Return to Brackenreach: the 2026 Halloween event in ETS2 and ATS, its goals, rewards and how it sits with mods

24 Oct 2026 · 3 min read · ModsDrop

Pictured: Scania S560 White Dragon – Custom Truck Enhancement, from the ModsDrop library.

SCS Software’s Halloween event is back for 2026. Return to Brackenreach opened on 15 October in both Euro Truck Simulator 2 and American Truck Simulator and runs until Sunday 1 November 2026, 23:59 UTC. It is a World of Trucks event, which means it needs a connected profile and External Contracts, and it has three goals with three sets of rewards. Here is what to do, what you get, and how it sits with a modded game.

What you need

A World of Trucks account linked to your profile, and the External Contracts job type enabled. No DLC is required by the announcement, and no specific game version is named; the event cargo appears in External Contracts in either game. Deliveries in ETS2 and ATS count together toward your personal goal.

The personal goal

Deliver 15 Halloween cargoes in any trucking territory, including 3 to and 3 from Castle Brackenhelm, the event’s destination in the Brackenreach region. The cargo types are Halloween Treats, Halloween Costumes, Halloween Herbs & Spices and Halloween Crafts. Accepting an event cargo bound for the castle makes a spiral portal icon appear on the map; that is how you reach Brackenreach. Leaving with cargo takes you to its destination; leaving without any gives you a job to a random city.

Reward: a World of Trucks achievement and the Wisp Lantern cabin item, delivered as a Steam inventory item usable in both games.

The community goal

1,300,000 Halloween deliveries across all players, to or from any city including Brackenreach. If the community reaches it and you completed your personal goal, you receive the Key to Brackenreach hanging cabin item. You must complete at least the personal goal in ETS2, ATS or both to qualify for any community reward.

The bonus goal

Discover the Witches’ House by driving to it. Reward: the Ember Grimoire cabin item, plus last year’s Spooky Horn vehicle accessory for anyone who missed it.

All rewards are claimed on the Events page of your World of Trucks profile.

Mods and the event

The announcement does not mention mods. Vehicle and cosmetic mods (trucks, skins, sounds, traffic packs) do not touch how event jobs are generated.
Map mods are the risk. Event cargo generates between official cities and the event region through the portal. A map mod that reworks a city involved in an event job can leave a depot unreachable; a map that does not include the official city at all means no jobs from it. If a job will not spawn where you expect, try a city your map mods do not touch.
Cargo packs add their own cargo and do not interfere with event cargo, which is separate.
The 1.62 open beta: if you switch to it during the event, copy your profile first; a profile saved on the beta may not open on 1.61 afterwards, as the profiles guide describes.
Save editing and economy mods that change job generation can change whether event cargo appears. If External Contracts show nothing Halloween-related, deactivate economy mods first.

Timing

Fifteen deliveries is a weekend of casual play, and the castle legs are the slow part because the portal only appears with castle-bound cargo. Start in the week before 1 November rather than on the last evening, so a slow run of offers does not cost you the reward.

A developer stream

SCS held a developer livestream on Monday 19 October at 18:00 CEST on Twitch, YouTube and Facebook, and asks players to share screenshots and videos with the tag #ReturnToBrackenreach on their social channels.

Source: Return to Brackenreach Event on the SCS Software blog, 15 October 2026.