American Truck Simulator - Road Trip: Ford Review Summary

Driving is fun and the DLC is a brilliant addition with high-quality car models, but customization is limited, driving physics are poor, and engine sounds are terrible.

Driving Cars Is Fun: Players find the core driving experience enjoyable, realistic, and a lot of fun across multiple vehicles and contexts. The handling and feel of the cars are consistently praised as a major strength of the content.

DLC Is A Brilliant Addition: The content is widely regarded as a top-tier addition to the game, with players calling it the best DLC ever and a game-changer. It is seen as a well-implemented feature that brings fresh life to the experience.

High-Quality Car Models: The visual quality of the cars is a major highlight, with players consistently praising the detailed models, beautiful exteriors, and well-crafted interiors. The vehicles are described as looking incredible and being very well made.

Mustang Drives and Sounds Great: The Ford Mustang is a standout vehicle, praised for its powerful engine sound, enjoyable driving feel, and ability to perform stunts like drifting. It is frequently highlighted as a primary source of fun in the expansion.

DLC Offers Excellent Value: The downloadable content is widely considered to be very reasonably priced or even cheap for the amount of enjoyment and content it provides. Many reviewers feel it offers great value for money.

Limited Customization Options: Customization is extremely limited, with few accessories and mostly color changes. Both mechanical and aesthetic personalization are lacking.

Poor Car Driving Physics: Many players find the car physics unrealistic and floaty, lacking weight and contact with the ground. The handling is often compared to driving mini trucks or hovercrafts.

Terrible Engine Sounds: Engine sounds are frequently described as poor quality, resembling a vacuum cleaner. The sound design is flat and unconvincing.

Force Feedback Issues: Force feedback is often nonexistent or poorly implemented, especially at high speeds. It behaves inconsistently on certain wheels like the Logitech G923.

Shared Control Settings Problem: Control settings are shared between truck and car modes, causing steering sensitivity and force feedback to be calibrated for trucks, resulting in light and twitchy car handling.

Car DLC adds Ford vehicles: The paid DLC adds four officially licensed Ford cars, including the Mustang, F-150, Bronco, and Crown Victoria. These cars are drivable within the existing truck world and are integrated into the gameplay.

Driving both trucks and cars: Players can drive semi-trucks for jobs and also drive passenger cars casually, switching between them. The game includes multiple vehicle types, such as pickups and licensed cars like the Mustang.

Car mode and Road Trip: The game features a dedicated car mode, including a career and Road Trip mode. This mode is integrated into the main game and allows players to drive cars in the open world.

Cars have distinct physics: Car physics differ from those of semi-trucks, offering a distinct driving experience. Each car model has its own handling characteristics, with realistic suspension and road feel.

Car delivery jobs available: The game includes a vehicle delivery mode where players transport cars from one dealership to another. These car-based delivery jobs are available through on-demand driver assignments.

Force feedback is broken: Multiple reviewers report that force feedback is nearly absent, fails to center the wheel, and behaves erratically on Logitech G923. Steering resistance is also completely unbalanced, ranging from too loose at speed to overly heavy at low speeds.

Frequent game crashes: Crashes occur during normal driving, when loading saves, when buying a car, and even spontaneously close the game. These issues severely disrupt gameplay and appear across multiple scenarios.

Poor optimization and performance: The game runs poorly even on high-end hardware, with low frame rates despite low CPU and GPU usage. Changing graphics settings from minimum to maximum yields no visible difference, indicating severe optimization problems.

Questionable physics and handling: Reviewers note that car weight feels incorrect, physics are underwhelming, and steering is overly sensitive to road bumps. These issues detract from the driving simulation experience.

World and collision issues: Players encounter strange collision behavior, traffic problems, and world-rendering glitches. These issues break immersion and can affect gameplay.

Strong general recommendations: A large number of players highly recommend the game and DLC, often with 10/10 scores and encouragement for those on the fence. The sentiment is overwhelmingly positive across multiple clusters.

Great value for price: Many reviewers consider the game and its DLC well worth the cost, frequently citing the low price point. The DLC in particular is often described as great value for the money.

Caution for DLC purchase: Some reviewers cannot recommend the DLC in its current state, suggesting a mod instead or waiting for fixes. Others say it is not worth it until things are improved.

Appeals to car fans: The DLC is recommended for those who want to drive passenger cars and for Ford fans. It fulfills the desire to drive cars in the game, though it may not appeal to those uninterested in cars.

Essential for ATS players: The DLC is highly recommended for anyone who plays American Truck Simulator frequently, with some calling it the most fun expansion from SCS Software. It would be the first expansion to buy for new ATS players.

Community fair range: $5.00 - $20.00.

Game completion: 3.0h.

Session length: 0.5h.

Reviewers most strongly signal immediate fun from the quick-job tutorial and early driving despite a learning curve, while others report later boredom after fleet expansion and criticize the job/progression loop.

Friction: Limited job selection and no World of Trucks hookup, restricting destination freedom.; Steep learning curve for new players.; No clear progression path, skills, or unlock guidance.; Weak force feedback that makes driving tiring.; Boring, repetitive job tasks described as a box and a file.; Mundane car and monotonous highway views..

Unlock drivers: Choosing quick jobs makes the limited job selection less of an issue..

Chill Free-Roam Explorer: Casual free roam, sightseeing, and low-stakes driving rather than delivery grinding. Motivation: Relaxing map exploration and freedom to drive a car wherever the road leads. Stance: buy.

ATS/ETS Veteran Enthusiast: Long-session truck-sim play, mod use, and enthusiastic adoption of official DLC. Motivation: Fresh car content inside the familiar ATS/ETS world they already invest in. Stance: buy.

Car Culture Modder: Free-roam car play, doughnuts, speed runs, and workshop mod experimentation. Motivation: Driving, tuning, and playing with specific favorite cars and car mods. Stance: buy.

The Windows <8GB VRAM cohort is mostly positive, with all included recommendations reporting acceptable performance and only isolated caveats.

Windows <8GB VRAM: positive. Reviewers report the game and its car mod/DLC working well, though one mentions a crash when driving too fast.

Steam Deck: The filtered reviews present a mixed Steam Deck picture. Users praise the DLC's quality and driving feel, but controller configuration for truck versus car requires manual adjustment, and multiple users report hard crashes or forced closures, including when driving at high speed. One reviewer also notes platform-specific update behavior, but the dominant technical barrier is stability. Because crash reports indicate a broken rather than seamless experience, friction is rated high.

Monetization: The audit found no evidence of predatory monetization. Reviews focus on the paid Road Trip DLC for American Truck Simulator, with most users describing its price as reasonable or excellent value. One reviewer criticizes having to pay $8 for a new game mode with no base cars, but this remains a traditional paid DLC rather than an in-game shop, loot box, gacha, battle pass, or pay-to-win system.

DLC adds player cars officially: The add-on introduces officially licensed cars, including iconic Ford and retro models, for exploration and jobs. It is a paid DLC that requires the base game, offering a different experience from the base game.

Priced cheaply and fairly: Reviewers consistently describe the DLC price as cheap, low, and fair, considering it a bargain, especially compared to other developers. The $8 price is seen as reasonable and good value.

Desire for ETS2 version: Many reviewers hope for a similar Road Trip DLC in Euro Truck Simulator 2, possibly with Volkswagen or Skoda vehicles. They also wish for more cars and car brands in the future.

Made for American Truck Simulator: This is a DLC for American Truck Simulator that adds variety to the trucking game. It allows driving cars in the ATS environment.

Developed by SCS Software: The DLC is developed by SCS Software, known for continuous support and development. SCS is expected to continue building upon the DLC.