American Truck Simulator 1.62 open beta: Route 66 at 100, eleven new Tourist Boards, and the Volvo VNL in traffic

24 Oct 2026 · 3 min read · ModsDrop

Pictured: Mack Pinnacle Granite Pack, from the ModsDrop library.

American Truck Simulator’s 1.62 open beta went live on 20 October 2026, two days before its European sibling. Where ETS2’s update is about trucks and garages, the ATS one is about the map: eleven new Tourist Boards, a cross-border board for the 100th anniversary of Route 66, and the All-New Volvo VNL joining the AI traffic. Here is what it adds and how it sits with mods.

Eleven new Tourist Boards

Road Trip Tourist Boards are the collect-them-all feature introduced earlier this year: each board lists landmarks in a state, and visiting them all earns a postcard. 1.62 adds one new board each in Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Colorado, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Texas, Washington and Louisiana, and two in Nebraska. Every completed board still awards its postcard.

Route 66 turns 100

The centrepiece is the Route 66 Cross-Border Tourist Board, which follows the historic highway through Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California. You do not need every map expansion to take part: the locations in the states you own are open to explore. The special anniversary postcard, however, requires owning all of those expansions and visiting every location on the board. Finish it and you also get a Route 66 Air Freshener to hang in the cab.

The Volvo VNL, in your mirror and in your interior

Two Volvo items. The Improved Material System, which SCS is extending truck by truck since 1.60, now covers the All-New Volvo VNL interior, with better lighting response and material quality. And the 2025 Volvo VNL is now part of the AI traffic, so you will meet it on the interstate rather than only in the dealer.

For mod users the traffic change is the interesting one. AI traffic mods that define their own vehicle lists usually add to the official list rather than replace it, so the VNL should simply appear alongside modded traffic. A traffic mod that replaces the stock list entirely will hide it until its author adds the new truck.

Smaller items

The Goodyear Tires Pack paint jobs now carry the current Goodyear logo, with slightly adjusted colours.
The Escape radio station, the only stream-safe one in the game, had its copyright-problem tracks removed and eleven new songs added, bringing its runtime closer to the other stations.

As with the ETS2 beta, the announcement carries no bug-fix list and no gameplay changes beyond the Tourist Boards.

Joining the beta

Steam Library, right-click American Truck Simulator, Properties, Game Versions & Betas, and choose public_beta. Restart Steam if the branch does not show up. It is a beta, so instability is possible, and bug reports belong in the ATS beta section of the SCS forum.

Mods and the beta

Back up your profile (Documents\American Truck Simulator\profiles or steam_profiles) before switching branches; a 1.62 save may not open on 1.61.
Map mods are the ones to watch. Tourist Boards are tied to map locations. A map mod that reworks a state covered by a new board can leave a landmark unreachable or doubled. It will not corrupt anything, but a board may be impossible to complete until the map mod is updated.
Interior mods for the Volvo VNL may look wrong under the new material system until their authors catch up. Everything else (trailers, sounds, paint jobs, cargo packs) should carry over.
Check the version on the mod’s page. ATS files hosted on ModsDrop show the game version their author tested on the crashmods.com page linked from the file. Treat the mod manager’s version warning as advice, not a block.

We will update this post when 1.62 leaves beta.

Source: American Truck Simulator: 1.62 Update Open Beta on the SCS Software blog, 20 October 2026.