Category: Euro Truck Simulator 2

ProMods 2.50 Previews: Southern Balkans

Posted on | by Stummer | 1 Comment on ProMods 2.50 Previews: Southern Balkans

As promised, we’re back already with the second part of our Balkans preview, this time looking at the new content in southern Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, and Albania. The latter two countries are new to ProMods, and join the first two in showcasing the beautiful scenery of this region.

Last time we saw the changes in Croatia’s northernmost cities, while today we start in its south. From the existing city of Ploče, you can now head in two new directions. The first is towards Mostar in Bosnia and Herzegovina, where you can see the famous Stari Most (Old Bridge).

The second direction is further down the Adriatic coast, crossing the Neretva river and passing through the Opuzen area, before briefly crossing into Bosnia and Herzegovina and the scenery town of Neum, the country’s only coastal settlement.

After crossing back into Croatia, we reach the popular tourist destination of Dubrovnik, with panoramic views of the city.

The new content continues beyond Dubrovnik to the far south of Croatia, and on into Montenegro. The road is no motorway, passing straight through many pretty towns—several of which are represented in-game—while a ferry is necessary to cross the beautiful Bay of Kotor.

Finally, we reach the end of the road (for now): the seaport of Bar. With its stunning surroundings, it is a worthy destination following one of the most beautiful stretches of road in the mod. 

Albania

We are also glad to also have new content in Albania after a dead-end connection for years. While the connection got a visual upgrade, the city of Elbasan has been added. Developer FisherJB has some things to say about it:

“Everyone who starts mapping need to start somewhere. After some other projects to learn the editor I finally thought it would be a good idea to expand the ProMods map with my own add-on. I decided to work in Albania and do something with the dead-end connection. Looking up streetview on that road showed me lots of mountains and a fairly big city called Elbasan. I had never made such mountains and never made such a big city. I learned a lot during the process and eventually was invited to join the ProMods team. After everything was finished I decided to improve some old parts, because over time you learn new and better tricks about mapping, which make the experience for the player even better. I hope you will all enjoy this addition to Albania, with more to come in the future :)”

As you can see, there is much quality and beauty coming to the Balkans. However, Bar and Elbasan are both dead-ends as of ProMods 2.50 and you might wonder why they are not connected. Rest assured, making this connection is a priority, but it would have taken far too much time for 2.50, since it requires making the Albanian capital, Tirana, and a lot of mountainous landscapes. Therefore, we cannot promise when new content in Albania will be ready.

With that said, our preview of the Balkans in ProMods 2.50 is over. With just a couple of previews left and 2.50 almost ready for release, we’ll be back soon.

ProMods 2.50 Previews: Hungary and Northern Balkans

Posted on | by Stummer | 3 Comments on ProMods 2.50 Previews: Hungary and Northern Balkans

We hope you’ve been enjoying the ProMods 2.50 video content from our promotion partners. If you’ve not seen any yet, you can find links on our social media pages. But right now, it’s time for another blog preview. This time we’re looking at Hungary, before moving on to the first of a two-part preview of the Balkans.

Hungary

Following new cities and rebuilt roads in the northwest and east of the country in previous versions, 2.50 focuses on western Hungary, including the border with Austria, the city of Szombathely, and the town of Sümeg with its hilltop castle. As well as the view of Sümeg Castle, Hungary developer Eryman highlights the scenery towns of Pápa, Sárvár and Veszprém to look for while driving through the new areas.

In addition, the ring road around the capital city of Budapest, the M0 motorway, has been reskinned.

Northern Balkans

There is so much new and improved content coming to the Balkans in 2.50 that we can’t cover it all in one blog post, so we’ve split it into a northern and southern part.

We’ll start with the brand new Istrian peninsula. Istria lies mostly in Croatia, but also includes Slovenia’s short coastline and a tiny part of Italy. The two largest cities on the peninsula are functional in-game: Pula (Croatia) with its Roman amphitheatre, and Koper (Slovenia), the country’s largest coastal city. They are linked to each other and neighbouring regions by roads featuring beautiful views.

