Trivia / Euro Truck Simulator

• Breakthrough Hit: Euro Truck Simulator 2 allowed SCS to go from a small team developing budget games to a large studio dedicated to sustaining both Euro and American for a decade and counting.
• Delayed Release Tie-In: An in-game example; the 1.44 update added a bunch of content obviously in anticipation for the indefinitely postponed release of Heart of Russia, including remaking many of the existing Russian border crossings, adding new AI traffic, and throwing in the traditional Production Foreshadowing of allowing players with the developer camera enabled to explore a small area of the DLC.
• Distanced from Current Events: The Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 threw a spanner into the release of the Heart of Russia expansion, with SCS Software deciding to avoid promoting the DLC in the meantime. In addition, on the day of the invasion the cover art of Heart of Russia was changed to remove the MAN TGX featured on it, likely to avoid the risk that their licence partners would not want to be associated with the product.
• Meaningful Release Date: The DLC for Turkish trailer manufacturer TIRSAN was released on the 29th October, 2023, the 100th anniversary of the Republic of Turkey's proclaimation.
• Money, Dear Boy: SCS Software began making truck simulators on commission from a budget publisher, before discovering that they really enjoyed making them.
• One for the Money; One for the Art: In the build-up to Euro Truck Simulator 2, SCS made many games such as Scania Truck Driving Simulator and Extreme Trucker 2 to help fund that game. In the former case, it was also developed primarily as a way to establish industry connections.
• Screwed by the Lawyers:
  • This is the reason it took so long for Mercedes-Benz to be added as a truck manufacturer.
  • Even with brands already in-game, there can be plenty of legal issues with adding new content. The Renault T was held back for years because it required negotiations with the legal teams of three different companies: Renault Trucks, its parent company Volvo Trucks, and Groupe Renault, who own the rights to the logo. After first being revealed in a January 2016 blog post, it would take until September 2019 before it was finally added to the game.
  • This is also the stated reason for why the game doesn’t have any visual damage simulation beyond dashboard warnings.
  • Trucks added after 2020 do not have the Allison automatic transmissions available to them, possibly because of this trope between SCS and Allison.
• The Shelf of Movie Languishment: As mentioned under Distanced from Current Events, the release of Heart of Russia has been put on indefinite hold due to the Invasion of Ukraine, despite SCS confirming in an interview that the expansion was just weeks away from completion when war broke out.
• Sleeper Hit: Simulation Games with mundane premises are often synonymous with shovelware, and while SCS Software had been making truck simulators for the previous decade, none had received much attention beyond their niche audiences. Euro Truck Simulator 2 may have initially attracted attention from those seeking to fulfil their Bile Fascination, but word of mouth soon spread about its high level of polish as well as its accessible yet compelling gameplay. Today, the game frequently sits on Steam's best seller lists during sales, and its continued success allows SCS Software to focus on developing content for it and its sibling game.
• Vaporware: The original plan for Euro Truck Simulator 2 was that its map could be recycled for a coach simulator; this is why almost every city has a seemingly pointless bus station in it. After Euro Truck became an unexpected success, this idea was seemingly forgotten in favour of expanding the existing game. Euro Coach Simulator has never been cancelled however; development has continued at a snails pace, and SCS Software plans to eventually release it as DLC. For the time being, some mods implement buses as bus-shaped tractor units and their passengers as a people-shaped cargo trailer.
• What Could Have Been:
  • The game was originally planned so that its map and assets could be reused for a coach driving simulator, an idea that was left by the wayside as Euro Truck Simulator 2 became a Sleeper Hit.
  • Orléans, France, exists within the Viva La France expansion in an unfinished but viewable state, suggesting that the city was intended to be fully implemented in it.
  • Unused trailer textures indicate that Renault Trucks is intended to be represented as a depot, likely in the form of their Bourg-en-Bresse factory near Lyon, but this has yet to be implemented.
  • In the Christmas 2020 stream, SCS Software showcased some in-development screenshots for an experimental training mode, which would've aimed to teach players some of the fundamentals of truck driving in a small, custom-made map for that purpose. This idea has not been mentioned since, with it likely becoming a cut feature.
  • The Iberia DLC carries some evidence via using the developer camera of roads that were planned to be included, but have not currently been implemented. These appear to be part of Portugal's IP2, Spain's N-432 between Badajoz and Córdoba also featuring the N-435 as a spur, and the A-50/N-403/N-401 road from Salamanca to Ciudad Real.
  • The Heart of Russia DLC was due to be released by mid-2022, though the release has been postponed indefinitely due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
  • Linked to Real Life Writes the Plot, Croatia's entry to the Schengen Area at the start of 2023, in the middle of the development of West Balkans, caused the DLC to be modified to reflect that. Screenshots confirm◊ what the pre-Schengen Croatia's border crossings looked like.

---