Pacific Drive review: Drive to survive

Family wagon ownership meets strange supernatural happenings in a deadly place the government wants to hide. This is my Pacific Drive review.

I know some people said 2023 was one of the best years ever in gaming. However, a bunch of sequels, remakes and remasters did not really rev my engine. Unlike Pacific Drive on PC (Epic Games and Steam) and PS5, which I have not stopped playing. Despite the fact it has tried to set me on fire and backover my charred remains.

Developed by Ironwood Studios and published by Kepler Interactive, Pacific Drive (£24.99) is the Frankenstein’s monster of gaming. It combines elements of horror, mystery and survival, with the star of the show a non-descript family wagon. Gameplay revolves around driving it like your life depends on it. Because often it does.

You arrive in the fictional Olympic Exclusion Zone in the Pacific Northwest of America as the unluckiest delivery driver ever. Where things are not what they seem and just about everything tries to ruin your day. Think of it as the National Lampoon’s Apocalyptic Vacation.

Please note: This is the script from my YouTube video, click play above to watch or click here. See also my top 10 Pacific Drive tips & tricks.

Motorway to heaven

In an attempt to help unravel the mystery of the area, Pacific Drive tasks you with not just surviving this harsh and dangerous environment. It also wants you to drive increasingly far from the safety of the Auto Shop, with unlockable vehicle gadgets and upgrades letting you go that bit further.

This does not sound especially difficult. The reality, however, is that after a certain time each ‘junction’ implodes and you either escape via a road, initiate a ‘gateway’ to teleport home or die by radiation poisoning. Fail to escape alive and all your loot is gone. Plus you will need to make serious repairs to your wagon.

With certain death constantly looming, it is easy to panic and drive badly. Which is unwise because you need to avoid creepy explosive mannequins, electric-zapping pylons, acid-spewing mounds, bonnet-crunching trees, gravity-ignoring waves, metal-slicing buzzsaws and a whole lot more.

Not only that, various organisms enjoy causing you pain or simply hold you still while those yellow and red walls of radiation march ever closer. Oh, and watch out for Abductors that try to run off with your car and nick whatever it is you are holding.

Then there is the weather, which can be pleasant and serene as soft sunset beams radiate through the trees. Or it can batter your car with a combination of high winds, heavy rain and lightning bolts. Day and night is a thing, too, though the Olympic Exclusion Zone is usually a shade of dark.

Each instance of accidental damage or environmental misery takes its toll on your wagon (which has a mind of its own), resulting in mechanical failures. Head gaskets can blow, tyres can and often do pop, bonnets fall off, windscreens shatter, special abilities randomly turn on and off, batteries run flat, fuel runs dry, bulbs burnout. Vehicle fragility is very much a part of the experience.

During one drive to acquire crafting components, I smashed into a tree, both headlights failed and I lacked any materials for a hasty repair. This was in a junction with the ‘eerie darkness’ modifier, which makes things claustrophobically lightless to the point you cannot even see road markings.

Knowing the exit was not far away but time was running out, I bumped into tree after tree in a mad scramble. Hoping to eventually see the relief-inducing blue lights of an exit road. My heart was about to burst out of my chest, but I made it. Just. This is how Pacific Drive do.

As such, a noticeable portion of the game is not just avoiding trouble (while being strangely fascinated by the supernatural phenomena). You have to diagnose it using your portable scanner and a special computer in the Auto Shop for ghost in the shell ‘quirks’. This is easier said than done (even with relevant upgrades) as inputting the symptoms is a case of trial and error.

Next stop, anxiety

Pacific Drive really is not the game to play if you have a weak heart or bladder. Not just because there is constant uncertainty and danger, but also the method of returning to the Auto Shop with your loot intact. You need a certain amount of anchor energy, which is often found in remote areas, to open a gateway. Once you do, the area implosion process speeds up significantly.

Unless there is a road exit, you really need to ‘GTFO’ and head for the pillar of light extending to the heavens. However, do not get too close to the gateways as that prevents opening them. If you thought you could calmly wait by the exit before flipping the switch, think again.

With the relatively few people you communicate with (all of which are well voice-acted) pushing you to drive ever further from home you become a product of your environment. Ruthlessly efficient, mentally tougher, honed by nature and wise to what can go wrong. Sink or swim. Evolve or die. You get the idea.

A combination of great pacing and smart game design lets you breathe from time to time, tricking you into thinking you are starting to assert your domination in this unpredictable place. Then a new hazard is introduced and fearful uncertainty returns. That is what makes Pacific Drive so glorious but also so exhausting. So unpredictable. So unhinged. So unforgiving.

