SCS Software has announced the American Truck Simulator North Dakota DLC, with Fargo, Bismarck, Grand Forks, Minot, Williston, Medora, prairie roads, and regional landmarks on the route list.

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Store links: American Truck Simulator on Steam, American Truck Simulator: Western Star 5700XE on Steam, American Truck Simulator: Iowa on Steam
SCS adds North Dakota to an already crowded ATS map pipeline
SCS Software has officially announced American Truck Simulator: North Dakota, a new map expansion for the long-running PC trucking sim, and the immediate tension is timing. The DLC is real, it has a Steam page, and SCS has published an announcement on the American Truck Simulator site, but the studio has not announced a release date.
The official American Truck Simulator site lists an “Introducing North Dakota” news post dated 02.08.2026 and says SCS is continuing to expand the game “further into the Northern Plains.” Rock Paper Shotgun also reports that North Dakota has been revealed after American Truck Simulator’s Illinois DLC released in May, with the map continuing its gradual push eastward.
For players trying to plan their next garage move or decide which map DLC to wishlist first, North Dakota now joins a busy future slate. Rock Paper Shotgun notes that South Dakota, Indiana, and British Columbia are also in development for American Truck Simulator. That creates an unusual route-planning problem for regular ATS drivers: the next useful expansion may depend less on a single state’s landmark count and more on how SCS sequences the broader Midwest, Northern Plains, and Canada buildout.
The confirmed delivery map starts with Fargo, Bismarck, Grand Forks, Minot, and Williston
The strongest confirmed details come from the Steam listing quoted by Rock Paper Shotgun. According to the DLC description, American Truck Simulator: North Dakota will let players deliver cargo to major cities including Fargo, Bismarck, Grand Forks, Minot, and Williston. The same listing also names Medora as a smaller settlement and identifies it as home to Theodore Roosevelt National Park.
That city list gives the ATS North Dakota DLC a practical shape even before SCS publishes deeper road-network blogs. Fargo and Bismarck give the expansion recognizable urban anchors, while Grand Forks, Minot, and Williston suggest a spread of destinations beyond one corridor. SCS has not yet provided a full road list in the supplied material, so players should treat any assumptions about exact highways, depots, or junction layouts as unconfirmed until the studio posts them.
From a driver’s perspective, the useful question is whether North Dakota becomes a pass-through state, a depot base, or a long-haul connector. The current listing confirms cities and landmarks, but it does not confirm economy sectors, special transport routes, garage locations, or how dense the delivery network will be. Those are the details that will decide whether the DLC changes day-to-day route selection for veteran profiles or mainly adds another scenic leg to cross-country runs.
Landmarks are doing heavy lifting on the prairie routes
SCS and the Steam listing are putting a clear emphasis on roadside identity. The North Dakota DLC description quoted by Rock Paper Shotgun names the World’s Largest Buffalo in Jamestown, the sculptures of the Enchanted Highway, Four Bears Bridge near New Town, Scandinavian Heritage Park in Minot, and the North Dakota State Capitol in Bismarck as landmarks players will encounter along their route.
That matters for the feel of the expansion because SCS is pitching a state of “sweeping prairies” and “wide-open spaces.” The official American Truck Simulator site says North Dakota is being built with prairies, communities, and industries in mind, while Simulation Daily reports that SCS’s earlier teaser described the next destination as a place of long-haul roads, strong prairie winds, and horizons that stretch on forever.
Wide sightlines are a strength and a risk in a driving sim. Long, open road can create a convincing haul rhythm, especially when the player is managing speed, lane position, trailer behavior, and fuel planning over distance. It can also feel empty if the landmarks are too sparse or the road geometry lacks variation. Based on the confirmed landmark list, SCS appears to be countering that risk with large, readable silhouettes and regional points of interest rather than relying only on city density.
The teaser trail pointed to North Dakota before the reveal
Before the formal announcement, Simulation Daily reported that SCS had teased the next American Truck Simulator DLC with a short trailer and a written clue about wide-open spaces, long-haul roads, hard-working industries, prairie winds, and a pioneering spirit. Simulation Daily identified the teaser location as North Dakota because it showed “Wahpper,” the 40-foot-long catfish sculpture beside Wahpeton.
That teaser has now been overtaken by the official reveal, but it remains useful because it shows how SCS is framing the state. This is not being presented as a dense urban expansion in the way players might expect from heavily metropolitan regions. The supplied sources point instead to distance, roadside sculpture, landmark bridges, prairie views, and working industries as the state’s identity.
Rock Paper Shotgun adds that the trailer also showed the giant buffalo and catfish. The outlet noted that Salem Sue, a 38-foot-tall cow listed by North Dakota Tourism and visible for five miles according to that tourism listing, had not appeared in the revealed material at the time of its article. That is a good example of where the line sits: giant roadside attractions are clearly part of the DLC’s language, but any specific attraction not shown or named by SCS remains only a candidate players may hope to see.
What another Midwest and Northern Plains expansion changes for long-haul players
American Truck Simulator’s official site says the game now spans “20+ States” through a growing lineup of map expansions, with Canada also on the horizon. The same site promotes the core loop of building a logistics empire through garages, hired drivers, trucks, and deliveries across an expanding map. North Dakota fits that long-term structure as another piece of connective tissue in a network that is steadily filling in between the western states, the Midwest, and future Canadian territory.
Rock Paper Shotgun reports that British Columbia is in development as ATS’s first move into Canada, while South Dakota and Indiana are also on the in-progress list. Simulation Daily separately describes South Dakota as likely the next DLC, but that is an outlet assessment rather than a dated release plan in the supplied material. SCS has not confirmed in these sources which of the announced map expansions will release before North Dakota.
For established players, the practical value of the North Dakota expansion ATS reveal is therefore conditional. If your profile is based around the Pacific Northwest, British Columbia may affect your routes sooner or more dramatically once it launches. If you have been waiting for the central and northern interior of the map to fill out, North Dakota and South Dakota together are the more relevant pair. North Dakota by itself is a new destination; in combination with surrounding states, it becomes part of the longer haul structure that makes ATS’s economy and convoy play feel less segmented.
Release date, platforms, price, and whether to wishlist now
There is no announced release date for the ATS North Dakota DLC in the supplied sources. Rock Paper Shotgun states that, as with newly revealed SCS DLCs, North Dakota does not yet have a release date. The Steam page is available to wishlist, and Rock Paper Shotgun links directly to the American Truck Simulator: North Dakota Steam listing.
The confirmed platform situation is also narrower than the broader American Truck Simulator platform story. The official American Truck Simulator site sells the base game and DLC through Steam and includes links to wishlist the game on PlayStation Store and Xbox Store. Simulation Daily reports that PS5 and Xbox Series X|S versions of American Truck Simulator are coming. The supplied material does not confirm North Dakota DLC availability, pricing, or timing for console versions.
For now, the sensible move is to wishlist the American Truck Simulator North Dakota expansion on Steam if the named cities and prairie landmarks fit the way you play. Wait for SCS’s later road-network, industry, and release-date posts before reorganizing garages or building a dedicated route plan around it. The reveal confirms a destination, a landmark set, and a Northern Plains direction; the operational details that matter most to high-mileage drivers are still ahead.