While our expansions into the Balkans began in earnest with version 2.20 (2017), Slovenia was originally added back in 2015 with version 1.90. It may have been top-notch content back then, but five years will leave even the best mapping looking badly dated as techniques, assets and standards progress. Therefore, the entirety of Slovenia has seen some sort of upgrade in 2.50, ranging from reskins/refreshes to complete rebuilds. Prolific Balkans developer SeptianPJ has done a stunning job – you’d be forgiven for thinking that everything in Slovenia was 100% new content. 

Scenes which have been in ProMods for so many years, such as the bridges of Maribor, the border with Austria through the Karawanken tunnel (and its distinctive border buildings), and the bridges and tunnels through the mountains can now be enjoyed at today’s quality standards.

The Slovenian capital, Ljubljana, is one of the regions rebuilt from scratch.

Efforts to improve the Balkans extend beyond Slovenia: the Croatian capital of Zagreb has also been rebuilt, while the Italian city of Trieste has been given a new breath of life thanks to a reskin.

As we said earlier, this is only the northern half of what is coming to the Balkans. Look out for the Southern Balkans preview in a few days. 

In the meantime, our official video trailer for 2.50 was released yesterday (Saturday, 15th August), condensing the highlights of these previews and more into two exciting minutes, and hopefully getting you even more hyped. If you haven’t seen it already, make sure to watch it on our YouTube channel.

ProMods 2.50 Previews: Ukraine and Moldova

Posted on | by Stummer | 16 Comments on ProMods 2.50 Previews: Ukraine and Moldova

Welcome back once again. This week’s preview focuses on one of the most expanded countries in ProMods 2.50, Ukraine, as well as the first taste of brand new content in Moldova.

Ukraine

Ukraine is not only the second largest country in Europe, but also very important for international traffic. Its main roads connect central Europe with Russia, the Caucasus and even central Asia. So, no surprise that sooner or later we had to include this country in the ProMods map. There have been multiple approaches in the past: Ukraine was originally added with version 2.0 (two cities: Uzhhorod and Mukachevo). This work aged noticeably, so both cities got a complete rebuild with version 2.41. Meanwhile, development was started on the city of Kovel, but it was never finished and has become outdated over the last few years as well. But now we finally have a developer working on Ukraine again, PapierSUHD, and so there is lots of new content to add in 2.50. So, what can you expect from Ukraine in this update?

Five new cities have been added, spread over two oblasts (provinces) and linked by over 700 km of new roads. You will be able to see a great variety of landscapes from north to south:

Starting in the very north, you are driving through dense forests surrounding Kovel.

On the way south, passing Lutsk and Lviv, the landscape turns into vast fields.

And following the M-06 from Lviv further south, you reach Stryi and the Carpathians open up to you. These mountains are really a contrast to the rest of Ukraine in terms of landscape.

Of course, there are some small scenery villages as well.

But to make Ukraine look like Ukraine it’s not only important to represent the landscape and road network correctly, but also to fill it with accurate details. Let’s start with the UI map. Ukraine has switched from blue road number backgrounds to red some time ago, so we updated all road overlays on the map. The navigation signs have received special attention to detail. There is no generic system, so they all had to be created individually. Even if you drive with a navigation system, it is still worth taking a look at the signs. While there are not as many of them as signs, they are also important for the feeling of being in Ukraine: unique city monuments. Maybe you will discover some of them on your next trip? Finally, we hope you’ll notice that the new cities have received 100% real and custom companies. Each loading and unloading point is different from the others. At some of them you even have to have your documents checked before entering.

PapierSUHD doesn’t like to give too much away, so he selected his favourite spots for the screenshots in this post while leaving much, much more for you to discover. Are you ready to experience Ukraine in ProMods?

Moldova

Moldova was also originally added back in ProMods 2.0, along with Romania. However, the difference in age and quality between old Moldova and the new Romania from SCS’ Road to the Black Sea DLC was so great that we felt it couldn’t be included in that state. Therefore, Moldova was removed in 2.45 and our lead developer MandelSoft has been working hard at making the country from scratch.

The first stage of this was completed in time for inclusion in ProMods 2.50: the city of Balti and the connection to Romania are making a return.

That’s all for this preview. We hope you’re getting excited for ProMods 2.50, and as always, thanks for reading and we’ll see you next time.