Euro Truck Simulator 2

Thirteen years is an unusual amount of time for a game to still be climbing in relevance rather than fading, and Euro Truck Simulator 2's review history backs that up: 185,183 reviews and an Overwhelmingly Positive 97.5% lifetime score for a game about driving long-haul freight across a recreated Europe, one delivery at a time. Reading widely through both its praise and its current complaints explains both why that reputation is earned and what's currently testing it.

The meditative appeal, seriously considered

Reviewers describe this game in language that's unusual for the genre — not excitement, but calm. One long-term player with over a thousand combined hours across the series calls it "a brilliant truck simulator," praising the level of detail achievable even with a modest steering wheel setup. The appeal isn't speed or challenge; it's the specific, deliberate rhythm of planning a route, managing fatigue and fuel, and watching a recreated Europe roll past at legal highway speeds. That's a genuinely distinctive thing for a game to sustain across thirteen years of updates, and the consistency of this praise across the entire review history is real evidence it isn't a fluke.

The UI fight that's happening right now

Here's what's actually dragging recent sentiment down, and it's specific enough to name directly: SCS Software's 1.50 interface overhaul, followed by the 1.58 update's "Route Advisor" feature. This isn't old, settled history — 38 of the 100 most-upvoted negative reviews in this game's entire history are dated 2024 or later, an extraordinary concentration for a game that's been out since

2012. "New update ruined game play. The update reset some of my graphic settings and now it lags and

crashes even after I adjust settings," reads a representative 2024 review. A February 2026 review puts the ongoing frustration plainly: "restore old UI please, cause after today patch, as a driver i cant see my money and some info while driving." Others describe the new HUD as "horrible, ugly and depressing" to look at during long sessions, and several report broken controller configurations that previously worked without issue. This is worth taking seriously as a live, currently unresolved dispute rather than launch-week noise — the complaints span two full years and multiple subsequent patches without, according to these reviewers, a clear resolution.

What isn't in dispute

It's worth being precise about what this controversy is and isn't. Even the most frustrated recent negative reviews are almost entirely about the interface and stability changes specifically, not the core driving simulation, the map detail, or the truck craftsmanship — those remain praised consistently across the same time period, including within many of the same critical reviews. This looks like a UI and technical-stability dispute layered on top of a still-loved core game, not a sign the underlying experience has declined.

Reading the completion data

With 106 tracked achievements, the completion curve reflects broad, sustained engagement. Core early-game milestones like using automatic parking or a gas station sit between 71% and 83%, showing most buyers genuinely engage with the core mechanics. The rarest achievements, tied to deep career-mode and DLC-specific milestones, fall under 0.2%, reflecting just how much accumulated content this simulation has built up over thirteen years for its most dedicated players.

8 out of 10. Euro Truck Simulator 2 remains a genuine achievement in atmospheric, detail-obsessed simulation design, and its lifetime reception across thirteen years reflects real, sustained craftsmanship from a studio that's clearly still invested in the game. The score sits below what the underlying driving experience alone deserves because of a real, current, well-documented interface controversy that a meaningful and vocal share of longtime players say has made recent versions worse to actually drive in day to day. Buy it for the core experience without hesitation — just go in aware of the current UI debate if you're updating an existing, previously stable install.