Take a Tour of St. Petersburg in Latest ETS 2 Preview Trailer

[Paul Jeffrey]

European Truck Simulator 2 continues to receive much love from SCS Software, as can be seen by the new preview trailer for the upcoming 'Beyond the Baltic Sea' DLC.

The 'Beyond the Baltic Sea' map expansion for European Truck Simulator 2 is scheduled to release later this year, and with it will come the three Baltic states of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, with the south of Finland and parts of Russia set to be included in the latest release for this hugely popular truck driving game franchise.

With Russia the focus of attention in the new trailer at the head of this article, SCS Software have revealed a nice video of the St. Petersburg region that will form part of the upcoming DLC - showcasing a visually stunning area that will surely become one of the most popular cities within the sizable expansion DLC.

According to SCS Software, the St. Petersburg Western Diameter has proven to offer up plenty of challenges for the studio, with SCS keen as always to capture the unique flavour and details of the regions in which it visits with both the ETS2 title and the more recent American Truck Simulator game:

"(as) second largest city in Russia with over 5 million inhabitants, its size and its location on the Neva river just at the head of the Gulf of Finland proved to be a difficult task for the map design team. With the scale of our virtual world, we need to distil the essence of real-world locations down to the most characteristic elements along the path the player will travel"

With so many huge pieces of architecture competing for our attention, both historic landmarks as well as modern transport infrastructure, we had to make some tough choices. Hopefully, the local patriots will be fine with our selection. As the main artery road passes through densely populated areas, we had to use every trick in the book to build and optimize the city for the game. In particular, the integration of the Western High-Speed Diameter was a real challenge. It's very new, and initially, we had troubles finding the necessary photo references to it. We have done our best to squeeze enough of it into the in-game city plan to make the right impression of its size and its aesthetics.

I'm sure SCS Software will have once again done a commendable job with the new DLC, and I for one am very much looking forward to what they have achieved when it releases later this year.

American Truck Simulator and European Truck Simulator 2 are available to purchase for PC right now.

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Like the look of the Beyond the Baltic Sea DLC for ETS2? Enjoying the sim so far? Let us know in the comments section below!​

 

[Alex72]

2:02 The police car in the video on the bridge you can see suspension as it goes over bumps. Is it the same in ATS? Do they share the same core so to speak? I think i never noticed that. Always thought the AI cars was like "beaming" around without any sort of physics - fake or otherwise.

 

[KittX]

2:02 The police car in the video on the bridge you can see suspension as it goes over bumps. Is it the same in ATS? Do they share the same core so to speak? I think i never noticed that. Always thought the AI cars was like "beaming" around without any sort of physics - fake or otherwise.

This is actually fairly realistic IF the truck you drive will have the same behaviour. I use to drive this road a lot, it's almost all the time is on viaduct and at some crest or turning, and the tarmac between beams gone down very quick, so you can feel every beam of construction under the tarmac.

 

[Alex72]

This is actually fairly realistic IF the truck you drive will have the same behaviour. I use to drive this road a lot, it's almost all the time is on viaduct and at some crest or turning, and the tarmac between beams gone down very quick, so you can feel every beam of construction under the tarmac.

Nice. I noticed in ATS many times when going from a certain tarmac to another, or when going onto a bridge that has different tarmac that i hoped i would feel "DUNK DUNK", but it never happens. Maybe ETS2 is better on this. I remember ETS2 had so much more stuff than ATS. I do have ETS2 but only the first DLC (eastern Europe i think?). Might get the whole pack.

 

[Nick Gregory]

Been driving around that region with Promods already. I kinda feel bad for them now SCS is probably going to 1-up them.

 

[M D Gourley]

Like the look of the Beyond the Baltic Sea DLC for ETS2? Enjoying the sim so far?

I have always liked the artistic style of ETS2, very pleasing to the eye and being able to map everything in the cockpit makes for a complete Simulator experience in my opinion....although I have not fired it up for a while now it will always be on my PC for a more relaxing Sim cruise of a different nature...well...relaxing until I try to reverse the trailer into that dock...lol.