Ironwood Studios told me there is about 14 hours of story and another thirty hours to complete everything. The truth is that I have played for more than 50 hours and still have much to do. You can speed things up if you mess with the various difficulty sliders. In doing so though, achievements are no longer earnable.

The car is the star

What Pacific Drive does particularly well is make you bond with your trusty estate. The journey is not just literal, you learn to survive the Olympic Exclusion Zone together. What starts out as a four-wheeler any sensible cop would pull over in real life becomes a high-tech steed worthy of Back to the Future or Ghostbusters. It is no coincidence your wagon looks like the Ecto-1 Cadillac.

Beige panelling on the outside and a dated interior contrast with fancy electronics home to more lights than a Christmas tree. By the end of the game, what was once a bag of rust becomes gloriously hardy and sophisticated. Sometimes downright ridiculous. Especially once you start applying unique customisation items, stickers and paint colours found out in the zone.

With around 100 vehicle upgrades available from the Fabristation, each one well thought out and varied enough to offer multiple survival strategies, Pacific Drive could even be classed as an RPG. There are even upgrades you can wear yourself to reduce the effects of the environment (though you never get to see how any of it looks).

Modern driving games typically make the mistake of assuming everyone has the attention span of a squirrel and so there is no slow grind, no appreciation of what you have, no slow build to a crescendo. No real consequences for when things go wrong either. Pacific Drive is the polar opposite.

It helps that your vehicle handles like a heavy, dated wagon should. Driving is also mostly realistic as you have to countersteer on wet surfaces or if your tyres are close to giving up, steer against the friction of a flat tyre and avoid hills too steep for your engine output.

As your four-wheeler takes a beating, it becomes a rebellious, spark-prone and lethargic barge of misery that you will have to repair panel by panel, wheel by wheel – Car Mechanic Simulator style.

As a driving game, the handling model is predictable and you can navigate most obstacles with razor-sharp precision if your skills allow. Patient, careful, calm and talented drivers will be rewarded with greater success.

Pacific Drive review: Any bad stuff?

Having played a pre-launch Steam copy for my Pacific Drive review, I can happily say I never once experienced a software crash. PC specs here. Nor did I see any graphical issues beyond some minor screen tearing, even with Vsync enabled.

I did, however, become the first player to find a game-breaking bug that blocked my progress and meant I had to ask the developer for a save file to spare me having to replay four hours of gameplay. Presumably, the developer is fixing this as fast as possible because I did nothing unusual to trigger it.

There was also a weird issue where the ‘Friendly Dumpster’ at the Auto Shop would throw out multiples of the same car components when I died in a junction. Which I had to re-attach multiple times to make them stay.

This would not be a legitimate Pacific Drive review if I did not also mention the controls, which you do get used to but are not the most streamlined, and the inventory management. With all items and components having to be crafted, you will be constantly gathering materials and moving them around from one storage area to another.

A fun process sometimes, but also repetitive. Especially because interiors and structures are repeated throughout the game (one of the few criticisms of the original Halo, as I recall). Variety in this department via future updates would not go amiss though it does help with remembering where to find what you need.

Honestly, having to repair your vehicle for the seventeenth time can make you want to take a break or scream into the sky. Though it is possible to enable auto refuelling and auto battery charging, which alleviates the issue somewhat.

Fortunately, as you progress further in Pacific Drive you end up having ample storage space on your car and at the Auto Shop. Though you will still be moving it all about during a long drive.

In fairness, those lovely unlockable upgrades – of which most are useful – and epic scenery make the gathering worthwhile. One upgrade is designed to save you in your darkest hour, another can slow time. Some improve visibility at night. You can even have puncture-proof tyres. Or just transplant a huge engine for maximum speed and power and make Jeremy Clarkson proud.

Worth buying, then?

Is Pacific Drive worth buying then? Without a doubt. I have not felt as enthralled, panicked and anxious in a game since Alien Isolation. There is just something so refreshingly brutal and unforgiving that I had to keep on driving. Keen to explore what else this dark, mysterious and beautiful world has to offer and see how much more dangerous it gets.

For creating a sense of isolation, desperation, excitement, awe and intensity there really are few games like it. It is just begging for VR support to make its epic journey even more enthralling. If only to further embrace the moody bleakness and dramatic lighting.

Though not the only surival game out there and rather heavy on inventory management, this Pacific Drive review hopefully shows that there is still plenty of fuel left in the tank of gaming creativity. Despite some rust under the hood, you are in for one hell of a ride.

Pacific Drive review: Drive to survive

Verdict

Despite some issues, Pacific Drive is a compelling blend of intensity, excitement, panic, fear and mystery that keeps your emotions revving hard from start to finish.

Positives

Intense

Immersive

Cleverly designed

Negatives

Steep learning curve

Inventory could be better

Sometimes too grindy

The Score

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