Truck Driver

I went into Truck Driver expecting to hate it on PC, and the honest answer is: it depends entirely on what you're shopping for. Steam's own community has landed at roughly 70% positive across 156 reviews, which is a fair summary of a game that genuinely divides its audience along a single fault line: did you come here for simulation depth, or for a low-stakes open-world career loop with personality? The core loop is straightforward. You inherit a truck, move to a new city, and work your way through a roster of NPC shippers ranging from construction workers to lumberjacks. Each job moves you up the reputation ladder with that character, unlocking story snippets and better-paying hauls. Experience points feed into a skill tree, money goes toward truck repairs, upgrades, and cosmetic paint jobs. The trucks themselves are unlicensed but clearly inspired by Euro brands like Scania, Volvo, and DAF. None of the mechanical systems run very deep by sim standards. The damage meter is visually inconsistent, skills provide negligible stat bumps, and traffic AI has a documented habit of stopping for no reason. If you're expecting the layered economy and route planning of Euro Truck Simulator 2 or American Truck Simulator, you're going to be disappointed before the first hour is up. What the game actually does well is feel approachable. It was built first as a console title and ported to PC later, and that heritage shows in both the good and the bad. On the good side: controller support is solid, the open world is seamless, and the career progression feels digestible for players who have never touched a sim. SOEDESCO did respond to community pressure post-launch by adding steering wheel support, a revamped UI, and weather effects with functional windshield wipers. On the bad side, the PC conversion is rough around the edges. Steering wheel calibration is unreliable, and the fact that the title originated on consoles is hard to ignore when you're trying to remap a force-feedback wheel and half the key names fail to display. The Hidden Places and Damage System DLC, which should ship with the PC base version, has caused some players to report it not being activated, adding an extra layer of frustration. For the sim-specialist crowd I usually write for, this is a tough sell on PC where ETS2 and ATS exist and have years of polish, mods, and active communities behind them. There is no mod ecosystem here, and the decision depth that makes a 200-hour grand-strategy title worthwhile for a newcomer simply is not present. But that is also not the target. The target is someone who wants a relaxed, narrative-lite open-world driving game on the couch with a controller, who finds ETS2 intimidating or dull, and who gets something out of unlocking shipper storylines rather than optimizing fuel costs across a European route network. That person exists, and for them Truck Driver is a reasonable fit at the right price.

Diego · Scout Team

Strategy & simulation

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