A survival game worth rallying around
Developer Publisher Ironwood Studios Kepler Interactive Format Origin PC, PS5 US Release TBA 2024 hen we first laid eyes on Pacific Drive last year, we were shown
W one climactic way in which a run through this vehicular Roguelike can end. We watched from the back seat, hands-off, as our designated driver sped through a supernatural storm, bouncing over terrain as the world closed in – and escaped to safety, seemingly without a second to spare. It’s a moment that lingers in the memory, but one we put down to well-directed demo choreography.
It’s certainly not representative of how our first hands-on ends. Dropped straight into the Olympic Exclusion Zone (STALKER meets Annihilation, but with all the conifers and fog suggested by the game’s title), we ignore the urgency of the situation and spend far too long fussing around our station wagon. Which is, to be fair, in need of some TLC. Applying a blowtorch heals dings from some unseen previous journey – a process as entrancing as a session of Power Wash Simulator. We’ve barely finished refuelling, DualSense haptics conveying the chug of petrol, when more advanced car parts pop into existence, such as generators that can synthesise energy out of rainwater or wind, and a nitrous boost that can even be attached in a backward configuration, allowing for hasty retreats.
It’s only by emptying our reserves of nitrous that we stay ahead of the storm
Every part of the chassis, it transpires, can be stripped off and replaced. Putting this to the test means we’re still on the garage forecourt as an ‘Instability’ timer in the screen’s topright corner begins its countdown to zero. This triggers the aforementioned storm, which closes in one segment of the map like Fortnite’s shrinking circle. The world turns a dark red, a Geiger counter on the dashboard issues its ceaseless staccato warnings, and we soon slump in the driver’s seat.
We approach our second run with fresh determination. The Zone map mounted in the passenger seat highlights ‘Anchors’, which must be collected to summon the exit gateway before this Instability sets in. Our pursuit of them, however, is undone by unfamiliarity with the weighty inertia of the station wagon’s handling, and by the low-level dangers of our environment. Pelting rain and gale-force winds that manifest without warning, the roadside mannequins that seem to move when we shift our gaze, and the simple knowledge of the Zone’s other inhabitants – as yet unseen – are enough to send us careening off the road.
The sightings begin on our third attempt. Miniature peaks of rubble that travel across the tarmac like the trail of a cartoon mole. Twin hovering creatures, connected in the air by a single umbilical strand. Something halfway between a scrap-metal UFO and an angler fish, casting out a spotlight for prey then sucker
