As yet another state DLC, the Nebraska DLC, has just come out, I think that this is a good time for us to take a look back at the progress made on the ATS map and estimate when it will be finished.
One way we can do this is by extrapolating from current trends:
- The base game of ATS contains two states (CA and NV) and it was released on February 2, 2016.
- The latest state DLC, Nebraska, was released on May 16, 2024. During this period, a total of 13 state DLCs (including Nebraska) have been released.
- The number of days from the base game's release until the release of the Nebraska DLC is 3026 days; dividing it by 365¼ gives approximately 8.285 years.
- From this information, we can calculate the average rate of DLC release: 13 state DLCs divided by 8.285 years gives a rate of just over one and a half DLCs per year, or 1.57 per year to be precise.
- There are a total of 48 states in the contiguous US, with 33 remaining. At this rate, the map will be finished in 33/1.57≈21.03 years or around May 2045, which is still a long way off.
But is this a good estimate? The answer is a resounding "no", and the reason is simple: it doesn't take into account the size of each state. States in western US are bigger than those in eastern US, so it's reasonable to assume that SCS will be able to finish eastern states more quickly. For the same reason, although it may seem that we are only about 30% of the way through the contiguous US, that is no longer the case once you take into account the land area. The 15 states currently in the game have a combined land area of 1,662,400 square miles. According to Wikipedia, the total land area of the contiguous US is 2,954,843 square miles, which means we are already more than halfway through the contiguous US!
With that in mind, let's extrapolate from current trends again, this time using land area instead of the number of states:
- The base game of ATS contains two states (CA and NV) with a combined land area of 265,560 square miles, and it was released on February 2, 2016.
- The latest state DLC, Nebraska, was released on May 16, 2024. During this period, a total land area of 1,396,840 square miles has been added to the map.
- The number of days from the base game's release until the release of the Nebraska DLC is 3026 days; dividing it by 365¼ gives approximately 8.285 years.
- From this information, we can calculate the average rate of map expansion: 1,396,840 square miles divided by 8.285 years gives a rate of about 168,604 square miles per year.
- The remaining 33 states have a combined land area of 1,292,443 square miles. At this rate, the map will be finished in 1,292,443/168,604≈7.67 years or around January 2032, which is much closer than the previously estimated May 2045.
Of course, there are lots of other things to consider when making these estimates, such as road density, the level of detail SCS is aiming for, the size of the mapping team, and so forth. Since those factors are not taken into account here, the estimates above are for reference only, and their accuracy remains to be seen. But in any case, the completion of the ATS map will undoubtedly be a huge achievement for SCS, and something worth celebrating for both the developers and the entire ATS player community.