Euro Truck Simulator 2 News

[Kody Baril]

Weplay video games for many reasons. For some, it's about learning and mastering a game's systems, and the feeling of empowerment and accomplishment that comes with it. For others, it's about being whisked away to another world and escaping the grey routine of everyday life. And then there are the simulator fans. These guys don't want to fly starships, run criminal empires, or pretend they're windswept warriors from the Wilderness of Death: they want to empty garbage cans, fertilize crops, and put tarmac on roads.

Niche simulators are quietly successful on PC, and there's an astonishing variety of them. There's OMSI, which sees you driving a bus around the streets of 1980s Berlin. Or how about Garbage Truck Simulator, which asks the question: Do you have what it takes to be a trash tycoon? And if you've ever wondered why train conductors earn $75,000 a year, try playing London Underground Simulator. It took me almost an hour, with a manual, just to start the engine. Then I overshot Edgware Road by about half a mile.

Simulators, and the people who play them, are easy targets for piss-taking. They're the contemporary equivalent of the stereotypical train-spotting, Thermos-clutching anorak of modern English folklore. But thanks to YouTube, that's slowly changing. Suddenly these games are being exposed to audiences of millions, and normal people are starting to play them and realize that, hey, some of them are actually pretty good.

I don't play many sims, but I was intrigued by Euro Truck Simulator 2. Not because I had some burning desire to drive heavy goods vehicles around Germany, but because I heard from a few people that, honestly, seriously, it's really good. So I had a go, as a joke, and ended up playing it for over 30 hours. That's an entire day and some change I've spent driving along imaginary highways, obeying the speed limit, delivering wood shavings to Stuttgart and hauling powdered milk to Aberdeen. Time I could have spent hunting space pirates in Elite, battling demons in Dark Souls, or just going outside.

Most of your time is spent on long highways. Here, your only interaction is keeping your wheels straight, managing your speed, and occasionally changing lanes. Like driving on an actual highways, then. But it's here that the game is at its most hypnotic. The muffled rumble of the tarmac under your wheels, the swish of the wipers, raindrops tapping at the windows. It's bizarrely soothing, like a screensaver for your brain. You can listen to live radio from whichever country you're in, and I have fond memories of screaming down a rain-soaked autobahn listening to Fleetwood Mac on a German classic rock station.

It's so relaxing, in fact, that it's become an unexpected form of meditation for me. If I'm stressed out or feeling overworked I'll go and drive down the freeway for half an hour in a big fucking truck. It clears my mind, and eventually the only thing I'm worried about is where the next service station is, because I'm low on gas, or if I'm going to get these bags of sand to Rotterdam in time. Don't bother paying a guy in flip-flops $75 a session for transcendental meditation lessons: Install Euro Truck Simulator 2 instead.

But then it catches you off guard. Your GPS sends you down some narrow, twisting country road in the middle of nowhere. It's the dead of night and you've got 20 tons of explosives resting precariously on your trailer. Then your headlights blink off because you battered into wall earlier and damaged your engine. Now you have to guide your lump of a truck down this nightmare backroad with instinct alone. But then, mercifully, the lights flicker back to life. Between all the lengthy, uneventful drives down bleak highways, there are these rare, but unforgettable, little moments of heart-in-mouth excitement.

If this wasn't thrilling enough, the game also has support for the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset. So, naturally, I had to give it a go. Combined with a steering wheel and pedals, it was remarkably convincing. I could look around the cabin by moving my head, and even lean out of the side window to look back at my trailer. After about 20 minutes I'd genuinely tricked my brain into thinking it was a physical space, and at one point I was so confused I tried to lean my arm on the non-existent window to my left. Using a pioneering VR headset to drive slowly down a street in a truck might sound like a gross misuse of the technology, but it's impressive as hell.

Nowadays, the idea of the simulator tends to fall into one of three categories: spoofs such as Surgeon Simulator and Goat Simulator (and the countless gutter trash that crops up on Steam to cash in on their success), bespoke software such as the aforementioned titles and more well-known examples such as Microsoft Flight Simulator (great achievements in realistically portraying their subject matter, but definitely holding only niche appeal), and bargain-basement shovelware you see on the shelves at your local supermarket (the kind your dad might pick up for two quid and try to get working on his yellowed, decade-old, spyware-riddled PC).

