hannover's Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles factory).
- Boring, but Practical: Like turning a profit on long routes? Invest in the Ecodriving skill.
- Busman's Holiday: The game's mechanics are in great part developed with feedback from actual truckers who play the game on their spare time.
- The Cameo: The English voice navigation options are provided by recognisable voice actors. Skye Bennett (Pyra/Mythra in Xenoblade Chronicles 2) provides the female voice, while Doug Cockle (Geralt of Rivia in The Witcher video games) provides the male voice.
- Car Porn: Purchasing a new truck directly off the dealership will treat you to a cutscene that shows off every single curve and line of your new truck. It also doubles as a showcase of the excruciating detail SCS Software has put into modeling the trucks, from the smallest nooks and crannies of the interior to the nuts on the wheels. Once you get to drive your truck, you can also look around your cabin and see how not a single detail of the interior has been missed — the Mercedes-Benz New Actros even features the factory-included blanket partially unrolled over the sleeper's mattress.
- Command & Conquer Economy: Only the player decides where to purchase new garages, whether or not to upgrade them, what trucks and trailers to equip them with, and which drivers to recruit. The only thing you don't need to micromanage is the jobs your drivers accept, which happens automatically and at random.
- Creator Cameo: Many of the hireable drivers use the names and portraits of the development team.
- Damage-Proof Vehicle: Your trucks can take damage, as well as slowly wear down over time, but visually they will never have even a spec of mud to show for it. AI traffic is even tougher in this regard; short of being flipped onto their roofs, no crash is so destructive that the car cannot simply drive away scratch-free.
- Damn You, Muscle Memory!: Regardless of whether the player is mainland European, a Brit, or even a Yank, the trip across the Chunnel is only going to end in suffering if you're not used to making the trip in Real Life. Also, playing this game after logging a significant amount of time in traditional Wide-Open Sandbox games is likely going to net you a lot of penalties - by which we mean road fines.
- Depth of Field: There's a Photo Mode with a handful of sliders to adjust the depth of field of the scenery or the parked Big Badass Rigs.
- Developer's Foresight: It is possible for police cars to drive out of their country of origin. While this is a bit unrealistic, the developers at least acknowledge it by not allowing them to fine you for crimes committed outside their jurisdiction.
- Diegetic Interface: All of the dashboard instruments and side view mirrors of each truck are completely functional and accurate.
- Downloadable Content: In addition to some expansive free patches, the game has received a plethora of paid DLC, which can be sorted into three rough categories:
- Map expansions, which introduce additional areas and cities to explore and make deliveries to.
- Cargo packs, which add various new cargo options, typically introducing a new challenge such as super-heavy cargo and special transports that require AI escorts. In addition, DLC has featured trailers licensed from manufacturers, all of which can be purchased and customised.
- Tuning packs, which add a range of accessories to customise your trucks with. The most prolific of these are the 'National Paint Job' packs, which include a few paint jobs themed around a specific country.
- Driving Stick: Most Euro trucks have between 12 to 16 gears but the game can shift through them automatically if you wish, either in an arcade-style Simplistic Automatic where you reverse if you hold the brake at a standstill, Realistic Automatic where you change between Drive, Neutral and Reverse; Sequential which allows you to go up and down the gears (you can also switch between Real Automatic and Sequential on the fly with a button press), and H-Shifter which requires a compatible H-Shifter accessory.
- When using H-Shifter in particular, you can choose between a setup of a Range of gears (1-6, 7-12, etc.), Each gear position having a split of three (1-3, 4-6, etc), a hybrid Range-Splitter where the first toggle controls the range and the second controls the split of the gears. If you want to get really advanced, you can also use positions respective to a transmission like on a Scania or Volvo's 12/12+2 sticks (Six speeds divided across two ranges and each speed has a Low-High split, +2 transmissions have two "crawler" gears) or the ZF 12 and 16 speed transmissions (Similar to the previous, just without crawler gears, the 16 speeds are eight speeds across two ranges with a Low-High split).
- If this all sounds near overwhelming, then you can alternatively install a late-game Allison aftermarket transmission (with Scania trucks having a licensed-produced version of said Allison automatic transmission) that is a proper automatic transmission with the flexibility of a torque converter. While you lose some cargo carrying ability, the gearshifts offer much smoother acceleration and you get a torque multiplier.
