American Truck Simulator Has Quietly Become One of the Biggest Maps in Gaming

There’s a funny thing about American Truck Simulator; it never announces itself like a blockbuster, never shouts about revolutionizing gaming, never pretends it’s doing anything flashy or clever. It just keeps adding road, mile by mile, state by state, until one day you look at the map and realize you could drive for hours without ever seeing the same stretch of pavement twice.

That slow, stubborn growth is exactly why the game has lasted.

When American Truck Simulator launched back in 2016, it was a modest thing: California, Nevada, and Arizona stitched together into a condensed version of the American Southwest. It was already relaxing, already immersive, but nobody could have predicted just how far SCS Software intended to take it. Nearly a decade later, the game has quietly grown into one of the largest drivable worlds in simulation gaming, and it shows no signs of slowing down.

What makes this expansion different from most games is the philosophy behind it. SCS does not rush states out the door; each one arrives as a carefully crafted slice of geography, industry, and atmosphere. Roads feel like roads instead of corridors; towns feel like places that trucks actually pass through; landscapes change gradually, the way they do in real life, instead of flipping biomes every ten minutes.

As of now, American Truck Simulator includes eighteen U.S. states, stretching from the Pacific Coast all the way into the Midwest and down through the South. California, Nevada, and Arizona form the foundation, but the map now sprawls outward through New Mexico, Oregon, Washington, Utah, Idaho, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, and Louisiana. That is not a checklist; it is an enormous, interconnected road network that can keep a driver busy for weeks without repeating routes.

Each region brings its own rhythm. Texas feels wide and heavy, long hauls broken up by sprawling interchanges and industrial sprawl. The Plains states slow everything down, pushing you into long, straight stretches bordered by farmland and grain elevators. Louisiana shifts the mood again, trading open land for wetlands, bridges, and bayou country that feels completely different from anything west of the Mississippi. None of it feels rushed, and none of it feels decorative; these places exist to be driven through, not stared at.

What makes this expansion impressive is not just size, but continuity. You can take a job in the Pacific Northwest and follow it east for hours, watching the terrain flatten, the vegetation thin out, and the industries change organically. It mirrors the real trucking experience in a way few games even attempt, let alone sustain for this long.

And the map is not done.

SCS Software has already confirmed more states on the way, with Illinois and South Dakota lined up to continue pushing the map deeper into the Midwest. These additions matter, not because of name recognition, but because they fill in gaps and make the country feel whole. Every new state makes the existing ones better by giving them somewhere else to connect to.

Even more significant is what comes next: the first expansion outside the United States. British Columbia has been officially announced, marking the first time American Truck Simulator will cross an international border. That opens the door to mountain routes, coastal highways, forestry roads, and cross-border hauling that fundamentally expands what the game can be. It is a quiet but major step, and one that suggests this map is no longer limited by national boundaries.

Through all of this growth, the core experience has stayed the same. You start small, take jobs, earn money, buy trucks, hire drivers, and slowly build a company. You manage fatigue, fuel, weather, traffic, and timing, but nothing is rushed. The game does not punish you for playing slow; it rewards you for settling in. A long haul at night with the radio on feels exactly like it should: calm, focused, and strangely satisfying.

That is the real secret behind American Truck Simulator. It does not demand attention; it earns it. In a gaming landscape full of urgency, noise, and constant escalation, this game chooses patience. It gives you a road, a destination, and the space to enjoy the time in between.

At this point, calling it “just a simulator” undersells what it has become. It is a living map of North American trucking, built one state at a time, and it continues to grow not because it has to, but because the people making it understand something most studios forget: sometimes the best way forward is simply to keep driving.

To the developers of the game, if you’re out there and you ever see this; I bid you blessings for when you begin to work on West Virginia and try to program it into the game: our roads are windy, long, and the terrain is insane. But if anyone can do it, I’m sure you can.