American Truck Simulator - Missouri: Kansas City to Kansas City

American Truck Simulator was released three years later than Euro Truck Simulator 2, but it never caught up with its European "colleague" in popularity. And this is actually surprising, because there are a lot of trucking fans in the USA. While the online ETS 2 has long exceeded 50 thousand (peak - 69,754 players), ATS still will not reach 15 thousand simultaneous players with a peak of 19,153 during the release 9 years ago. However, SCS Software pays great attention to the development of American Truck Simulator, and recently the American part of the simulator has been updated much more often than the European one. SCS has released 2 DLCs for ATS at a good pace per year and now has three new states in development at once. But let's see what the latest update of American Truck Simulator - Missouri offers.

Missouri Dungeon

In the previous expansion, we had the city of Texarkana, half of which is located in Texas and half in Arkansas, in American Truck Simulator - Missouri there is the city of Kansas City - half of which is located in Kansas, half in Missouri. That's right, the delivery of goods Kansas City (KS) - Kansas City (MO), is a delivery between two different states, that is, formally different countries.

Other interesting things in the new DLC: Bagnell Dam aka Osage Hydroelectric Power Plant; the city of St. Louis with its incredible Gateway Arch; the city of Poplar Bluff with its chic Rogers Theater in the Art Deco style; the city of Springfield, where the "Main Street of America" begins - the legendary US Route 66; the Ozark Lake District, well known to us thanks to the series of the same name, and much more. 12 large cities and 9 towns not indicated on the map, 17 (!) observation decks and 10 just added to the gallery of attractions. In short, there is something to see.

The pearl of American Truck Simulator - Missouri is huge underground warehouses, entire towns with their own post offices and cafes. The largest of them is SubTropolis in Kansas City (MO) built in an abandoned limestone mine, has an area of 5.1 km2 and looks like a real underground labyrinth. There are three more similar underground terminals of a smaller area on the map in Joplin, Springfield and St. Louis. Orientation and maneuvering in underground storages is an interesting experience.

But in general, we must admit that the last four updates of American Truck Simulator: Kansas, Nebraska, Arkansas and now Missouri are very similar to each other. This is mostly the territory of the Great Plains - flat as a table. Of course, there is also a kind of trucker romance in this, but I want something radically new, like, for example, in Euro Truck Simulator 2 - Greece, islands, mountain serpentines, narrow streets...

Maybe SCS Software should temporarily pause its journey to the East Coast and, for variety, create a state like Hawaii or Alaska, which, by and large, has only one road. Especially since SCS's seemingly real plans to expand American Truck Simulator to Canada have been circulating online. And why not?

1.51 – 1.54

In the six months since the release of American Truck Simulator - Arkansas, the developers have managed to prepare several major updates.

Patch 1.51.3.0 in October 2024 added another new truck to the game – the Freightliner Cascadia 2025. Recall that the chic Mack Pinnacle appeared in September 2024.

Update 1.52 in October 2024 added the Driving Academy training module to American Truck Simulator, which we already talked about.

Update 1.53 in November 2024 added the fourth and seemingly final part of California Dreamin, an update to the oldest part of the game map, California. It's a really high-quality and cool update with completely redesigned cities Bakersfield, Barstow, El Centro, Los Angeles, Oxnard, San Diego and Santa Maria plus three completely new cities Blythe, Indio, Mojave, new viewpoints and landmarks. We highly recommend returning to California.

And finally, update 1.54, which was released on the eve of the new DLC. Here the truck settings menu was redesigned (seat position, steering wheel, driver's head, etc.). But the most important thing remained under the hood. In patch 1.54, physics changed in ATS and ETS2, now it is the well-known PhysX system from NVIDIA, plus the cargo representation system changed, which will make it easier to combine cargo and trailers in the future.

Entertain yourself and the mod problem

If you play American Truck Simulator or Euro Truck Simulator 2 for a long time, I have 331 and 491 hours respectively, and there are people with 1000+ hours, then just delivering cargo from place to place gets a little boring. So players look for entertainment on their own, as in the case of the same Microsoft Flight Simulator. Longest deliveries, collecting achievements, opening 100% of roads, etc. I try out new trucks, usually classics from the 1960s-80s, and recently I started driving ATS and cars.

And here is one problem. The best and most interesting vintage trucks are paid mods that are not available in the Steam Workshop, and which can cost an order of magnitude more than the game itself, which can be picked up on sales for 40-60 UAH. And I think I have experience buying additional planes in MSFS and trains in Train Sim World, but in ATS/ETS2, unfortunately, there is neither a Steam store for third-party mods nor a store built into the game itself. And I don't really want to pay money on some shady site through some incomprehensible payment system, and then wait for passwords and download links. By the way, several top modders who create high-quality paid trucks are Russians, so be careful. Plus, updates for such third-party mods are not always released on time. Honestly, it's not at all clear why SCS Software doesn't take all this into its own hands.

As for the free trucks in the Workshop, there are several very good ones among them, but, unfortunately, over time, modders abandon their projects and they stop working correctly. There is another problem with passenger cars - almost all free models have very poor-quality mirrors, which significantly distort the picture, if they work at all, and problems with the sound, which seems to be borrowed from trucks and does not fit passenger cars. But looking at the world of ATS/ETS2 from a completely different perspective, almost touching the asphalt, is very interesting.

PS After writing this review, information appeared that SCS Software is working on a new project Road Trip - cars and a travel mode will finally appear in the game.

What's next?

And SCS Software is already working on new patches and additions. There are currently three map expansions in the works: Louisiana, Illinois and Iowa. Most likely, the first one we will see is Louisiana (hello, Southern Gothic!). Plus, soon the game will have a new Driving Academy section and the first electric truck in ATS – Volvo VNR Electric. But dear SCS… maybe they are still in Hawaii?!