- Early-Installment Weirdness:
- The base game, developed back when SCS Software was still a small studio that had yet to release a best-seller, suffers from notoriously cruder graphics and world design than content introduced in later updates or DLC such as Scandinavia and Italia. Starting with update 1.32 released in September 2018, the development team began working on redesigning these base game regions to fix this, starting with Germany.
- At the game's launch, there were still a few Fauxrraris for trucks yet to be licensed, including 'Valiant' for Volvo and 'Majestic' for Mercedes-Benz. This is a design choice they moved away from entirely for American Truck Simulator, as well as for any potential future Euro additions such as Ford and Kamaz.
- Country and region-specific companies would not be introduced until Scandinavia. The base game also featured a unique map icon for quarries, which would later be abandoned. Another early map-related quirk is that prefab intersections would be fully counted towards map completion simply by driving over part of it. Later intersections require you to drive across every inch to complete it.
- Speaking of prefab intersections, the base game had some incredibly awkward ones. Most notoriously, many intersections would split a two lane highway, requiring you to stick to the inside if you want to carry on. As the game design advanced, the dev team took the informal decision of making them Germany and Austria's regional gimmick.
- There was no police (a feature first introduced in American Truck Simulator).
- Easter Egg:
- Many out-of-bounds road signs that can only be viewed by using the developer free-roam camera feature hidden messages from the developers.
- In the post-1.44 rework of Austria, you can discover a hidden road in Graz that leads to a faithful recreation of the real-world Arnold Schwarzenegger Museum.
- Easy-Mode Mockery: A subtle version in the form of the gearbox selection. Simple Automatic depicts a wooden toy pickup truck, Real Automatic shows a wood model of a semi, Sequential is represented by a diecast metal truck toy, while H-shifter shows a proper semi-truck. Update 1.48 replaced this trope with clearer diagrams.
- Eiffel Tower Effect: In the base game, this was how cities were related to their real world counterparts: simply have a few local landmarks visible in the skyline. This was downplayed in later expansions, where geographical accuracy was sacrificed in favor of prettier city layouts and landmarks were more seamlessly integrated into the cities. And funnily enough, the remade version of Paris in Vive La France removes the Eiffel Tower.
- Eternal Equinox: Partially averted. While it is always summer in the game, sunrise and sunset hours are latitude-dependent. Night time will arrive around 10 PM in the Mediterranean, sometime around 11 PM in Scotland, and Scandinavia has midnight sun.
- Fauxrrari:
- All trucks in the original and initially, some trucks in the sequel. Prior to Version 1.18 of the sequel, "Majestic" trucks replaced Mercedes-Benz.
- AI cars are very definitely IRL cars except for their logo. The German police car, for example, is very definitely a 2012 Volkswagen Passat... but the logo is two vertically opposite V's. Other clearly identifiable AI cars include the Ford Mondeo, the SEAT Toledo, the BMW 1-series, and the Lamborghini Murciélago in the Italia expansion.
- Mercedes-Benz AI cars have logos that only vaguely resemble their actual counterparts, despite Mercedes-Benz being a player-drivable truck manufacturer. Apparently, the trademark licensing agreement didn't include personal vehicles.
- This spills over to Truth in Television with the Renault and Volvo vehicles; with the car and truck brands now separately owned, they share only a name and badge. Said licensing agreements therefore couldn’t have had AI cars included with the trucks, since they weren’t the truck companies’ to include in the first place.
- Fell Asleep Driving: A game mechanic, fitting in with the realistic approach to gameplay. If you spend a long time driving, your driver will begin yawning, and the screen will black out shortly. As this continues, the black outs will get longer, until eventually, the driver will fully fall asleep, giving you a few seconds where you can’t control anything. Thankfully, rest stops periodically appear on the roads, allowing the driver to get some proper sleep while the truck is not in motion.
- First-Person Ghost: Your character can be seen while using external cam, but nothing is shown at all in first person view, supposedly because animating a free-rotating 360 degrees wheel turning animation is hard and so the detail on steering wheel and dashboard isn't obstructed.
- Flying Saucers: At first glance, these seem to be circling in various locations. The Extreme Trucker games, also from SCS, make it clear that these are supposed to be birds.
