American Truck Simulator

Worth buying? What 300 Steam reviews say.Worth buying? Here’s what 300 Steam reviews actually say.

Overwhelmingly PositiveOverwhelmingly Positive · 97%2016

The verdict

A relaxing, atmospheric American trucking sim with great scenery and sound, best with a wheel. Skip it if DLC-per-state pricing, a divisive 1.58 UI or old-engine quirks bother you.

Great for

Players who want relaxed highway driving with music or podcasts, ideally with a wheel and pedals

Main risk

The base map is small and the full map costs hundreds of dollars in DLC

What players love

Relaxing, stress-free driving

Mentioned in ~1 in 4 positive reviews

“ATS turns all that stress and those deadlines into the most relaxing experience imaginable.”
Steam review · 198.2 h played ↗

“To me American Truck Simulator is a meditative game. Whenever I am stressed out I open this game and play it to calm myself.”
Steam review · 6.1 h played ↗

“A very relaxing game, especially after work or study.”
Steam review · translated from Russian · 41.2 h played ↗

Beautiful scenery and atmosphere

Mentioned in ~1 in 7 positive reviews

“it feels breathtaking to see scenes like the grand canyon and the golden gate bridge”
Steam review · 465.8 h played ↗

“The scenery, truck sounds and changing light give those journeys an atmosphere that makes the driving itself worthwhile.”
Steam review · 5.9 h played ↗

Realistic enough that real truckers approve

Mentioned in ~1 in 9 positive reviews

“My son is a semi truck driver irl and he says this game is as close to real life as a game can get.”
Steam review · 603.7 h played ↗

“I played the game before going to CDL school and it helped me understand the basics of trucking”
Steam review · 74.5 h played ↗

Constant updates and developer support

Mentioned in ~1 in 12 positive reviews

“SCS have continued to CARE about this game, 10 years in and unlike most it's not been abandoned, or used as a cash cow”
Steam review · 270.6 h played ↗

“Keeps getting better and older parts redone to modern standards.”
Steam review · 291.7 h played ↗

Great mod support and customization

Mentioned in ~1 in 13 positive reviews

“base game is pretty bare bones, but once modded u can have so much fun”
Steam review · 58.4 h played ↗

“It has a great mod workshop and i have it pretty juiced up.”
Steam review · 51.4 h played ↗

Road Trip DLC and cars add variety

NEW · LAST 30 DAYS

Mentioned in ~1 in 21 positive reviews

“the Road Trip expansion takes this game to the next level.”
Steam review · 71.7 h played ↗

“Shorter jobs, faster vehicles which are well modelled.”
Steam review · 66.8 h played ↗

What players complain about

Expensive DLC, small base map

Mentioned in ~1 in 5 negative reviews

“This isn't American Truck Simulator, this is California Truck Simulator.”
Steam review · 93.6 h played ↗

“It's currently $295 for all of them, not including the base game. HARD pass.”
Steam review · 39.5 h played ↗

“The game is 10,000 miles out of 10, BUT the devs are FIERCE misers”
Steam review · translated from Russian · 66.8 h played ↗

Crashes, stutter and poor performance

Mentioned in ~1 in 6 negative reviews

“THIS IS THE WORSED GAME I HAVE EVER PLAYED.I HAVE RTX 4070 AND YET THE GAME CRASHES FOR NO REASON AT ALL.”
Steam review · 62.2 h played ↗

“The amount of work you have to do to get the game to not stutter is beyond frustrating and it resets every. single. update.”
Steam review · 114.2 h played ↗

“On my M1 MacBook Pro, I managed a whopping 20 fps average on low settings.”
Steam review · 15.9 h played ↗

Controversial 1.58 UI overhaul

Mentioned in ~1 in 7 negative reviews

“they completely ruined the UI. Instead of everything in one convenient location for you to see, they spread the UI information all over the screen”
Steam review · 98.5 h played ↗

“Just make an option to play previous versions.”
Steam review · 80.9 h played ↗

“the last update is just awful, they removed distance, fuel level and cash readouts from F5”
Steam review · translated from Russian · 62.1 h played ↗

Bad traffic AI and red lights

Mentioned in ~1 in 8 negative reviews

“every single car on the road either break checks you, hits you when youre in your own lane, or will run you off the road”
Steam review · 126.1 h played ↗

“I would rather fall off the map once in a while then have a AI run into me like I am not there 5x on the same road.”
Steam review · 326.9 h played ↗

“a good trucking sim, but 90% of the time you reach a traffic light it's red, which drives me mad.”
Steam review · translated from Russian · 34.1 h played ↗

Wheel, controller and monitor setup is painful

Mentioned in ~1 in 8 negative reviews

“Every time there's an update I lose all my controller settings.”
Steam review · 776.1 h played ↗

“Its 2025 and this game has no native way to display on anything but your primary monitor without changing system settings or messing around with configs.”
Steam review · 39.2 h played ↗

Updates break saves, mods and progress

Mentioned in ~1 in 13 negative reviews

“They break the game with updates all the damn time and since updates are ALWAYS FORCED your saves become incompatible”
Steam review · 1469.6 h played ↗

“Update 1.61 broke the game entirely.”
Steam review · 33.7 h played ↗

System requirements

From the Steam store page

Steam Deck: Verified

Minimum

OSWindows 10 64-bit

ProcessorIntel Core i5-6400 or AMD Ryzen 3 1200 or similar

Memory8 GB RAM

GraphicsNVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 or AMD Radeon RX 460 or Intel HD 630 (2GB VRAM)

Storage25 GB available space

Recommended

OSWindows 10 64-bit

ProcessorIntel Core i5-9600 or AMD Ryzen 5 3600 or similar

Memory12 GB RAM

GraphicsNVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 or AMD Radeon RX 590 (2GB VRAM)

Storage25 GB available space

OSWindows 10 64-bit

ProcessorIntel Core i5-6400 or AMD Ryzen 3 1200 or similar

Memory8 GB RAM

GraphicsNVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 or AMD Radeon RX 460 or Intel HD 630 (2GB VRAM)

Storage25 GB available space

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