North Dakota may not be the most dazzling US state, but it is one of them, and so it's set to be absorbed into American Truck Simulator's expansive recreation of life on the road. The game's next DLC will take players through the state's "sweeping prairies, fertile farmland, winding rivers, and endless skies."
I don't know that its skies are any more endless than, say, South Dakota's, but it's still a looker in the trailer (the advertising kind, not the big rig kind) that went up today. Predictably, it shows a bunch of semi trucks hauling supplies past herds of buffalo, small towns, and giant statues of fish. It brings the game up to a whopping 61 DLCs on Steam—though notably, a number of those are free and others are minor additions that come cheaper than the addition of a full-on state.
North Dakota will join the likes of Texas, New Mexico, Idaho, and so on when it launches, though no release date has been named yet. Folks on social media are getting their yuks in: "Easiest update ever," said Reddit user Fun_Assignment_269. "Do you even need to design any assets to replicate North Dakota?" A reply from logicalguest chimed in, "Lol! Empty field, CTRL-C, CTRL-V. DONE!"
Okay, maybe the new locale isn't that exciting. But this isn't some key-jangling, action-packed, high-octane thrill ride we're talking about, this is a game where you drive the speed limit and deliver goods while saying "10-4, good buddy" and blasting Jerry Reed so loud you get a noise citation. Perhaps the placid sights of one of America's most boring states is merely a blank canvas for the determined trucking roleplayer, the kind of player who sees a giant fiberglass catfish statue and says, 'Yes, this is what America is all about.'
Or maybe it's just boring anyway. I mean, this is North Dakota we're talking about.
