SCS Software has released an SCS On The Road episode documenting the Irish research trip behind Euro Truck Simulator 2's upcoming Isle of Ireland DLC. The video follows community manager Alex alongside members of the map team, QA team, and the studio's road specialist as they travel across Ireland, visiting locations featured in their reference-gathering work.

The trip was first detailed in an earlier SCS blog post. The episode offers a closer look at how the team collects photos, road information, and other on-site material for the expansion.

Players eager for the DLC can add it to their Steam wishlist via the Isle of Ireland store page.

Euro Truck Simulator 2's 1.61 update has entered open beta on Steam, and its marquee addition is Proximity Exploration, a map-discovering helper aimed at drivers chasing 100% map completion. The update also brings a full Livestock Trailer rework, the first major Schwarzmüller Trailer Pack refresh, and map changes that prepare the world for the upcoming Coaches DLC.

Anyone who took part in the 1.61 Experimental Beta should move to the public_beta branch to keep getting updates; saves made during the experimental build stay compatible. The Multi-Function Display and new in-game menu tested in that build have been postponed so they can be refined further.

Proximity Exploration automatically reveals a small area around your vehicle as you drive. It removes some of the need to drive over every tiny road segment, which should help when hunting down that final percentage of the map. It can also uncover nearby accessible roads around rest stops, toll gates, border crossings, gas stations and other places where road segments often sit close together.

Hidden roads are still hidden, up to a point. Getting close will reveal the first segment of a secret road as a hint, but the rest of the route only appears when you actually drive along it.

The Livestock Trailer has been completely rebuilt from the ground up, based on modern European trailer designs. The older belly axle variant is gone, replaced by a lowered chassis configuration with dual wheels.

If you own a Livestock trailer, there are now two chassis types to choose from — straight 3 axle or lowered 3 axle — plus an aluminium body or a fully paintable body. Accessories have been expanded, and owned-trailer paint jobs have been made more flexible, allowing different colours to be set across up to four trailer sections. Freight Market and AI traffic versions have been rebuilt around the new model, and company paint jobs have been redone for a more realistic look.

More details are in the Livestock Trailer Rework post.

The Schwarzmüller Trailer Pack is also starting a longer-term modernisation. First up is the low loader trailer, which has been rebuilt to match Schwarzmüller's latest real-world model. Its accessories have been updated too, while available cargo options remain the same. This marks the beginning of a planned rework of the whole pack.

More details are in the Schwarzmüller Trailer Pack update post.

The base game map has been quietly updated ahead of the Coaches DLC. Nuremberg gets the biggest change, with a brand-new bus station plus several remade and newly created landmarks in the surrounding area.

Bus stations in Karlstad, Aarhus and Thessaloniki are now functional for coaches. Karlstad has a new station building, Thessaloniki has received new signage and similar updates, and Heraklion has opened a previously inaccessible street to make room for its new bus station.

Border crossings have also been adjusted for passenger transport, with vehicle-specific navigation added and previously inaccessible parts of border areas opened up. Kapıkule, on the Turkey–Bulgaria border, has been redesigned to match its real-world counterpart more closely. Smaller layout tweaks have been made to other crossings, and numerous smaller bus-stop updates have been spread across the world.

As with any open beta, this is not a stable version yet, so expect bugs, instability or crashes. Feedback and bug reports can be shared in the official forum section for Euro Truck Simulator 2.

To try the beta on Steam: right-click Euro Truck Simulator 2 in your library, open Properties, go to the Betas tab and select public_beta from the Beta Participation dropdown. No password is required. You may need to restart the Steam client before the branch appears.

SCS Software has announced that the upcoming 1.61 update for Euro Truck Simulator 2 and American Truck Simulator will expand the improved material system to three more trucks. In ETS2, the Volvo FH Series 6 gets the upgrade, while ATS players get it on the International LT and International LoneStar.

The system improves cabin lighting and visual quality by changing how interior materials react to light. Leather, fabric, plastic, and metal become easier to tell apart, even in low-light conditions.

The improved material system first arrived in the 1.60 update on the DAF NGD and MAN TG3 TGX in ETS2, plus the Mack Anthem and Western Star 49X in ATS. SCS said the rollout is continuing gradually across more trucks, and has shared an Under the Hood blog post about how the feature is implemented on new vehicles.

The upcoming Coaches DLC for Euro Truck Simulator 2 will let you buy, customise, and drive your own coach, then take on passenger contract jobs in cities across Europe. It's already listed on Steam and can be wishlisted ahead of release.

