Pacific Drive’s car is the new Companion Cube: How games help us love inanimate objects

polygon.com:

When you get into your vehicle for the first time in Pacific Drive, it doesn’t feel any different than your average junker. Sure, it seems like it could fall apart any minute, but it somehow manages to stay mostly together… as long as you don’t run it into trees or through mysterious anomalies. It’s just an average car — until your friends on the radio start questioning how it exists at all. They say it should be impossible for a car to work in the Olympic Exclusion Zone, where the game takes place. The car also has some interesting characteristics: It’s able to take some technologically advanced upgrades like a champ, and despite being a 1950s station wagon, it can handle a paranormal storm with only minimal damage.

So what is the car in Pacific Drive, exactly? You spend a lot of the game’s main story missions trying to figure that out, and as you go, it becomes your way of exploring. As the junctions get more and more dangerous, the car goes the extra mile (so to speak) to be your armor, your backpack, your crafting table, and your only trustworthy companion. Unlike in other open-world survival games where you have to upgrade your character to survive, here you spend almost all your efforts ensuring your car is healthy and ready for danger. There’s a sense of pride when you give your car the right upgrade. What was once a metal box covered in rust and duct tape can become a high-tech piece of equipment, unlike any car you’ve ever seen. You can also make it look completely garish thanks to stickers, paints, and more you can unlock.

After a long repair session, you’ll hop back into the car and its dashboard will light up. You’ll get some joyful 8-bit music and you might even see a heart. And after just a few runs, the car will become your best friend.

Pacific Drive is all about your car; in fact, you barely play a character at all. They’re just called “Driver” and they don’t even have a visible body. Oppy, Francis, and Tobias are your main human connections, but