- Game Mod: A lot of them, some of which are stunning in quality. Custom trailers, custom trucks, custom cargo, map expanders, map replacements, paintjobs for trucks and trailers (ranging from replicas of real-life companies' brandings to itasha), AI mods, physics mods, graphics overhauls and the like. The game has been specially designed from the ground up to allow mods: installing them is as simple as subscribing to them on the Steam Workshop, then enabling them on the in-game mod manager. There are also mods only available on sources outside of Steam, such on SCS's forums (as a general rule, the Steam Workshop does not support map modifications).
- Gameplay and Story Integration: Thanks to the Schengen Agreement, border crossings in the Schengen Zone barely amount to a small border outpost where you have to slow down and that's it. It was only until 2019 and 2020, when Russia and Turkey were introduced, that actual border crossings involving detailed inspections were first seen in the series.
- Gimmick Level: As your adventures will take you all across Europe, you will encounter variations in local road laws and systems:
- The United Kingdom drives on the left and its speed limits are in miles. More importantly while its motorway speed limits are higher than anywhere else in Europe, its town limits are lower, and it delights in speed cameras on every traffic light, in and out of town, and at roadworks, traffic accidents, and even roadside cops with speed-traps.
- France, Italy, Poland and Norway have tollbooths on their highways, as they feature privatised road networks. However, to make things less frustrating, most tollbooths have a Telepass lane that will automatically bill you by just driving through.
- Norway has tunnel crossings with roundabouts, where you must be careful not to hit the central pillar if you're hauling an eighteen wheeler.
- France has low speed limits placed at highway junctions and winding back roads, but hardly any traffic cameras, tempting the trucker to speed with no repercussions, up until you fly off the road and flip over three times.
- Scandinavia and Finland provides the option for trucks to carry double trailers, and all the extra challenges they provide. Update 1.35 expands this area to Germany and the Netherlands, reflecting real life rule changes.
- Finland introduces High Capacity Transport: full-size, double trailers that take the associated challenges of doubles up to eleven.
- Russia requires border inspections upon entry and exit. The country's roundabouts also give priority to merging traffic, unlike everywhere else. Finally, the fact that the nation uses the Cyrillic alphabet means it is much harder to read road signs without at least a basic knowledge of it.
- The Baltic region in general features less developed road infrastructure compared to other countries, meaning variable speed limits, two-lane highways that would be classified as "back roads" in Western Europe, and railroad crossings that would suddenly cut across said highways (with at least one that's unmarked) that you would probably ram into at least once because there's little forewarning.
- The Special Transport DLC gives you the option to transport huge, heavy cargos, accompanied by two escort cars. Your speed is drastically reduced, your heavy cargo makes every speed-bump a mountain, and you take up about two-thirds of the road. You must also follow the lane-changing advice of the escort drivers and not collide with them. Just pray you don't have to stop at a rail junction or you may never clear the speed-bump.
- The standard top speed limit for trucks is generally 80km/h, with a handful of countries going up to 90km/h. Romania and the United Kingdom are the only nations to break this trend, with speeds going up to 100km/h and 60mph (96km/h) respectively.
- Turkey and Austria both feature weigh stations, a feature that is more prominent in American Truck. The former features them alongside toll gates, plus a standalone one near Istanbul, while the latter has inspections for trucks looking to travel over the Alps. Unlike in American Truck, taking these weight inspections are always mandatory.
- Hard Truckin': You take control of a big rig and driver across Europe hauling cargo to destinations.
- Holiday Mode: SCS hosts a World of Trucks event every Christmas that involves delivering trailers full of gifts in both this game and American, the goal usually being to complete enough jobs to/from any city to get community rewards alongside a personal quota (usually 15) with their own set of rewards, which in both cases can include paint jobs and cabin accessories. 2022 adds Halloween to the schedule, with Halloween candy as the cargo, and 2023 throws in Valentine's Day with presents cargo.
- Guide Dang It!:
- "ETS2 headlight usage offence" is a frequently Googled search term, partly because of how the game's controls are set up (you actually have to press the key twice, the first press only activates parking lights and dashboard illumination) and partly because the laws mandate said lights need to be on at "night" (read: from 1800). All countries also have laws mandating the use of headlights when going through a tunnel or when it's raining, with some countries (eg. Nations within the Scandinavian region, as well as some Eastern European nations such as Latvia) even requiring the use of headlights at all times.
- Telepass tollbooth lanes are fully functional. There is no indication that this is the case. Once you find out, tollbooths suddenly become much less of a pain in the neck.
