The best truck games on PC

As truck games go, Hard Truck 2 tries to tick all of the boxes. There’s plenty of management and sim elements when it comes to managing your jobs, running cargo, and hiring an ever-growing workforce, but there’s also a lot of racing and aggressive driving – think of it as Euro Truck Simulator 2 meets GTA 5.

With 12 different trucks to choose from, ranging from tiny lorries to 18-wheel big rigs, you’ve got plenty of options when it comes to escaping the police speed traps. Despite the simulator elements, you can happily speed through an uncharted dirt track or bulldoze your competition out of the way. All that matters is getting the cargo to its destination time.

This one is, er, not really a truck game at all. However, there are trucks in it and it does have ‘truck’ in the name, so we feel inclined to challenge your preconceived notions of what truck games are all about.

Clustertruck is the kind of platformer you’ve probably dreamt up as a passenger in a car, staring out a window and imagining someone parkouring across the horizon. The only safe places to land on this speeding highway of death are the tops of trucks, but as you progress through the game the obstacles become increasingly outlandish so that by the end you’re avoiding slow-motion explosions, swinging axes, and gravity shifts.

ATS is effectively a sequel to Euro Truck Simulator 2, which you’ll find below. As such, a lot of the mechanics, physics, and the general pace of this truck sim game are the same. The one key difference is the setting, and that’s a big deal in a game where you spend hours looking out of a window. The American states of California, Nevada, and Arizona have been painstakingly realised, from minor details like the signs that illuminate a run down stripmall to major landmarks like the Las Vegas Strip. After several hours coasting through a desert highway, the bright lights and narrow streets of a city like San Francisco feel like an adrenaline shot.

You’ll start off as a trucking freelancer, able to take on jobs from haulage firms and start assembling some savings together so you can buy your own rig. Once you’ve got the funds, there’s suddenly a lot more to consider, and the true ‘sim’ elements start to kick in as you’re charged with managing everything from fuel costs, where to sleep, and even getting the right insurance.

Hauling cargo is fun and all, but every now and then you begin to wonder just what it would be like to throw a Scania into a hairpin bend like it’s a Ferrari. The official FIA European Truck Racing Championship game is superb at capturing the weight, speed, and sheer impracticality of these racing-tuned behemoths. There are billows of tyre smoke when several lorries slow ahead of a bend, you need to constantly monitor your brake temperatures and water levels, and then there’s the difficulty of trying to overtake when even the widest sections of track can barely squeeze in two trucks side by side.

You can sample some truck racing in other driving games like Project Cars 3, but FIA European Truck Racing Championship is the only dedicated option around.

There are only a handful of fully-fledged trucks in Forza Horizon 4, but barrelling down teeny country lanes in any of Britain’s distinct four seasons is more than enough fun to make up for the lack of choices. There are some racing events that are dedicated for racing trucks, and as this is a racing game, the selection of trucks are all upgraded and tuned with speed and handling in mind. Whether you’re tearing across a quaint field in a Unimog at 100 mph or slapping some pretend brand liveries on your Volvo and following the rules of the road, this racing sandbox finds time for truck fans, too.