Euro Truck Simulator 2 is a truck driving simulator with elements of a
business simulation game. Players drive articulated trucks in an
open world 19:1 scale rendition of
Europe, delivering loads to a designated location in order to be compensated with money and experience points. The payload must be delivered to the destination within a given amount of time, and with the least amount of damage to the goods as possible, in order to get the most money and experience points possible. When starting out, players choose the location of their
headquarters in any of the game map's cities. At first, the player can only take what are known as 'quick jobs', effectively working as
freelance drivers for other companies, with a truck provided and fuel + toll costs covered. As the player earns money and/or takes bank loans, they can eventually afford to buy themselves a truck, acquire additional garages, hire additional AI drivers and start accepting better-paying jobs by using their own truck instead of being a driver for hire with equipment being provided. The player gains experience points after each delivery. A skill point is awarded after each level-up. Skill points can be used to unlock deliveries that require different
ADR classes, longer distance deliveries, valuable cargo loads, fragile cargo loads, deliveries that are urgent and eco-driving. This progression allows the player to take on better-paying jobs. The base game features 71 cities in twelve countries, over twenty types of cargo and over fifteen fictional European companies. The gameplay was expanded with free updates; those brought in several new features into the game, such as the Used Truck Dealer in Update 1.49 or map reworks from over the years.
Map updates The base game features
Austria,
Belgium, the
Czech Republic, north-eastern
France,
Germany, northern
Italy,
Luxembourg,
Netherlands, western
Poland,
Bratislava in
Slovakia,
Switzerland, and
Great Britain (the
United Kingdom, excluding
Northern Ireland and smaller islands). Part of SCS Software's recent development philosophy for
Euro Truck Simulator 2, amongst releasing paid DLC map expansions, is to improve old areas of the map through free map updates. As the initial game areas were mainly ported from older SCS Software games, these older areas did not stand up to the quality of recent expansion packs. Early updates included cities like
Venice,
Graz and
Klagenfurt am Wörthersee. Several updates were released to prepare the 'base map' for
downloadable content. Update 1.26 included reworked parts of France, parts outside of the
Vive la France! DLC. Update 1.30 prepared existing Italian areas for the
Italia DLC. Update 1.48.5 included the addition of
Trieste and reworked the cities of
Ancona and
Bari to better prepare the game for the
West Balkans DLC release. Germany was rebuilt in stages with
Travemünde being added in version 1.33, with overall improvements visible in versions 1.32, 1.35, 1.40 with
Hanover rebuilt in 1.45. Several French cities received free updates. Update 1.45 of the game added the German town of
Werlte as part of the
Krone Trailer Pack DLC, which features Krone's
headquarters and main factory. Update 1.37 brought changes to the French cities of
Dijon,
Metz,
Strasbourg and
Reims, with a reskin of
Lille arriving in version 1.38, a rebuild of
Calais in version 1.39, and the rebuild of
Lyon in version 1.43. An overhaul of
Austria was released as part of the version 1.44 update in May 2022. Two years later, an overhaul of
Switzerland along with the
Rhine Region (
Cologne,
Düsseldorf,
Dortmund and
Duisburg) in the western part in
Germany and debut of the
Scania Demo Centre in
Södertälje in
Sweden was released as part of the version 1.50 update in May 2024. The final rebuild of Germany (which also includes
Berlin) was completely rebuilt as part of the version 1.53 in November 2024, marking the completion of a base country. On Friday 3 October 2025, a teaser blog post titled ‘How to: perfect cup of tea’ teased new content coming to the game. It featured a video on how to make a perfect cup of tea, during which a screenshot showing left hand drive traffic was very briefly shown, sparking rumours that something to do with the UK was happening. On October 19 SCS Software announced on their blog and social media pages that the next country to be rebuilt will be the United Kingdom. == Downloadable content ==