- World of Trucks jobs are measured in real-time instead of in-game time. Apart from the color of the time limits, there is nothing to tell the difference.
- Interface Screw: When your driver is tired, the screen will occasionally turn dark since the driver is slowly falling asleep at the wheels. The more tired he gets, the more often and longer this will happen. Eventually, your driver will start nodding off at the wheel, during which your screen will turn completely black and you will lose all control over your truck for a few seconds (you can save yourself to some degree if you get into this situation by driving slowly, on a low gear, with the retarder at maximum).
- Invisible Wall: There are many smaller roads that divert from the main roads, but you can't take them. Those Xs will not allow it; your truck just stops suddenly and shuts down as soon as you touch them. You also can't go onto train tracks.
- Lawyer-Friendly Cameo: Update 1.35 added voice navigation, with Doug Cockle providing the Male English voice. The 'Gruff' novelty option is him doing a legally-distinct version of his Geralt of Rivia voice.
- Lethal Joke Item: The Allison transmissions in both this game and American, the stat penalties seem off-putting for its price but it makes up for it via the torque multiplier and seamless gearshifts.
- Level Grinding: Want to afford a truck of your own in the sequel without turning to the Bank? Better log those hours behind the wheel. More advanced trucks and customization options also require this.
- Level-Map Display: In addition to the standard road map that is part of the HUD, there is also a diegetic GPS screen on the trucks' more luxurious trim levels. If you feel like experiencing a little more inmersive interface, you can disable your standard HUD map and instead rely on your truck's GPS screen. If you don't feel like paying a fortune of in-game money for upgrading your truck's cabin, a DLC will also allow you to install separate GPS screens onto the truck's windshield. This is important for those driving the Renault Premium, Magnum and the older Mercedes-Benz Actros as they lack a dashboard GPS of their own.
- Made of Indestructium: The gate barriers in toll booths. That flimsy-looking bar will total your truck if you try to run through it in full speed.
- Magikarp Power: Rookie drivers barely turn a profit and can sometimes even lose you money, but stick with them long enough for them to level up a couple times and they'll eventually be able to take on even the most demanding jobs, occasionally making you profits in the six figure range.
- Marathon Level: Once you fully level up your Long-Distance Driving skill, you can start making cross-continental drives that take several hours of IRL time to complete.
- Nitro Express: Ultimately averted; while there are various types of hazardous and flammable cargo, the only gameplay effect is requiring the respective ADR (Hazmat in American) license to transport, crashing won't cause them to explode or anything.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: The list of names for your truck drivers contains a suspicious number of celebrities like Lily A., Arnold S., Lucy L., Garry O. and many others. Their portraits are entirely random stock photos, though, keeping things lawyer-friendly.
- No Antagonist: There is nothing actively working against you in the game except your own mistakes, and even then you can always take quick jobs in borrowed trucks if you can't afford fuel/service for your own. Even in the business sim aspects, there are no opposing companies and your employees will make you money nine times out of ten. Pretty much the only way to get into trouble is going into debt and defaulting on a bank loan, which almost takes actual effort, as the rates are surprisingly reasonable.
- No Plot? No Problem!: You make deliveries with your truck and earn money doing it, and with that money you can start your own trucking business. There's no campaign, no scenarios, just plain ol' trucking.
- Not the Intended Use: The 'National Company' achievement asks the player to own a garage in every city in your home country, expecting the player to slowly build up their garage portfolio over time. Alternatively, you can just set Luxembourg (or Prishtinë in Kosovo with the West Balkans DLC) as your headquarters and complete it as the very first thing you do.
- One-Steve Limit:
- The Mercedes-Benz Actros MP4 is listed in-game as the New Actros to differentiate it from the existing, previous-gen Actos MP3, the latter of which was part of the game's truck lineup on launch.
- The MAN TGX series has had to undergo this trope since the release of the 2012-2019 facelift. The 2007-2011 TGX was a launch truck, and when the 2012-2019 facelift was added in 2019, it was referred to as the "TGX Euro 6", referencing the Euro 6 emission standards that the powerplants in the facelifted were designed to meet or exceed, which came into force in 2014. When the second-generation TGX, the 2020-on TG3 TGX was introduced into the game in late May 2023, the original 2007-2011 TGX was now referred to as the "TGX Euro 5", referring to the older Euro 5 emissions standards that were in place at the time this version of the TGX was released.