 

[Merlin59]

Can't wait! Ready to go.

 

[Koen Verlinde]

Been driving around that region with Promods already. I kinda feel bad for them now SCS is probably going to 1-up them.

ProMods and SCS are more in the know about eachothers projects than we know. And for now Promods is more concentrated on Iberia and the Balkan anyway.

 

[shimon.ifraimov]

forget about improving the game lets just continue to make more dlc for decades.

 

[Damage Inc]

Looking forward to this DLC a lot, although only just got back to 99% mapped getting all the new Northern Germany roads.
Oh no not more toll roads....sheesh, I hope they have more "automatic tolls" (i.e. just drive through without having to stop in the immersion killing green icon and pressing space!).


I sort of agree with Shimon a bit. New maps are always welcome and the trailers are all well and good, but I'd like some gameplay improvements. Better merging Ai, better garage managment (should have monthly costs for utilities etc), I have almost a billion euros and nothing to spend it on! Improvements to UI regarding truck and driver placement too. Maybe other trucks coming in and out of depots (although some are really small). Oh and some better way than the spinning green icons that destroy any immersion.

despite the above moaning i love ETS2 and ATS!

 

[Brent Mills]

I seriously don't get these games. I hate driving in traffic as I assume everyone does, why would I want to do that in a game? Seems more like boredom simulator.

 

[MarcG]

I seriously don't get these games. I hate driving in traffic as I assume everyone does, why would I want to do that in a game? Seems more like boredom simulator.

ergo the best simulation money can buy!

 

[F_B]

Some questions:
How is the FFB in ETS?
Are there physics mods available or is it not neccessary?
What mods would you definitely recommend?

 

[Hailstorm BLX]

The AI drive way too cleanly...

 

[Furious Panda]

I seriously don't get these games. I hate driving in traffic as I assume everyone does, why would I want to do that in a game? Seems more like boredom simulator.

yes it's a strange one, play them both and i'm constantly shouting at my monitor cause some c**t cut me up or the traffic lights just changed to red as i get there but for some weird reason i enjoy playing them

 

[justfdl]

I seriously don't get these games. I hate driving in traffic as I assume everyone does, why would I want to do that in a game? Seems more like boredom simulator.

So maybe it's just not the game for you. Personally if I'm stressed out and to tired to concentrate in AC or ACC I put on some radio stream and take my rig for a spin in a nice surrounding. For you it might be boring, for me it is relaxing.

Also I now can back up trailers like a boss in real life, too!

 

[Furious Panda]

opposite for me, racing sims chill me out, ets/ats stress me out

 

[justfdl]

Some questions:
How is the FFB in ETS?
Are there physics mods available or is it not neccessary?
What mods would you definitely recommend?

Yes, there are several physics mods out there, ETS2 and ATS both support steam workshop, just search for physics and you get a selection of different mods for every taste.

Just keep in mind, the physics and the FFB are not focussed on simulation in the first place, although there are some settings like trailer stability and brake and steering sensitivity that can get the approach more challenging.

Furthermore not every wheel feels good out of the box. For Logitech or the older Fanatec wheels in PS3 mode there's a ffb plugin available in the official scs forum that I would highly recommend for these wheels. Strangely enough with my CSL wheelbase I prefer the stock FFB, it feels way better than my old GT3 RS with ingame FFB.

About the mods recommended, that's a hard one, it really depends on the style you're playing the game. Just look around in steam workshop and the official scs forum, there are so many you can't really try them all. Talking about mods, what's kind of cool there's a mod manager ingame available which makes trying out different mods a lot more comfortable, and scs as a publisher is very mod friendly, they even have released a developer toolkit based on a blender toolchain to support the community.

 

[Toonces]

Creepily realistic.

 

[justfdl]

Also, if that's not obvious, I'm a ETS/ATS fanboy and I'm really really looking forward for the upcoming Baltic DLC. Might even take a day off when the DLC gets available.