American Truck Simulator's new sound engine makes engines sound great

The simulated traffic of American Truck Simulator is now packing some satisfying upgrades under the bonnet, with a new sound engine helping make the world feel more real. Other vehicles sound more present as they trundle past, and I feel the wind whipping in my hair when I use another new feature: the ability to wind your windows down. It's nice, all this.

"We are switching from having two separate sound sets for the interior and exterior of your truck; to a new system which is based on a unified SFX set with various filters and effects applied on it during the final composition," SCS have explained about their upgrade to the Fmod sound engine.

I went for a wee drive this morning, and I dig the change. I have seen some serious truckheads complaining that the new sounds misses some of the nuance that makes trucks unique, now sounding wrong or same-y. I don't know about that. I just know how I feel driving past traffic with my window down: good. My driver has no visible arms in the game but I'm certainly imagining hanging my elbow out the window.

Last night's update also added the ability to walk around a bit - but only a bit. You can now switch to a first-person camera view in the garage and walk around your truck to inspect it from a pedestrian's perspective. I'd love to get out my truck and gawk at landmarks too, but this is still a nice touch.

Released last night, ATS update 1.37 also added a new food tank trailer type and made fines progressive, so you'll no longer get whacked with full penalties for minor infractions. See the patch notes for more.

Some mods will need updating to work with this new patch, including ever-popular TruckersMP multiplayer mod, so if you've modded ATS up the wazoo you might want to revert to an older version. The patch notes have instructions for that too.

Fmod is headed to Euro Truck Simulator 2 too in its own update 1.37, currently in open beta testing.

SCS Software are currently working on two new state expansions for ATS, rolling into Colorado then Idaho.