Euro Truck Sim 2 Devs Cancel Heart of Russia DLC

One of a gamers favorite pastimes is, for some reason, to drive a semi truck around various parts of Europe. But those parts do not includes nations under a current national conflict, it seems. The developers of Euro Truck Simulator has announced that their Heart of Russia expansion pack will be canceled.

The reason for the shelving is, as you likely figured, due to the current real world conflict involving Russia and Ukraine. Developer SCS announced their intentions to halt the DLC on their website, citing a desire to stay apolitical when developing their games.

When developing our games we try to be as apolitical as possible, in a way shielding the global player audience from everyday controversies. We quite like the idea that our shared passion, for a truck simulation, allows people to connect, to pay a virtual visit to a neighbouring country in peace, and to enjoy a hobby that we commonly share, rather than allowing anything divisive to set us apart. But since our DLC, Heart of Russia, directly concerns Russia, and with so many people suffering, we decided to refrain from releasing the DLC so that it is not perceived in any way as being in support of or tolerance of the aggression.

In a bit of unfortunate timing, the DLC expansion was only a few weeks away from completion when the conflict began last February. Since then, the studio has undergone some serious deliberation as to how to best proceed.

Their initial response was very much in support of Ukraine, when they released a special paint pack in the following March. The $1 purchase would unlock various paint jobs in Ukrainian colors, with all of the packs profits going toward aid efforts for the nation. They also joined a large group of developers that promised to halt operations within Russia while the conflict continues

All things considered, this is a very reasonable choice, one they were likely quite conflicted in making. Its hard to know that something you worked for months on has to be essentially trashed. But sometimes thats the best thing you can do. Perhaps at some point in the future, when the conflict is behind us, it will return. Until then, you can check out some of the other many nations available for the game on Steam.