Pacific Drive Review

Pacific Drive is a car-focused survival game developed by Ironwood Studios and published by Kepler Interactive. Announced on the 13th of September 2022 during PlayStation's State of Play presentation, it’s you and your car against a very hostile world. Apparently based on a peaceful drive in the Pacific North, will this be more of a fun road trip, or will it become a long, suffering nightmare? Well, put on your seatbelts and start blasting music over the radio because this is going to be a bumpy ride.

"Oh well, I'm the type of guy who will never settle down..."

The story is that you've somehow managed to breach into the Olympic Exclusion Zone, an area sealed off after a disastrous experiment causing the Olympic Peninsula to become unstable with only pockets of stability to allow those who stay (or are trapped) to survive. Don’t worry, though; you manage to stumble across a barely functioning station wagon… which turns out to be a Remnant, an object that ties itself to people and makes them obsess over it until there’s nothing left of them. This is all bad, and now with the help of some semi-helpful allies, you must escape the Exclusion Zone before you lose it. What comes to mind first is Into the Radius VR or S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl with its premise and setting. I really liked the story here, the characters help with the loneliness, and world-building is genuinely something I would love to dig more into.

However, that can be pushed to the wayside as Pacific Drive centres around your car. It’s both your greatest weapon and your greatest shield from the many dangers you’ll encounter. You must keep it maintained and properly upgraded through the items you scavenge, or else, well, maps aren’t exactly built for walking. That being said, it may be an insanity-inducing otherworldly artefact, but it is still a very, very crappy station wagon at its basic parts. It feels like a real car: it has weight, flooring it can feel very terrifying with so many trees around, bumps and dings are not superficial, driving in the dark is insanely dangerous, and if you lose control expect to crash horribly. The only unrealistic things about your car are that you can respawn it if it’s upside down (at the cost of battery) and the various special parts you can slap on that allow the use of special abilities.

What you take and what you don't is key to your survival.

I actually like that it ties the story with the gameplay. Your home base is an auto repair shop, perfect for a starting gearhead to lose their mind in. You’re gonna be obsessing over every little detail every time you return; repairing and replacing parts, diagnosing and fixing malfunctions, and customising it to your personal style. It doesn’t really get tedious as you always have something to improve or replace using the resources you’ve collected and stocked up. And hey, at least there’s a jukebox filled with licensed songs, so you won’t get bored while working on your car.

However, a car is useless if you don’t drive anywhere, so let’s talk about the routes and areas you’ll be driving through. Before every run, you’ll be planning out your route, and in the ever-shifting lands of the Exclusion Zone, they’ll have random roads, effects, and weather you’ll have to deal with. However, the more dangerous the location, the better the loot becomes, so playing it safe won’t yield much per run. You better be prepared for anything as you’ll encounter many issues along the way and might need to repair and craft tools and parts along the way, especially when you’re out completing story missions. However, breaking down is just one of the many worries you’ll need to resolve. The Exclusion Zone has its anomalies and hazards that will inconvenience you in many ways, such as causing your car to malfunction or just straight-up try and kill you, such as flying towing robots, small tornados, earthquakes, radiation, and exploding petrified corpses. However, despite all these dangerous threats, the landscapes you’ll drive through can be rather beautiful at times. If it weren’t for the fact that you could die at any moment, you could just look out to the horizon and take a moment to breathe.

Customise and maintain your car... or else.

At some point, you’ll probably want to leave. Once you’ve gathered enough energy and selected an exit point, or spent too long in an area, the Zone Storm will roll in so you better start making your escape. These exit portals are often in the middle of nowhere, and you can’t just go and wait near one, it’ll just disable it as an option, and you’ll have to find the next best thing. This turns the slow-paced, suspenseful gameplay into a frantic race against time, as unless you like dying, you better make it to the portal. It’s actually fairly tense as the music ramps up, and all your lights blink all around you while your car deteriorates. It can make for some real nail-biting moments, but that being said, it is really annoying you have to go on a scavenger hunt to collect energy if you decide you’ve had enough of driving. At the very least, the energy collected is used to research better crafting recipes and new stations for the auto shop.

Onto technical performance, it ran perfectly, running at 60 FPS with no noticeable frame drops, and the loading times aren’t too bad, maybe lasting under 30 seconds. As for general gripes, I found the menus to be rather difficult to navigate at times and in a game where inventory management is key, it becomes more aggravating than it should. Hell, I encountered a glitch while playing on a controller where I couldn’t exit the menu after reading a text log. I had to use my keyboard to switch to another menu tab and exit there. Other than that, any problems I had were with game design.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Pacific Drive is a really good, supernaturally dangerous road trip that both makes you feel tense and scared but also makes you feel joyful and carefree. However, it can be tedious and frustrating dealing with some of its systems, such as keeping the car in good shape or simply driving around. Prepare well, drive safely, and don’t lose focus and you’ll have a fun time here.

Pacific Drive is available on PlayStation 5 and Steam.