American Truck Simulator celebrates bigger roads and wider spaces with a new trailer

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Good news, big riggers. The "rescaling" of the American Truck Simulator world that went into open beta last month is now complete. Developer SCS Software said the changes bring the game's network of roads "much closer to reality," and go well beyond a mere embiggening of the state of California.

The change increases the scale of the game from 1:35 to 1:20, meaning longer roads and greater spaces between them to cram in more features and detail. But that necessitated deeper changes throughout the rest of the game, too. "With the different world scale comes also a longer day-night cycle and rebalancing of the economy, so the gaming experience is changing way more than would be expected through a 'mere patch' of an existing game," the studio explained.

The main features of the rescaled map include:

Scale 1:35 → 1:20 – 1,75x larger map
Hundreds of miles of new longer roads
A new city - Santa Maria Completely reworked city – Oxnard
Reworked road system topology (New Interstate I-580 and I-80 connections, I-5 near LA topology corrected, I-5 Redding topology corrected, New stretch of CA-101)
Correct interstate junctions - no more same level crossing, freeways exiting on itself, etc
28 reworked or new junctions - most notably - Reno, San Francisco, San Diego, L.A.
6 new custom rest areas – truckstops
More accurate height profiles - new steeper climbs and descends
Famous recognizable landscape landmarks: Donner pass, Grapevine, Kumeyaay highway, Picachio peak, Humphreys peak, Cajon pass

At the same time, a 1.5 patch has been released that upgrades the Shop and Truck Browser search tool, adds the promised 6x2 and 6x2 Midlift chassis, and makes a number of tweaks and bug fixes. A full breakdown of what's in store is available on Steam.

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.