Euro Truck Simulator 2 is, underneath the calm of driving the A2 at dusk, one of the biggest modding platforms on Steam — and its center of gravity is map mods. ProMods alone is a years-long volunteer project that roughly doubles the map of Europe, and it sits at the head of an ecosystem of map add-ons, patches and connectors that millions of players treat as the real game. The catch is structural: a map mod is bound to the exact game version it was built against, because SCS's roughly-quarterly updates change the map format underneath it. So every update opens a gap — the game moves to 1.54, your ProMods build is still 1.53 — and for a few weeks the whole map-modding world needs to not be on the latest version. SCS, unusually, built the answer into the game.
01The version-pairing rule
Before any rollback, know the one fact that governs everything here: your map mod names its game version, and you match the game to it — not the other way around. The community states the pairing openly — ProMods 2.74 is for game 1.54, ProMods 2.73 was for 1.53, and so on down the line — and the rule extends to every map add-on and patch in your load order, which is why mod sites publish "[1.54 / 2.74]"-style version tags right in the mod title. The job is never "get the newest everything"; it's "get one coherent set." Decide the game version by reading your heaviest map mod's requirements, and the rest of this page is mechanics.
02The labeled branches — SCS did the work for you
Open Properties → Betas on ETS2 and you'll see the gesture that makes this game special: a list of branches named in plain language for their purpose — entries like temporary_1_53x — "1.53.x for incompatible mods." SCS keeps the previous stable versions parked there specifically so that, in the window after an update, mod users can drop back to the version their map runs on and keep driving while the mod authors catch up. Pick the branch matching your mod set, let Steam swap the files, and you're done — switching back to current is "None." No tooling, no manifests, no console. When I tested it, the swap took one Steam re-validation and the game launched straight into my matched ProMods build with nothing else to fix. After RimWorld's deep shelf and Factorio's full archive, ETS2 adds a third virtue to the series' honor roll: not just keeping the past, but labeling it. The branches are "temporary" by name — SCS prunes very old ones over time — which is the one asterisk, and the reason the next section exists.
03Side-by-side, and the ATS twin
Two cases take you past the dropdown. First, branch switching swaps your single install, but truckers often want parallel versions — a stable ProMods career on 1.53 beside a vanilla 1.54 to try the new stuff. Pull a branch into its own folder and keep both:
> .\DepotDownloader.exe -app 227300 -depot 227301 -branch temporary_1_53x \
-username you -remember-password -dir .\ets2-1.53Second, when the version you need is older than SCS's "temporary" branches still on offer — pruned from the dropdown but alive in the depot history — it's the standard date-matching route through SteamDB's depot 227301. Launch from the folder with Steam running, point the game's mod manager at that install's profile, and it stays isolated from your main copy. Everything here applies identically to American Truck Simulator (app 270880) — same engine, same map-mod logic, same labeled branches — and SCS's own forums document running both games' multiple versions side by side; treat ATS as this guide's sister page.
04Profiles upgrade forward
Documents\Euro Truck Simulator 2\profiles\ (ATS in its own sibling folder). Profiles upgrade forward when loaded on a newer game version, and a profile saved on 1.54 may not behave on 1.53 — and a profile built with a giant map mod has a real dependency on that map's roads existing, so jumping a profile between map sets can strand a truck mid-route. Copy the profiles folder before any version or major-mod change, keep a backup per map-set era, and let Steam Cloud sit out the experiment. A side-by-side install sidesteps most of this, since each version keeps its own profiles.
05Status in 2026
ETS2's version situation is among the healthiest this series has surveyed, with one honest caveat. The healthy part: official, purpose-labeled branches for the exact mod-compatibility use case, a developer with a decade-plus habit of providing them, and a mod ecosystem disciplined about version tags. The caveat is in the name — the branches are temporary, SCS rotates very old ones out, and once a version leaves the dropdown it lives only in depot history subject to the usual manifest weather. So the move, even for this exemplary case: when a map career matters, archive its coherent set — the game version in a folder, the matched ProMods and add-ons, the profile backup — because "temporary" is the developer telling you, kindly and in advance, that this particular shelf has a clock on it. If it were my install and the career mattered, I'd archive that folder today rather than trust the branch to still be there next quarter.