Great Britain is being completely rebuilt in ETS2 – even the map scale is changing!

Great Britain is one of the oldest parts of Euro Truck Simulator 2. Many roads and cities are essentially still from the game's early days, when the map was structured much more simply than modern areas such as Greece or Nordic Horizons. For the UK Rework, SCS has therefore made a fairly radical decision: Instead of improving old roads piece by piece, the region is being rebuilt from the ground up. At the same time, Great Britain's previously different scale is to be adjusted to the scale of the rest of ETS2. This initially sounds like a technical detail, but in practice it changes the entire planning of the map. Road distances, intersections, cities and landscapes all have to fit together anew, even though an entire country still has to be accommodated on a limited game map.

In particular, London shows why this is more than a graphical update. The capital already exists in today's ETS2, but it belongs to that old generation of cities in which a few roads and large, simplified intersections have to stand in for an entire metropolis. For the rework, a dedicated map designer is working on London and trying to incorporate more of the real road structure, landmarks and the complex intersections and roundabouts typical of the city. Of course, this will not become a 1:1-scale London either. What matters instead is that driving through the city should feel more like London, rather than just an arbitrary collection of British roads with a familiar name on the map.

It is similar in Cambridge as well. Here too, the existing area is not simply being equipped with more modern buildings. A map designer is explicitly working on parts of the city and its surroundings and has to solve exactly the problem that defines the entire UK Rework: On very little space, real road layouts, a recognizable urban structure and sufficient distance from the next city all have to work at the same time. That is precisely why the new scale is so important. SCS has to decide which roads genuinely contribute to the driving experience, which intersections are distinctive enough and which parts of a real city can sensibly be represented at all on the compressed ETS2 map.

And this is exactly where the difference from today's Great Britain is likely to be greatest. On the old map, you often get from a motorway to a city very quickly, drive through just a few intersections to the company and shortly afterward find yourself back on the next main road. Modern ETS2 areas make much greater use of transitions: suburbs, smaller settlements, distinctive junctions, industrial areas and roads that make a region recognizable even before the actual city sign. The UK Rework is therefore not just about rebuilding major cities. SCS is simultaneously redesigning landscapes, smaller towns and entire road networks, with several teams assigned to different parts of Great Britain.

SCS is not even stopping at places that are already on the map today. Bristol and Inverness, for example, are being added completely anew, and further cities and regions are also being added. Familiar places and landmarks are likewise being incorporated into the map anew. This makes it quite clear why a comparison between today's and the future UK map may eventually feel almost like a comparison between two different maps: Existing places are being rebuilt, others are being added for the first time, and in between, the connecting road network is also being rearranged.

The same thing is happening in Scotland. Edinburgh and Glasgow are being rebuilt, the Highlands are getting completely new landscaping and additional places. Inverness does not exist on today's ETS2 map at all, but in the future it will become a proper destination in the north. This means that not only individual cities are changing, but possibly ordinary long-distance journeys as well. A trip from England to Scotland may, after the rework, take you along differently designed roads, through new landscapes and to additional destinations, even though the starting and destination regions remain fundamentally the same.

It is important to note, however: All of this is still in the future. The currently playable UK map is still the old version. Bristol, Inverness, the new London and the other rework areas shown are still in development and may change before release. SCS has not yet announced a date. The complete UK Rework is later supposed to be released as a free update for owners of Euro Truck Simulator 2.

And that is precisely why Great Britain could ultimately become one of the most interesting before-and-after comparisons in the history of ETS2. This is not about driving along the same road again with nicer asphalt and a few new trees. SCS is even changing the foundation on which Great Britain was originally fitted into the ETS2 world. Some of the city names will remain the same – but roads, intersections, landscapes and even the distances between them are being rethought.

Anyone driving through old London, Cambridge, Glasgow or Edinburgh once more today is therefore looking at a map that will eventually disappear completely. The exact same journey could look significantly different after the UK Rework, even though the same destination will still be shown on the sat-nav.

Which existing British city would you most like to see again in a direct before-and-after comparison once the UK Rework is released?