ATS Road Trip: Meet the SCS Team Building the Car Packs
Nine months after announcing Road Trip, SCS Software has put faces to the project. A new blog introduces the core team and the vehicle artists, each in their own words, and it answers a question we have had since the two packs were revealed: who is actually building which car.
The people holding it together
Producer Miňo came to Road Trip from the California Rework and admits the scope is hard to manage: “practically the entire company is involved in it,” he says, and agreeing on every feature is not always easy. He is joined by assistant producer Nicole, who also works on a new Exploration feature and talks about discovery and the meaning of the places on the map.
That exploration angle comes up again with junior game designer Anton. His job was a new gameplay loop built around exploring, and he is open about the problem: how do you make it engaging rather than tedious in a world players have driven for years? He cites Walt Whitman and Henry David Thoreau as the spirit he is aiming for.
Map and code
On the map side, Dubak (Map DLC Lead for ATS) handles Road Trip’s map content. Patrik placed new triggers and Road Trip gas stations, using Oregon and Washington as a test bed for how dense gas stations and discovery triggers should be, then wrote a manual for the designers who followed. Pavel built gas stations and rest stops. Programmers Michal, Hynek and Mjack cover game features, AI and traffic, and tester Jiří rounds out the core group.
Who is building which car
The vehicle team is where the pack details hide:
| Artist | Car |
|---|---|
| Martin | 1967 Ford Mustang, plus the original vehicle selection |
| Marula | 2006 Ford Crown Victoria |
| Lukáš | Ford F-150, including 3D scanning |
| Andi | 1970 Dodge Charger and 2023 Dodge Challenger |
| Renju | RAM 1500 and Ford Bronco |
| George | Dodge Viper GTS |
Vehicle technical leader Daniel says he started work on improved interior materials for Road Trip and that the new features developed for the project will carry over to SCS’s main games. That is the line truck drivers should note.
Our take
Two things stand out. Exploration is clearly a gameplay pillar, not just a side effect of having cars. And the interior material work suggests trucks will benefit too, even for players who never leave the cab. SCS also promises a future Under the Hood blog on the work beyond the cars, which we expect will tell us much more about how Road Trip plays.
Source: SCS Software blog. Images and video: SCS Software.