- Photo Mode: The game features one, allowing you to take photos around your truck, along with modifying the weather, time of day, and photo filters. There is also a 'Photo Gallery' sidequest, which challenges you to take pictures of landmarks around the game world.
- Power Limiter: The game limits your vehicles' speed to 90 km/h by defaultnote . You can disable it in the options menu, but you risk spectacularly rolling over your truck if you try to turn at high speed, in addition to the much longer braking distance. It is also impossible to remove this speed limiter on online-sourced deliveries.
- Product Delivery Ordeal: The player is tasked to undertake product deliveries for various companies, and to this end it'll be necessary to travel across cities while keeping numerous perks in check, such as respecting transit signals (including those regulating the speed limit), obeying regional or national driving customs (such as driving on the left side in the United Kingdom), accounting for tollboths in countries with privatised road networks, respecting local cargo weight limits, going through border inspections... all while also keeping an eye on your truck's fuel. Similar shenanigans also occur in the game's sequels, including American Truck Simulator.
- Production Foreshadowing: Around the edges of the map, you can often spot road connections that can easily be opened to new areas in the future. Close to new map expansion releases, it is also customary for small portions of those maps to be added to the base game, allowing players with the developer camera to explore them prior to its proper release.
- Real Life Writes the Plot:
- The Czech Republic's highway network used to be divided into two categories: 'Dálnice' and 'Rychlostní silnice'. The latter was abolished and absorbed into the former at the end of 2015, which was then reflected in-game.
- Update 1.32 reduces the speed limits of several French minor roads from 90 km/h to 80 km/h, reflecting a July 2018 law that did just that.
- Update 1.35 reflects rule changes in Germany and the Netherlands that allow for double trailers to be towed there.
- Update 1.37 makes a tiny alteration to the Scania S-Series that most won't notice: The badge now features the letter 'S' after the truck's horsepower, rather than before it as per the naming convention used by the rest of Scania's lineup. This was in response to a December 2019 legal agreement with Mercedes-Benz, who objected to the Scania S-Series using the same naming system as the Mercedes S-Class.
- Much like the landslide event in American Truck Simulator, the Ponte Morandi was slated to reopen in July 2020 and SCS hosted a World of Trucks event in June for players to deliver machines and materials to and from the West and East sides of the bridge.
- A set of Ukrainian paint jobs was brought out in March 2022 despite the country not currently being featured in the game, to show support in light of the country being invaded by Russian forces. All proceeds from the DLC was donated to People In Need, a Czech humanitarian charity that provided relief to Ukrainian civilians and refugees.
- Reality Is Unrealistic:
- The old traffic AI that would often switch lanes without looking and block intersections was actually probably the most realistic traffic simulation out there, as anyone who spends a lot of time on the highways - or watches a lot of Russian dashcam videos - can tell you.
- You will sometimes see French TGV trains outside of France. This is realistic — SNCF has services that venture abroad, reaching countries such as Germany, Italy, Switzerland or Netherlands.
- Some road signs pointing to Serbia still feature its old country code of 'SCG' (for Serbia and Montenegro, from 'Srbija i Crna Gora'). This was often reported as an error on the game's forums, but even in 2023 many road signs in reality still haven't been updated since 2006.
- Real Money Trade: World of Trucks rewards are handled by the Steam Inventory ecosystem. As a result, they can be sold on the Steam Community Market for Steam credits or traded for items from other games that use the Steam Inventory such as, say, Team Fortress 2.
- RPG Elements: Euro Truck Simulator 2 features these heavily. Completing shipments successfully and parking the truck properly earns XP, which increases your driver level, which lets you unlock more customization elements for your truck, as well as skills which in turn unlock longer or more difficult routes for your truck, more fragile or hazardous cargo, or increase your gas mileage.
- Scenery Porn: Europe is beautiful. The Scandinavia expansion is pretty much all about beholding the magnificent mountains and fjords that lie between Oslo and Bergen. And the modders at ProMods have an even prettier version.
- Shout-Out:
- One achievement is called 'Test Drive Limited'.
- A dualvertisement campaign with Rocket League in April 2016 saw the addition of cabin decorations based on the Octane and the Rocket League ball - items that remain available as The Artifact after Rocket League was acquired by Epic Games in 2019 and subsequently migrated from Steam (whose systems Euro Truck Simulator 2 is tightly integrated into) to the rival Epic Games Store. In turn, Rocket League received a Temporary Online Content cab-over truck antenna.
