American Truck Simulator is not a game about speed. It is a game about the long haul, the weigh station, the careful turn, and the slow build from hired driver to fleet owner. SCS Software released it on February 2, 2016, for Microsoft Windows, Linux, and macOS, and it has sold over 6 million copies. It is now listed on Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, PC, Linux, and Mac. The pitch is simple and stubborn: take a class 7 or class 8 semi, haul cargo across a condensed America, and get it there on time without wrecking the load.
Trailer, via SCS Software.
California and Nevada at Launch
The game launched with two states: California and Nevada. Arizona arrived in June 2016 as a free update for everyone. That early map was small, and it was honest about being small. The condensed 1:20 scale of the United States means distances are compressed but never fake. A run from one city to the next still takes real time, and the road still asks for real attention.
What the launch map lacked in size it made up for in tone. Sunny California and sandy Nevada gave players a clear sense of place. The Grand Canyon State of Arizona rounded out the early Southwest and made the first year of the game feel like a coherent region rather than a scattered set of roads.
The Garage, the Quick Job, the First Truck
American Truck Simulator is a truck driving simulator with business management elements, and the opening hours make that clear. A new player founds a truck driving business and selects a home city. That city comes with a pre-placed truck garage, which becomes the player’s home base. The player owns the garage but no trucks and no trailers.
So you start with quick jobs, which use an in-game company’s trucks and trailers. You earn money for the company and experience points for yourself. Once you have enough cash, you can buy a truck of your own. You can keep running quick jobs if you want, but the game clearly wants you to graduate.
Deliveries pay based on distance traveled and the type of goods being transported. Get the cargo there on time with minimal damage and you maximize both cash and experience. Late deliveries or damaged goods cut your pay. That structure is the whole game in miniature: the reward is proportional to the care you take.
Skills, Cargo, and the Long Game
Experience points buy skill upgrades, and the skill tree shapes how you play. The source material does not spell out which specific skill paths exist, so any claim about leaning into long-haul work or heavy cargo is speculation rather than fact. The menu of available goods delivery routes is the spine of every session, and it grows as your company grows.
The summary of the game is blunt about the arc: you enter the local freight market as a driver for hire, work your way up to owner-operator, and go on to create one of the largest transportation companies in the United States. That is a long climb, and the game respects the length of it.
A Map That Keeps Growing
Arizona was free. Almost everything after it was not. New Mexico, Oregon, Washington, Utah, Idaho, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Louisiana, and Illinois all arrived as paid downloadable content. SCS has stated that most future map expansions, if not all, will be at additional cost.
That is a lot of paid map content, and it is worth being clear about what it buys. With all map content installed, the game covers the entire Western Contiguous and South Central regions, plus part of the Midwestern region. It features over 250 visitable cities, including most state capitals and major cities, and many thousands of miles of in-game roads.
The current map runs as far north as Bellingham, Washington, as far south as Brownsville, Texas, as far west as Eureka, California, and as far east as Chicago, Illinois. That is a real country now, not a demo of one.
What the Driving Actually Asks
The game is first person and third person, single player and multiplayer and co-operative. It is a racing game only in the loosest genre sense. There is no race. There is a schedule, a load, and a road.
This paper’s view is that the first-person view is the one that matters. You sit in the cab of an American conventional semi and watch the landscape move. The condensed scale means a state can pass in an afternoon, but the landmarks are recognizable and the highways feel like highways. The game takes you through breathtaking landscapes and widely recognized landmarks around the States, and it does so without hurry.
The business layer sits on top of that driving. You are not just steering. You are choosing which load pays, which route fits the clock, and whether the damage risk is worth the fee. That tension is the game’s real engine.
Where the 6 Million Copies Come From
The sales figure is the loudest fact about American Truck Simulator. More than 6 million copies is a lot for a game about obeying speed limits and checking mirrors. The game arrived as the parallel to Euro Truck Simulator 2, the spiritual successor to 18 Wheels of Steel, and the fifth installment in the Truck Simulator series. Whether that pedigree alone built an audience is a matter of opinion, not something the record states.
What this paper would argue is that the game is genuinely good at the thing it does. It is calm without being dull. It is repetitive without being empty. The loop of pick up, drive, deliver, upgrade is old and sturdy, and SCS Software executes it with care.
Experience legendary American trucks and deliver various cargoes across sunny California, sandy Nevada, and the Grand Canyon State of Arizona.
That line from the game’s own description is the promise. The game keeps it.
The Price of the Full Map
Here is where the review has to be honest about the shape of the purchase. The base game is California and Nevada, plus Arizona for free. Everything else is a separate buy. A player who wants the full 250-city map is not buying one game. They are buying a game and a long list of expansions.
That is not automatically a flaw. SCS Software has said future expansions will cost extra, and the company has been upfront about that. Whether each state justifies its price is a judgment call, and the record does not settle it.
But it does mean the sticker price is not the real price. In this paper’s view, a new player should know that going in. The base game stands on its own as a complete experience. The full map is a commitment.
The Work Is the Point
American Truck Simulator earns its 8.1 out of 10 by doing something narrow and doing it well. It is not a game for everyone. If you want action, you will be bored in twenty minutes. If you want the specific pleasure of a job done carefully, it will hold you for years.
The strongest part is the structure. The quick job to owner-operator arc gives every delivery a purpose beyond the delivery itself. The weakest part is the fragmentation of the map across paid expansions, which makes the complete experience harder to recommend as a single purchase than it should be.
What matters most is that the game respects its subject. It does not turn trucking into a power fantasy or a joke. It treats the work as work, with schedules and consequences and a slow climb. This paper’s view is that this restraint is rare, and it is a large part of why the game is still worth playing on Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, PC, Linux, or Mac.
The parts that matter are the cab, the clock, and the load. Everything else is scenery, and the scenery is good.
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