Pacific Drive's Stylish Looks Mask a Terrifying Survival Adventure
As I veer off-road towards a long-abandoned gas station, my heart skips a beat. Was that… a person? No, I tell myself, it couldn’t be. I kill the engine. Shutting the car door and walking sheepishly down the once unassuming dirt road, I clutch my crowbar tightly as my mind begins to race. While I’ve spent the last half an hour happily scouring abandoned cabins along the forest, this quiet summer night didn’t seem eerie, just still. Now as I sneak through the trees just a few feet further down from where I was moments ago, that sense of calm evaporates, overtaken by a creeping unease.
When I sat down to play Pacific Drive at WASD, I mistook it for an atmospheric walking simulator. In reality, Ironwood Studio’s forest opus is something far more sinister. Part survival game, part narrative-led horror, you may recognise Pacific Drive as “that weird nightrider car game from E3”. Yet while the slightly beat up set of wheels took centre stage in all the trailers, this first-person project isn’t really a charming vehicle-first romp but an adventure where your car is the only thing keeping you from an early grave.
Inspired by a slew of different horror novels and the folk tales that whispered their way around the Pacific Northwest, this first-person adventure sees you attempting to uncover the mysteries surrounding a particularly cursed looking area of forest. Set in the once idyllic scenery of the aforementioned Pacific Northwest, you find yourself navigating the ever-changing dangers of the Olympic Exclusion Zone, seeking shelter from its extreme weather, radiation poisoning, and a series of increasingly inexplicable happenings, all by hiding inside your trusty four-wheeled companion. You have to gather as much information and
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