The developers of Euro Truck Simulator 2 shared information about update 1.40 and the release of a major DLC – Iberia. The developers had grand plans, which were severely disrupted by the coronavirus pandemic. Due to the pandemic, the developers had to work remotely, which not only slowed down the work but also led to certain expenses. However, despite all this, the development team has expanded, and the developers are actively continuing to work on updates. They apparently will not return to their office before spring 2021, but development of updates continues.
The first thing that became known is that work is in full swing on improving the appearance of the games from the ETS2 developers. The graphics will become better, despite the fact that the work is being done remotely, which is not very convenient. The lighting system in the game will undergo very significant changes. The intensity of light sources will correspond to real values. HDR is used for rendering. A number of changes make the graphics in the game more realistic and beautiful, and much of this is achieved thanks to beautiful lighting. Regardless of where you are – the unified system will always provide a stable image.
There is a lot of work because almost everything needs to be reworked: from small stones to huge buildings, trees, vegetation, and more. Improving the quality of graphics in a single update would instantly increase the game's demands on computers. However, the developers are implementing and improving gradually, making the game higher quality without heavily burdening computers.
However, there is also some rather bad news – due to remote work, the developers simply will not be able to complete the development of updates and DLC by the end of this year. Many were expecting the new DLC, but it definitely will not be released this year – the developers announced this. The DLC is so large that working on it was difficult even under normal conditions, although the developers managed it. However, with the transition to remote work, they simply did not meet the deadlines, as there is still a lot of work to do. The Iberia DLC will use the new lighting system.
They managed to release the Colorado DLC using the old lighting system, but Iberia will be perfection. Before the release of major updates, smaller updates will continue to be released. Certain changes will be made not only for ETS2 but also for ATS. Iberia will be the first “test” of new systems and modules, and the games will gradually improve.
The Iberia DLC is not the only update that was postponed. There was a project to rework Germany. They have made significant progress, but they also have to wait until everything is optimized for update 1.40. And when will update 1.40 itself be released – this is already roughly known. The developers want to launch a closed beta test of the new update as early as January 2021 – very soon. Then there will be an open beta test, and when everything is perfect, the update will officially be released in the game.
The developers apologized repeatedly and said that all this is done to avoid releasing a raw product, and in the long term, the delay is even for the better, since there will be more time to test everything, improve it, and finally provide a finished product to the players. The wait is definitely worth it!