Freight hauling may be a common activity among space sims like Elite Dangerous and No Man’s Sky, but Star Trucker is a little different from other futuristic delivery fare. Monster and Monster’s hybrid trucking sim dedicates itself to synthesising grand journeys across the cosmos with the specific vehicle handling and road networks of Euro Truck Simulator 2.
The combination was relatively well received by players when Star Trucker launched in 2024, earning itself a “Mostly Positive” rating on Steam out of just under 3,000 reviews. Now Monster and Monster is celebrating a whole year of interplanetary logistics, with the double delivery of an anniversary update and a big discount.
Said anniversary update brings a container’s worth of new features to Star Trucker, foremost among which is peripheral support. Henceforth, you can increase the realism of driving a rocket-propelled truck along roads strung through space by plugging in the joystick/steering wheel/custom Millennium Falcon dashboard of your choice.
While the update is designed to accommodate the broadest range of peripherals possible, in a dev blog Monster and Monster points out that it is a small team and therefore “it’s impossible for us to try them all ourselves”. Hence, the studio has provided a guide and an FAQ to assist with peripheral setup. It also requests players submit information about their devices via a Google form, so it can add further preset configurations to Star Trucker in the future.
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Elsewhere, the update introduces speed checks to the roadway network, whereby speed cameras will snap photographs of reckless drivers, resulting in fines that’ll eat into your profits. There are also several new cargo trailer types and liveries, while an anniversary “cake hologram” has been added to your truck’s projector system.
At the end of the dev blog, Monster and Monster throw in a few details about what’s coming in Star Trucker’s future. Plans for the next year or so include a cargo pack DLC that’ll further expand the trailers and freight types available to players, while customisable truck interiors, optimisations for the sim’s job generator, and a “business venture update” are also in the works.
We didn’t review Star Trucker on release, but Fraser Brown took the demo for a whirl during one of 2024’s Next Fests, enjoying its blend of serious trucking simulation and silly spacefaring sci-fi. “Sims like this so often feel dry, so the whimsy and silliness really sets Star Trucker apart,” he wrote in February last year. “I’m equally smitten with how tactile it is, your cab covered in buttons and dials and levers demanding to be fiddled with.”
If you fancy giving Star Trucker a go yourself, it’s currently on a 50% discount at $12.50 (£10.49). The deal runs until September 15.
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