Euro Truck Simulator 2 Iceland DLC: Ring Road research trip wraps

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.