- When you're driving through northern Germany, all the road signs for Bielefeld are crossed out, a reference to the "Bielefeld Conspiracy", a German Internet meme about how the city in question doesn't exist.
- Shown Their Work: SCS Software takes geographical faithfulness very seriously, and always strives hard to do its research in order to recreate Europe as accurately as the compressed space allows it. The staff has joked that every time they finish mapping a region, they end up knowing it better than many locals.
- Belgian road signs come in different languages depending on whether you're in Wallonia (the French-speaking part, with signs that lead to Bruxelles and Liège) or Flanders (the Dutch-speaking part, with signs that lead to Brussel and Luik). Swiss highway exit signs also say "Sortie", "Ausfahrt" or "Uscita" depending on whether you're on the French, German or Italian-speaking part, although the sign welcoming you to the country says "Schweiz" wherever you are. Road signs pointing to foreign cities will also often use the name in their language instead of the local name, e.g. "Straßburg", "Lüttich", "Posen" or "Stettin" in Germany instead of Strasbourg, Liège, Poznań or Szczecin, and "Koszyce" in Poland instead of Košice.
- Spain features its own regional languages in the areas of Catalonia, Navarre and Basque Country. It also goes a step further than other bilingual nations by also having regional police forces for each of those autonomous communities.
- Italy has signs on every region border — a crossed "Basilicata" sign above a "Calabria" sign means you have just moved away from Basilicata into the Calabria region.
- Truck stops in France and Italy are named in compliance with French road law — "Aire de la Chapelle" means "La Chapelle [rest] area".
- Update 1.30 added timezones. While it only supported two timezones at launch — UTC in Great Britain and CEST elsewhere — it was seen as the first step towards the expansion towards Russia and the Baltic States.
- License plates across each country are faithfully depicted, and this includes some very specific details. For example, nations like Switzerland feature area codes which accurately reflect the garage the truck is located at. Other nations such as Denmark feature different formats between cars and trucks, or Russia with cars and the police.
- Countries that require daytime running lights reflect that in-game — and will fine you if it's raining and your lights are off.
- Traffic lights vary from country to country, not just in design, but also with timings and whether they flash yellow at night.
- Fuel prices vary between countries. Russia, with its plentiful oil reserves, has the cheapest fuel in the game, while Norway is the most expensive due to its high taxation. These fuel prices are also updated to reflect real-life trends; many players noticed a sharp increase in fuel prices in early 2022 reflecting real-world price shocks at the same time.
- Songs in the Key of Panic — Hurry Music: When the delivery time left drops below two in-game hours (about 10-15 minutes of IRL time), the fast-paced electronic music begins.
- Simulation Game: Of both the driving and business-management variety.
- Space Compression: The game's largest break from reality. In fact the scale of distance in the game to its real life counterpart is usually 1:20.
- Subsystem Damage
- Wear or damage to your truck is tracked in engine, transmission, chassis, body and tyres while trailers have just chassis, body and tyres. Engines can fail to start or die while running and there's a chance the pneumatic system could spring a leak, causing the system to slowly lose air pressure while the engine is not running, transmissions can lose a functional gear, tyre wear makes the road increasingly slippery, the chassis affects suspension stability while the body affects the electrical system, leading to lighting failure. Servicing your truck and/or trailer requires a fee for each worn down system while the transatlantic game gives your trucks and trailers pre-paid insurance, only requiring a minimum of $200 for a service job up to a certain point.
- The 1.49 update to the games introduce a more in-depth system where there's normal damage that can be cheaply fixed, parts wear that requires them to be replaced, and permanent wear across the whole vehicle that requires total restoration to bring it back to factory fresh condition.
- Wide-Open Sandbox: Even at a 1:20 scale and just focusing on major roads and industrial areas, this game's rendition of Europe is massive, with it taking a few hours to drive from one corner of the map to another. You are free to start your game at any point on the map, taking any available job you wish.
- Vanity Licence Plate: After connecting your profile to World of Trucks, you can give your truck a custom license plate using any country in the game as a base, and what you write on it isn't limited to what would be valid combinations in real life.
- Warp Whistle: Ferries, the Channel Tunnel, the towing service and the Quick Travel function essentially work this way.
- Work Info Title: The game has its genre in its title.
