- Primary Subject: American Truck Simulator (North Dakota Downloadable Content Expansion)
- Key Update: SCS Software has officially announced the North Dakota downloadable content expansion, bringing major cities, agricultural and energy industries, and iconic roadside landmarks to the simulation.
- Status: Confirmed
- Last Verified: August 13, 2026
- Quick Answer: SCS Software officially announced the North Dakota expansion for American Truck Simulator with a dedicated Steam store page, though no release date is set.
SCS Software has officially announced North Dakota as an upcoming map expansion for American Truck Simulator, revealing the state through a blog post, a trailer, and a live Steam store page on August 2, 2026.
The reveal followed a teaser posted on July 22, in which the studio dangled a deliberately vague clue about wide open spaces and prairie winds, along with an image of a catfish.
That catfish turned out to be Wahpper, the 40-foot sculpture in Wahpeton billed as the world's largest catfish, and the community solved it well before the confirmation landed.
The announcement is a full reveal rather than a passing roadmap mention.
There is a named DLC, work-in-progress screenshots, a trailer on the SCS YouTube channel, and a Steam page already open for wishlisting under app ID 4400790.
What there isn't is a release date.
What the North Dakota DLC Includes
SCS has been unusually forthcoming about locations for a first look.
The blog and Steam listing include Fargo, capital city Bismarck, Grand Forks, Minot, and Williston, alongside smaller communities such as Pembina, Wahpeton, Medora, and the Devils Lake region.
Medora sits at the gateway to Theodore Roosevelt National Park, which suggests the western Badlands will get real attention rather than serving as background terrain.
Interstate 94 and Interstate 29 form the backbone of the road network, running east to west and north to south respectively, supported by a spread of state highways.
SCS has also confirmed the scenic ND-57 and a stretch of the Enchanted Highway, the roughly 51-kilometer route lined with oversized metal sculptures.
Other landmarks called out include the World's Largest Buffalo in Jamestown, the Four Bears Bridge near New Town, Minot's Scandinavian Heritage Park, and the State Capitol.
On the freight side, agriculture is described as the backbone of the state's economy, joined by oil extraction tied to the Bakken formation, wider energy production, and manufacturing.
The sugar processing plant in Wahpeton is the only specific delivery site SCS has named so far.
Release Date and Price Remain Unconfirmed
The Steam page currently lists the release as "To be announced," and SCS has offered no window, no season, and no year. Anyone reporting otherwise is guessing.
Pricing is in the same position. SCS has not announced a figure for North Dakota.
Every recent single-state expansion, Illinois and Louisiana and Iowa among them, launched at $11.99, and outlets covering the reveal have assumed North Dakota will match.
That is a reasonable expectation based on a consistent pattern, and it's still speculation until SCS says so.
SCS also declined to share a map size, a final city count, or any detail about new asset sets or terrain technology built specifically for the state.
The studio said its map teams are working on it and promised more location detail in future blog posts.
SCS has a Growing Announcement Backlog
The more interesting story sits behind the reveal itself. North Dakota joins a queue of announced and unreleased American Truck Simulator projects that is now genuinely crowded.
South Dakota was announced in mid-2025 and has been previewed heavily ever since. British Columbia, the game's first Canadian province, was revealed in October 2025.
Indiana followed in June 2026. A ground-up rework of Nevada, one of the original base game states, was announced on July 23, 2026, barely a week before North Dakota.
That runs alongside the Road Trip module bringing cars and pickups into the game, plus PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S versions announced back in August 2025 with no date attached beyond the studio's usual line about shipping when ready.
Announcing North Dakota while its southern neighbor is still in development signals parallel work across the Northern Plains.
Announcement order tells you nothing about release order, so treat any assumption that South Dakota lands first, then North Dakota, as unproven.
How North Dakota fits the ATS Release Cadence
Recent history gives some sense of pace. Iowa arrived on July 10, 2025, Louisiana on December 4, 2025, and Illinois on May 14, 2026.
Roughly two map expansions a year have been the rhythm, and SCS is currently opening new construction sites faster than it's finishing them.
North Dakota borders released Montana to the west, in-development South Dakota to the south, and Minnesota to the east, which is not yet in the game.
The northern edge runs up against the Canadian border, where British Columbia is being built out on the far side of the country.
What to Watch Out For Next
Community reaction has been more amused than excited, with a running joke that an empty prairie state is the easiest possible build. One Reddit commenter called it the “Easiest update ever."
The counterargument is that North Dakota's roadside oddities give SCS plenty of distinctive scenery to work with, and the studio's recent maps have been strong on exactly that kind of texture.
The details worth watching are a release window on Steam, a confirmed price, and a follow-up dev blog that goes deeper into cities and industries.
Until then, North Dakota is confirmed, teased, and firmly undated.
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