Coaches are purchased through the Online Dealer and stored in your virtual garage, separately from trucks—so they won't occupy existing garage slots. Finances are shared across truck and coach modes, meaning you can earn money through Coach Quick Jobs or regular truck jobs before buying your first coach. Financing and loans are also available if you want to get behind the wheel sooner.

Depending on the vehicle model, coach customisation can include chassis configurations, engine and transmission variants, interior choices such as seat upholstery colours and curtains, plus selected compatible cabin accessories. Some parts and accessories will unlock through player progression, giving you more options as you gain experience.

Owning a coach unlocks the Contract Jobs menu, where you can browse passenger services in cities close to your current location. After selecting a route, drive to the bus station, confirm the line, and the game will advance to the scheduled departure time. Passengers board, and the journey begins—many services include multiple stops along the way.

Jobs vary in difficulty based on your experience and skill level, with more challenging routes offering higher earnings and additional experience. Outside scheduled services, an owned coach lets you explore the map freely, visit viewpoints, and drive across Europe at your own pace. Fuel consumption, fatigue, and other familiar systems work just as they do with owned trucks.

The Volvo FH Series 6 100 Year Edition will arrive in Euro Truck Simulator 2 when update 1.61 releases. It adds a centennial look for the Aero XL cabin of the Volvo FH Series 6 in the base game, with new paint jobs and accessories for both interior and exterior.

Volvo Group was established in 1927 and will celebrate its 100th anniversary next year. Volvo Trucks is marking the occasion with an anniversary edition of its latest model, the FH Series 6, and ETS2 players will get to drive that same edition.

• Two new paint jobs: 100y Edition – Night and 100y Edition – Day, with dark or light striping and Centennial logos on each side of the truck.
• Two light box options: one with the 100y logo, another with the FH16 logo.

• A new interior option adds black leather door panels with unique stitching, carpets, and a rear wall decoration featuring the 100 Year Edition logo.
• Decorative dashboard ambient LED lighting is available in red or blue.
• A range of exclusive accessories completes the cabin: a black leather steering wheel and two-tone seats with a black leather base, grey textile upper, and the 100y logo.

The Euro Truck Simulator 2 team spent a week in Iceland gathering references for the upcoming Iceland map expansion, driving the western half of the Ring Road from Lake Mývatn in the north to Vík in the south. The group included map DLC lead Ivo, map designers Ashley and Johana and, for the first time on a research trip, marketing staff — the journey will be covered in a packed SCS On The Road episode.

The expansion is already in an advanced state, but the trip helped fill missing reference gaps and experience a landscape unlike anything the team has mapped before. Along the way they logged mountains, fjords, lava fields, waterfalls and narrow gorges, free-grazing sheep and horses, and roads and urban areas including Akureyri and Reykjavík.

Ivo described Iceland as "a living textbook of geological processes," with his favorite stop at Thingvellir National Park, where the Viking Althing once met. Ashley said the real world felt familiar compared with the in-game version, almost like she had "stumbled into the game itself." Johana checked the harbor at Ólafsvík, a town she is working on, because good online references are hard to find. The near-endless daylight helped: the sun set for less than three hours a day during their visit.

Volvo Trucks invited the team to take part in filming for videos that cannot be revealed yet, which SCS is turning into another behind-the-scenes SCS On The Road episode. The shoot also gave Ivo, Ashley and Johana their first passenger-seat rides in a truck with a local professional driver, offering a new perspective on Iceland's roads.

If you want to make the trip yourself in ETS2, add the Iceland map expansion to your Steam wishlist.

SCS Software will attend Tokyo Game Show for the first time in its history, with a playable lineup that includes the Iceland DLC for Euro Truck Simulator 2. The 30th anniversary event runs September 17–21, 2026, over five full days; the first two are industry-only and the final three are open to the public.

SCS will be in Hall 09, Booth E86 in a compact booth supported by Neon Noroshi.

Visitors can try the Iceland DLC for Euro Truck Simulator 2, alongside the British Columbia and South Dakota map expansions for American Truck Simulator.

SCS is also working to bring playable demos of the upcoming Road Trip and Coaches projects and a PlayStation 5 version of Euro Truck Simulator 2, though none of those appearances are confirmed yet.

Japanese-speaking visitors will have language interpreters available at the booth throughout the event.

