Euro Truck Simulator 2 is already an extensive game to begin with, featuring thousands of miles of open road, almost endless truck customization and a company management element. A simple but effective skill system, hundreds of cities, a significant variety in cargo – all of these round off an already excellent package. The game is easily one of the most relaxing experiences available on PC, and if you use external software such as Xpadder to add in controller support, can be played laying on the couch. Countless skin packs for vehicles and large expansions available through Steam add even more content to the experience, however there is another excellent source of content available. Since the game’s release in 2012, ETS 2’s modding community has grown significantly across multiple websites, and now players have the option of adding in game-altering elements. With a broad range of mods available, ranging from simple tweaks and additional vehicles to full on conversions, there simply isn’t anything you couldn’t add to Euro Truck Simulator 2. Want to drive a passenger car across vast landscapes or perhaps a bus? How about even more cargo types? Or maybe you’d like a full on map of Russia to replace the game’s European setting? Admittedly the last one won’t give you a massive country to explore, but will adjust the in-game map and environments to new detail. This, and many other reasons are why you should definitely check out the modding community for Euro Truck Simulator 2.

 
Recently diving back into this title, I installed a Volvo VNL780 mod to spice up the game’s collection of vehicles. While there’s quite a few trucks to already enjoy with varying designs, European trucks are completely homogenized into a single type, due to the game’s authenticity. With strict regulations on truck length in Europe, their large vehicle brands have to follow the same procedure of building a cabin on top of the engine to conserve size. The Volvo VNL 780 is one from a large amount of American trucks you could place into the game, and is probably the easiest to drive in the game. I’m a huge fan of American trucks, so I chose to add that one in the game, mainly because while it does have a distinct design from the game’s lineup, the truck can easily fit into the many tight turns of ETS 2’s cities. A challenge with American trucks in this game is that really long sleeper ones simply don’t fit into some of the game’s tight spaces, such as small city streets or really restrictive highway ramps. It is still amusing to put any number of those trucks in the game to add more variety, and members of the modding community do an excellent job at including exterior mods, engine sounds and many other aspects into their releases.

A passenger car? Sure!

The diversity of modding doesn’t stop there either, as some expand the game’s traffic vehicles to an absurd degree. The best of all is no doubt the Traffic Pack mod, which adds just about any vehicle into the game. Players also have the option of adding a big selection of passenger vehicles to drive themselves, with ones like the Nissan Skyline GT-R, or a vast number of Mercedes and Volkswagen vehicles. Sadly there aren’t any objective based mods to use these cars in, as driving from town to town tends to be rather pointless apart from exploring the map. Still, Euro Truck Simulator 2 could double up as a massive driving game with these mods, and it is very easy to install the numerous car mods. The only odd thing I found with my experience is that car mods tend to reuse truck sounds, so they don’t feel as different from standard ETS 2 vehicles as they should be.

 
While Euro Truck Simulator 2 may not look impressive by modern game standards, one has to remember that its game map is one persistent world with loading screens, and also that SCS Software are an independent development studio. If you weren’t happy with the game’s graphics, the modding community has you covered. With many detailed environment mods, there is a lot to add to ETS 2’s original looks, and the environments can be made much prettier. For those who need more, there are some winter season mods to add diversity into the mostly green locales, and some of those can affect the handling models as well. Ultimately, Euro Truck Simulator 2 doesn’t need to live on its modding community, but the sheer amount of custom content available for the game makes it even more diverse and can completely transform the game in many different ways.

With such a huge number of different mods and many versions of the game, the only downside is having quite a big issue of compatibility in Euro Truck Simulator 2. This shouldn’t stop players from messing around with a few mods to customize their experience towards a better end, but does introduce some hassle into entering many mods into the game at once. As SCS Software still have a team to update ETS 2 even as they are working on American Truck Simulator, they still release frequent updates for the game. Mod developers often can’t keep up with the updates, which introduces further complications into setting up these mods in your game. Some may not be compatible with your game version, while others conflict with other mods existing on the same site. This shouldn’t stop you from trying to install mods into Euro Truck Simulator 2, and the game features a convenient mod manager to add these files in to simplify the work for players. It would take you some time to ensure the mods work well together, and I would certainly recommend taking it slow to test compatibility, but the modding community is also helpful. Most mods feature short installation manuals, and indicate the version of the game supported by them. Even if the mods aren’t supported in game, it is easy to tell so by ETS 2 crashing at loading screens, and while modding does generally require some time with it, the payoff is really worth it. With a wealth of extra content that modding provides, you definitely want to add some mods into the game. Euro Truck Simulator 2 is one of the more simplistic games to mod, and the diversity of content offered in the community makes the game feel fresh even if you sunk over 100 hours into it. There simply isn’t a single reason not to check the modding community out.

Websites to look at:

https://ets2.lt/en/

https://www.modland.net/euro-truck-simulator-2/

http://www.ets2world.com/category/euro-truck-simulator-2-mods/ets2-trucks/

All mods are credited to their original makers