Guessing the Western Balkans DLC content

[jackalnxt]

Marketability also plays a role in the decision. Having Greece + some part of Aegean Turkey is far more likely than Yugoslavia. Greece will also have a ferry connection to Italy, so that solves the RttBS hole that is such a problem.

For my money, Greece is a sure-in for the next DLC. The only question is: who are they paired up with?

[JolliciousJosh]

IMHO, Greece's total land area is just only approx. 132,000 square kilometers (comprises of the mainland Saronic Islands, and many small islands like Santorini).

Generally, for the Western Balkans, it has a grand total land area of approx. 427,000 square kilometers (where Greece belongs to it). So, it is smaller than Iberia at 597,174 square kilometers and much smaller than Heart of Russia at approx. 650,000 square kilometers, being the largest map DLC when it releases in the latter part of 2022.

[Adriatic Sea Team]

@jackalnxt If the next DLC includes only Greece which is possible, I'm not buying it. I think that in the next two years SCS should fill the huge hole and complete the Balkan peninsula and I know that SCS knows the importance of Western Balkans and connections of Eastern world and Central Europe through Balkan countries. When SCS starts with Blog posts about Western Balkans you will see how important it is and how ancient roads are from the far future.

For example, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_route_E75 this highway will be completed in some form.

[IvanKuz]

I would really like to see the whole Balkan peninsula in 2022.

I'm afraid that's not happening in 2022. Iberia shifted the regular release pattern by several months, and HoR is shaping up to be even bigger, so I'm not expecting it earlier than Q2 2022. If the next DLC after HoR was something small like, for example, standalone Belarus, I could see it still coming out in the end of 2022. But if it is Western Balkans, which we assume it will be, then it will probably take until early 2023 to get released, or even late 2023.

Marketability also plays a role in the decision. Having Greece + some part of Aegean Turkey is far more likely than Yugoslavia.

I'd say this would be a very weird and unlikely decision... But then again, SCS are releasing Heart of Russia without Belarus and Ukraine.

Generally, for the Western Balkans, it has a grand total land area of approx. 427,000 square kilometers (where Greece belongs to it). So, it is smaller than Iberia at 597,174 square kilometers and much smaller than Heart of Russia at approx. 650,000 square kilometers, being the largest map DLC when it releases in the latter part of 2022.

As I always keep saying, raw size of area is not a very good metric for comparing DLCs. I expect the hypothetical Western Balkans DLC will have roughly the same amount of cities and kilometers of roads as Iberia despite being smaller, because due to it consisting of multiple smaller countries I believe it would have to be more densely packed (similar to Corsica) in order for each country to be meaningfully represented in the game.

[Adriatic Sea Team]

@IvanKuz I know, we can't anymore follow usual release patterns. At least I would like to see the completed Balkans peninsula (former Yugoslav republics, Albania and Greece) in one DLC and I'm buying it for sure!

[Trucker Nik]

I don't understand how anyone can think that Greece will be an independent DLC, give me one reasonable argument as to why this should be the case, Greece will definitely come to the DLC where they map the rest of the Balkan Peninsula

[Adriatic Sea Team]

@Ceco I agree with you, Balkan Peninsula without Greece or without Albania and former Yugoslav republics is not completed. Only SCS will know the reason if they do vice versa.

[jackalnxt]

A DLC with Greece + Yugoslavia is possible.
A DLC with Yugoslavia but WITHOUT Greece will not happen.

Keep this in mind, if you skip Greece for this DLC which, let's say comes out at the end of 2022; next DLC will be either Ireland, Ukraine, or maybe even Scandinavia. That covers 2023. The earliest date we can have for Greece in that case is 2024. There is NO WAY such a major/marketable country gets held back for so long.

[Trucker Nik]

I think that after the Balkan DLC we will get a DLC that will add Belarus, Ukraine and Moldova, and this DLC will become the largest DLC in the history of ETS2, because it will be even bigger than the HoR, splitting Belarus Ukraine and Moldova into two DLC is nonsense

[P3TER_]

@P3TER_ If SCS decides to include Greece and Albania with the former republics of Yugoslavia. I think that's too much content for one DLC but the size of it would be like half of Iberia. Most of the assets are already in-game so that would take less time for assets developers. I would really like to see the whole Balkan peninsula in 2022.

I think they definitely will do all of the remaining Balkan, because they only make things more complicated for themselves if they leave certain countries out of it. The (smaller) size of this DLC should not be underestimated, as it gives SCS probably more headaches to cramp everything in this dense area than in a region such as HoR. Also, the area (distance) might not be as large, but the average driving speed (time) will be lower too, because of the many secondary roads and lots of border crossings. Those give SCS the ability to place cities closer to eachother without giving players the feeling that they drive too short of a time to enter the next city.

As was later said, I also don't think this DLC will see daylight before 2023, though SCS is growing and we don't know exactly how far the development of HoR is right now.