How Accurate Are the Cities in Euro Truck Simulator 2?
At the outset, it‘s important to set proper expectations around accuracy in ETS2. The cities and environments are not scrupulously replicated real-world locations – rather they are artist interpretations that aim to capture recognizable essence rather than geographic precision from start to finish of your journeys.
Balancing Scale, Fidelity, and Performance
Due to inherent tech limitations in rendering extremely large playable spaces, ETS2 maps use a condensed 1:19 scale versus real world ratios. This allows the devs to include broader swaths of countries while compressing less crucial infrastructure spread between destinations. It‘s simply not feasible to model thousands of miles of accurate secondary roads over entire nations at a full 1:1 scale while maintaining decent performance.
For example, actual driving distance between the Northern industrial hub of Oslo, Norway to coastal Mediterranean Genoa, Italy spans over 1900 miles (3000+ km) of varying terrain. In ETS2 this journey compresses down to a "mere" 857 mi but retains changes in environment across the trip. Sparsely populated mountain ranges get truncated more than denser sections.
So the scale tradeoff makes the world feel lived-in early on but loses granularity between cities. You still get a scenic cross section highlighting infrastructural and architectural changes but with repetitive filler mileage removed.
Landmarks vs Fictitious Fillers
Within urban city boundaries, the ETS2 artists focus attention on nailing iconic landmarks, historical sites, and commercial districts fairly accurately while fudging connectivity and residential sprawl.
For example when hauling supplies across the water to Malmö, Sweden you are greeted by a passable imitation of the impressive Öresund Bridge linking Denmark and Sweden. Key ports, causeways, and even Lund Cathedral render clearly on the skyline just like making the crossing in real life.
However the industrial dockyards and approach roads on both sides employ generic filler assets to reduce production overhead. The city scales feel condensed, with less variation street to street than reality. But interactable hotspots benefit the most from accuracy labor.
Artistic Interpretation Over Geographic Precision
The development decisions around ETS2‘s blend of realism and creative license cater to their target audience – aspiring truckers hungry for virtual tourism wish fulfillment versus strictly accurate simulations.
As such there are deliberate fidelity tradeoffs made in favor of aesthetically pleasing architecture, integrated commercial branding, regional culture nods, and geographic diversity even when simplifying or condensing scale as mentioned above.
In many ways the "greatest hits" approach works wonderfully to incentivize drivers to expand delivery radii versus dull repetition. As veterans know, there are always new hidden gem routes and charm left to discover across thousands of miles and DLC expansions.
Driving and Traffic Dynamics – Where it Counts
Whilemoguls may fall short of 1:1 precision, the roadway infrastructure itself delivers remarkable replication with accurate highway interchange layouts, intersection patterns, bridges, rail crossings, load weight stations, rest stops, signage and more based on real-world civil engineering.
AI traffic keeps roads populated with several vehicle archetypes following regional trends. You get a mix of transport trucks, commuter sedans, coupes and emergency vehicles all following laws, signals, merging behaviors far better than simplified racing titles. This goes a long way toward driving immersion on the vast pilgrimage across Europe.
Simulation Handling vs Reality
In terms of vehicle handling dynamics, one cannot expect perfect parity to a real big rig. ETS2 offers authentic transmission options from automated manual to an 18-speed shift range. Momentum physics capture realistic mass, acceleration and braking forces given engine torques and grades.
Yet assistive options like GPS and simplified maneuvering of multiple livestock or liquid tanker trailers reduces challenges regular truckers contend with everyday. This allows accessible fun per the genre conventions. For those seeking uncompromising simulations, hardcore mods from the community tweak physics to near faultless levels.
Always Room for Improvement
While ETS2 sets impressive benchmarks for commercial driving escapism to date with each update, the devs at SCS Software continue raising the bar in scale and immersion. Recent graphic overhauls enrich rural ambience and factories while cabins gain rich material detail.
As compute power grows, mapping processes can ingest larger real-world data sets. While cities may never achieve full 1:1 parity, the illusion of crisscrossing continental Europe by truck continually inches toward reality‘s essence through the passion of this studio. Veteran truckers eagerly await seeing how much further these renderized frontiers will stretch thanks to that dedication.