The game is essentially a trucking role-playing game; you start off with nothing and do odd jobs for various companies, only covering short distances such as Newcastle to Grimsby, possibly as far as Rotterdam. Doing this nets you experience and lets you level up your driver. Wisely, levels dictate your responsibilities as opposed to your driving proficiency, letting you carry more exotic cargo or drive longer distances, for example.

That said, it also demands your full attention as you have to follow the rules of the road and be on-the-ball for when a turn you need to make comes up. You have to refuel and take rest breaks, crashing into other vehicles results in hefty fines, and damage to your truck is serious and permanent until you spend a fat wad of cash to fix it up. Let me put it this way; unlike other driving games, even the more sim-like ones, this is one I would never touch after a pint or two.

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TruckersFM, also known as Truckers.FM or TFM, is an independent online radio station created by the Euro Truck Simulator 2 and American Truck Simulator community,[1] and also features in other simulator genres such as Farming Simulator.[2] The station was founded in October 2015 by brothers Alexander and Joshua Blackman.[3]

The station predominately plays chart music, pop music as well as rock and EDM. Their sister radio station, BigRigFM primarily plays country music. TruckersFM is available online, on various audio streaming services such as TuneIn and on smart speakers such as Amazon Echo. TruckersFM is featured within the in-game radio directories of the simulation game titles Euro Truck Simulator 2, American Truck Simulator and the Farming Simulator series.

British video game news site Eurogamer describes TruckersFM as "an alternative to listening to real-world radio stations inside a game, (which) has become an alternative to real-world stations out in the real world."[3]

Launched in October 2015,[2] TruckersFM was created as a dedicated radio station by the Truck Simulator and TruckersMP multiplayer modification communities.[4] The idea behind the station is to allow players to tune into a radio station that provides news, entertaining stories, virtual traffic reports[5] and on-air competitions for them to interact with.[3]

On 11 May 2017, TruckersFM gained partner status with Discord, a proprietary freeware VoIP application designed for creating communities ranging from gamers to education and businesses. Its Discord community has over 20,000 members, which makes it one of the more popular communities in the music category on Discord.[6]

In February 2018, members of the TruckersFM team visited the headquarters of SCS Software,[7] the developers of Euro Truck Simulator 2 and American Truck Simulator. The visit resulted in a closer relationship between the station and game developers, as well as the creation of exclusive radio imaging for TruckersFM, consisting of members of the game's development team saying the TruckersFM slogan.[8]

In October 2019, TruckersMP, the community created multiplayer modification for Euro Truck Simulator 2 and American Truck Simulator, partnered with TruckersFM to provide exclusive updates, official events, and giveaways for the simulation community.[9]

On 26 May 2019, TruckersFM launched a new sister station called BigRigFM, a country music radio station, created to cater specifically for the American 18-wheeler truck drivers section of the Truck Simulator community.[3] This station broadcast without presenters until 23 April 2022, when Cowie presented the official launch show.

On 16 October 2020, TruckersFM celebrated its 5th anniversary of broadcasting[10] with a virtual in-game festival on the Euro Truck Simulator 2 multiplayer modification, TruckersMP. They also partnered up with gaming brands and developers such as HyperX, Focus Home Interactive, SCS Software and Fanatec to giveaway over 2000 euros worth of prizes to listeners and followers on their social media channels.

Being a heavily community-orientated radio station, TruckersFM launched its own virtual 'Street Team' in October 2018. The Street Team organize seasonal (previously monthly) online convoys and large alternative events on the TruckersMP multiplayer modification, allowing the presenters and staff of TruckersFM to directly interact with the community. These virtual convoys generally see over 400 online players attend and participate, and on occasions have seen between 500 and 700 attendees.[12]

The scale of Street Team Convoys assisted in the creation of a formal partnership with TruckersMP, who noted that TruckersFM "are one of the largest communities that contributes significantly to TruckersMP on a regular basis."[9]

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