SCS Software's Euro Truck Simulator 2 map team spent June crossing Ireland on a research trip for the upcoming Isle of Ireland DLC, and the studio has shared what the journey taught them about bringing the Emerald Isle to life in the game. The expansion is available to wishlist on Steam now.

The seven-person group included project lead Honza, map designers Kristián and Libor, road-department representative Josef, and world map design QA lead Ivan, plus community manager Alex and videomaker Cenda, who joined to document the trip. They started in Dublin and made a loop through Rosslare Harbour, Waterford, Cork, Killarney, Limerick, Galway, Westport, Sligo, Benbulbin, Londonderry, Bushmills, Giant's Causeway and Belfast before returning to Dublin.

The crew covered thousands of kilometres in two Škoda Octavias supplied by Škoda Ireland. The Czech Embassy in Ireland, led by JUDr. Pavel Vošalík, also helped arrange visits, including a tour of a cement plant in Limerick that gave the team insight into how truck drivers load, unload and transport materials.

• Honza says being on the ground confirmed that vegetation needs special attention — "grass really is very green in Ireland" — and turned up details like public art on walls and electrical boxes that should make the map feel authentic. His highlights included the Caha Mountains, Killarney National Park, Connemara, the Antrim coast and Galway.
• Kristián, working on his first DLC, scouted the Waterford-to-Rosslare Harbour area and found roads recently renovated in ways that aren't yet visible on Google Maps. He also visited the Custom Depot at a Belfast film studio.
• Libor focused on the N71 through Killarney National Park, using sunny weather to capture the correct colours, mountain scale and vegetation variety.
• Josef gathered references for the right-hand drive prefabs used in both the Isle of Ireland DLC and the UK rework, covering road features such as cats' eyes, box junctions, roundabouts (sometimes with traffic lights) and left-side driving.
• Ivan said the first-hand memories now help him judge authenticity during QA reviews, from busy cities to quiet countryside roads.

A future SCS On The Road episode will show more of the journey on the SCS Software YouTube channel. You can also add the Isle of Ireland DLC to your Steam wishlist.

SCS Software has shared a glimpse of the 3D assets being created for *Euro Truck Simulator 2*'s upcoming **Soul of Anatolia** map expansion. The DLC is still a work in progress, so the studio isn't showing specific locations yet; the models are shown in a placeholder setting for now.

The assets are designed to reflect the architecture and character of western Türkiye. The expansion will feature many cities with distinct architectural identities, and the assets are meant to cover a wide spectrum: modern and older city buildings, big and small structures, and rural houses.

SCS plans around 300 new generic assets for the DLC, plus landmark assets for significant buildings to make them instantly recognizable. New models are still being created throughout development, so today's preview is only a fraction of the final content, and more assets are expected in future blog posts.

You can support the project by adding *Soul of Anatolia* to your Steam wishlist.

The 1.60 update for Euro Truck Simulator 2 and American Truck Simulator introduces an improved material system that adds realistic reflections and indirect lighting to vehicle interiors without a major performance hit. The system is currently live on four trucks across both games, with more to come in future updates.

The update uses clever mipmap manipulation on reflection cube maps to simulate different surface roughness levels—from glossy chrome to matte fabric—at virtually no extra performance cost. Every interior material now carries a reflective component, meaning players will see subtle color casts from the environment, like a green tint when driving past trees.

“We have created several different levels of reflection smoothness, ranging from perfectly glossy surfaces like chrome, through smoother reflections such as those found on leather seat materials, to rough, nearly non-reflective materials like fabrics,” said Daniel, Vehicle Technical Leader at SCS Software.

Rather than using compute-intensive ray tracing or global illumination, the system extends the existing rendering pipeline. By accessing individual mipmap levels of reflection textures, lower-resolution copies automatically produce softer reflections for rough materials. The game already calculates mipmaps, making this change effectively free in terms of performance.

SCS selected a small initial group of vehicles because each truck’s interior uses different source data and requires individual testing in daylight, night, rain, and cloudy conditions. “It was not possible to update the entire fleet at once,” Daniel noted. The team will continue converting remaining vehicles using a new material library that standardizes settings.

The system was originally developed for the upcoming Road Trip project for American Truck Simulator, where smaller, darker car interiors exposed the old system’s limitations more clearly. The Ford Mustang served as a testbed for fine-tuning values. Players can wishlist the Ford Car Pack and RAM & Dodge Car Pack on Steam to see the system on cars when they release.