Living in the Pacific Northwest rules. ⛰️
Now for the record, and as an Oregonian, I’m completely biased. However, there’s a unique beauty to the area that’s hard to beat. Simply put, there’s few places in the US where you can snowboard, surf, and go camping all in the same day. So, when a developer makes a game based on the recreational wonderland that is the PNW, they have my attention.
Ironwood Studios is based out of Seattle, Washington and our upstairs neighbors have been cooking up what they call a run-based first-person driving survival game. In Pacific Drive, it’s just you and your station wagon tearing up the tree-dense mountainous highways while adventuring to your heart’s content. Oh, and also, there’s the Olympic Exclusion Zone, an anomaly-filled abandoned area that makes the average episode of the X-Files look tame. This isn’t going to be the family camping trip that you remember from your childhood.
Being a survival-driving game there’s going to be a strong focus on maintaining and upgrading your station wagon. Finding and stripping parts off abandoned vehicles to bring back to the garage to soup up your ride looks to be a primary gameplay loop. There appears to be a significant amount of effort that has gone into this; with car parts having their own physics as they get tossed around the garage, various damage models for both the station wagon and individual components, fuel consumption, battery levels, you name it.
With the twist that is the Olympic Exclusion Zone, the more time and effort put into upgrading your wagon, the more likely it is that you’ll survive. As the gameplay trailer that was revealed earlier this year shows, you’ll definitely be wanting something beyond just a sturdy vehicle. By installing anomaly defense equipment, you might survive long enough to find out what’s going on in the Exclusion Zone- and if not, at least you’ll make the Ectomobile blush.
The Last of Us Part 2, Days Gone, and Life is Strange have all taken place in the PNW in one way or another and have all been fantastic experiences. Pacific Drive not only has a unique concept but chooses a ‘perfect’ locale to elevate the game’s narrative, atmosphere, and traversal. Suppose gut feelings are anything to go by. In that case, I think Pacific Drive like the games above will leverage its setting to maximize its potential, adding it to the list of great games based in the Pacific Northwest.
Pacific Drive’s Steam page can be found here and the game will also be released on PS5 and is planning to launch later this year.
