American Truck Simulator makes good on 20 years of history with 30 minutes of Montana

Developer SCS Software has provided an extensive look at American Truck Simulator's upcoming Montana DLC with 30 minutes of gameplay footage.

The footage is gorgeous and pretty neatly illustrates how far SCS's artistic chops have come over the years. As the devs proudly note on the official Montana DLC site, their history with trucking simulations begins with the 18 Wheels of Steel series, which started in 2002. The series wrapped up in 2011 with 18 Wheels of Steel: Extreme Trucker 2, which featured a much rougher-looking version of Montana.

Now, a decade later, we're getting a new digital Montana that looks up to modern standards - whether it looks better than the version in Far Cry 5 is debatable, but hey, it's certainly more realistic. SCS's ability to recreate real-world landscapes is getting more impressive with each new bit of DLC - to the point where the studio has been slowly revamping old locations to match the new quality, even sliding in some secrets as they go.

You can enjoy the footage yourself for a relaxing way to kick off the weekend, but if you don't have time to watch the full thing, there's one fun little detail at the end showing the legal limits of digital trucking. The video ends as the player pulls into a park area and is warned that "commercial trucking is prohibited in this area." Your escapist truck driving fantasies can't evade the tyranny of park rangers, it seems.

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