This game should put Russia expansion on hold

There would be a Russia expansion for the popular simulator Euro Truck Simulator 2. Given the current political climate, the publisher is not doing that anyway.

Simulators have been a bit of the neglected child of the game world. Most of the simulators weren’t really good enough to really continue as a simulator. Sometimes that’s not a bad thing, but you want as much realism as possible. In that respect, Euro Truck Simulator 2 is a very good simulator and therefore a nice game.

Euro Truck Simulator 2

The goal, of course, is to simulate the life of a truck driver. Transporting loads from one place to another with your own truck and sometimes devouring kilometers on highways throughout Europe for hours on end. The makers of the game, the Czech SCS Software, try to make the game as realistic as possible by implementing updates. The game dates from 2012, but the graphic quality is fine, by adding new features all the time, the game is quite up to date and also where you can drive is constantly updated. Compared to the somewhat meager size of the original map, you can now visit the Eastern Bloc, Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey, France, Italy, Spain, Portugal and Scandinavia or the Baltic states. You can expand the original map through paid extra content (DLCs). The latest DLC is already in the works. At least, became.

Euro Truck Simulator 2 in Russia is cancelled

That latest DLC is titled “Heart of Russia”. The goal was to add the European part of Russia to the map as an expansion for Euro Truck Simulator 2. All fine, until the situation in Ukraine erupted. By invading Ukraine, Russia made the political situation around these two countries quite complex. As a result, SCS was at a loss to look at how and what.

The result became clear today. SCS Software is putting the Heart of Russia expansion for Euro Truck Simulator 2 on hold. SCS states that they cannot emphasize enough that everything they do has a non-political premise. After all, Russia is simply partly in Europe and you want to imitate the map of Europe as well as possible, which has nothing to do with politics. Still, it didn’t feel right to release a Russia expansion for Euro Truck Simulator 2 because it could be interpreted as support for Russia.

And now?

It takes over a year to put together an expansion from A to Z, so it would be a shame to throw it all away. SCS hopes that the situation in Ukraine will stabilize and avoid Russia’s expansion until tensions have subsided there. Once that happens, SCS wants to look at how the Russia expansion can positively help restoring the situation in Ukraine. Not much can be done with that for now. And for people who were expecting an expansion for Euro Truck Simulator 2 this year: alas. But some things are more important.