Pacific Drive Preview – Dude, Where’s My Car? I’m Gonna Die

I was immediately captivated by Pacific Drive’s reveal last year. I liked what I saw in the initial trailer, sure, but what I found especially intriguing was that most of the game happens through a first-person view of someone driving an old station wagon through a beautiful but distraught Pacific Northwest forest. It is rare that driving games require a first-person perspective, and even less allow for a driver to be a racer. 

Pacific Drive does both, and after viewing roughly 30 minutes of gameplay during a virtual preview, I’m even more intrigued. In a way, Pacific Drive is a racing game, but you’re not racing against other players – you’re racing against a biome ravaged by a mysterious sci-fi force that controls anomalies set on ending your run. 

After filling up the station wagon with gas, repairing its doors, and preparing the beater for a drive, the Ironwood Studios developer planned their next procedurally generated trek through the forest, one of the various biomes in the game. They charted the zone, picked a node, which acts as a spot on the map you can start a run from, and were off on their next drive. This drive is made alive by the mysterious sci-fi force that attacked the player. Magnets are used to move your vehicle by non-human mechanical anomalies, such as abductors. Electric fences are created by crawlers in front of your vehicle, while dust bunnies use spikes. To stop you falling trees and the ground, pillars of rock erupt from the ground. All of this can damage the car, and you’ll need to repair it using a blow torch, other tools, and resources you must scavenge by exiting the vehicle. 

Ironwood was not open about what the final objective of Pacific Drive would be, but this preview showed that the developer had gathered resources in order to improve the car’s ability to pass the area they were trying to escape. Your drives, which could last as quickly as a few minutes if you’re not careful or as long as half an hour or more, are time trials. If you stay too long you will be surrounded by a storm that is reminiscent of a battle royale. You’ll need to get out through the beacon-like red light. If you succeed, you’ll be transported back to the safety of your garage. You lose part of what you have collected if you fail. 

I don’t typically enjoy driving in first-person; the typical third-person view that hovers behind a car allows me to see more and have greater control of the vehicle. But Pacific Drive seems to have slowed down the driving pace to let players more easily maneuver a station wagon going through sci-fi hell, and I appreciate that.

Ironwood stressed the close relationship that players should have with their vehicle. It called it symbiotic. The station wagon will continue to be your vehicle throughout the game. You can upgrade it in various ways, both mechanically and aesthetically (you can’t pet the vehicle but can pat the bobblehead in it), but that’s the extent of differences between your car and mine. 

Pacific Drive, more than any other survival game, is an excellent one. It features robust crafting and a variety of unique options. The game allows you to craft anywhere, or access special garage machines that produce higher yields. Your vehicle can be strengthened by resources, which will allow it to travel further. Then the loop for collect-upgrade to restart in a new manner and start again. 

Having not played it, I’m not entirely sold on the experience. I want to know how it feels to do what I’ll be doing most of the game: driving. But if this preview was just a taste of the game’s world and systems, which feel inspired and new in the driving genre, Pacific Drive is a trip I’m excited to begin.