We have many stories to tell you about the area. We could tell you about the time we found ourselves wandering the street, in the dark, looking for petrol. Or that time a creature ripped off our car door while we were fleeing a storm. We could tell you many, yet none of these stories will prepare you for what awaits you in that place, a dense network of roads and paths infested with threats of all kinds. Pacfic Drive is a survival game aware of the uniqueness of the medium: it lets the player, with his actions, control the story and the events that determine its peculiarities, giving life to an experience that is always new and unrepeatable for anyone.
Check the history
This aspect had already emerged during our interview with Alex Dracott and Seth Rosen from the Pacific Drive team, with the latter stating: “We established from the beginning that we wanted to leverage the emerging narrative and to create a connection between the 'car and who plays. There is no story we could have told that would make you become attached to the car, so we left it up to the player with his actions to create a bond with it.”
“Controlling the story” does not mean that we will be able to influence the plot with our choices, nor that there will be a different ending depending on how we played. Pacific Drive is first and foremost a sandbox title where the player can experience his story, establishing an increasingly solid bond with the car, the true co-protagonist of the game together with the Zone. The story begins with our avatar who, for unknown reasons, enters the Olympic Exclusion Zone. After a dangerous close encounter with an anomaly, we will be able to save ourselves by climbing aboard a battered station wagon, entering Oppy's garage – a hub from which we will be able to take care of the car and organize our excursions.
Perhaps it is the narrative component – in the most generic sense of the term – that is the least convincing aspect of the work: the feeling we felt as the credits rolled was that the plot was inserted for the sole purpose of justifying the movements within of the map.
Works like Pacific Drive could exist solely on emerging narrative, yet Ironwood Studios seems not to have wanted to dare so much, opting for an experience that was as complete as possible and therefore more attractive in the eyes of the public. This doesn't mean that the plot and the characters don't live up to expectations: the writing is generally good and the supporting characters don't lack charisma, thanks to a dubbing direction capable of giving depth to the cast. Unfortunately the game does not have an Italian localization, a lack that is felt especially when we are driving: dodging obstacles or keeping your eyes on the road while reading the subtitles is certainly not the most comfortable.
Theseus' car
The real protagonist of Pacific Drive remains the lovable but battered station wagon, which over time we will be able to improve until it becomes a technological jewel. Each component of the car is entirely customizable, starting from the materials to the silk-screen printing: we can decide to install impact-resistant or corrosive acid-resistant doors, changing the set-up based on the environmental conditions of the place we want to reach. The team has done an incredible job on the vehicle and the combinations that we have had the opportunity to test during the 34 hours spent on the game are testimony to this, where even the smallest of changes can influence our journey in the Zone.
Having off-road tires, for example, allowed us to move more easily on uneven terrain, giving us the opportunity to escape from dangers without the risk of damaging the car or getting stuck in the mud. As time passes, the Zone will become more and more hostile, which is why it will be very important to unlock new upgrades and understand how to exploit them according to your needs. The car is still a machine, so don't expect it to be indestructible: damaged panels, punctured wheels, engine malfunctions and system anomalies will be the order of the day. These unpleasant inconveniences can be contained in various ways: you can manufacture the defective part from scratch or try to repair it, as long as you have the necessary resources to do so. Alternatively, you can “borrow” a part from one of the many abandoned vehicles on the road, thus avoiding having to search for components. The looting phases are one of the most predominant aspects of Pacific Drive, so it will be completely normal to stop during a journey to loot houses, laboratories and abandoned cars.
This will happen even every few minutes, especially when the map we are on is full of explorable structures. Therefore, don't expect an open world with a slow pace: there is always something to collect, disassemble or repair. It's a shame that, as solid as the game's mechanics are, they aren't always clear. Despite the presence of a tutorial, in the first hours of the adventure we felt a little abandoned to ourselves, with some dynamics relating to crafting and materials explained within a confusing and at times dysfunctional menu.
Pacific Drive is a title with layered mechanics and we have no doubt that the studio has done everything possible, but navigation within the UI is chaotic and this leads to the loss of valuable information. The logbook, for example, was conceived as a guide to survival in the Zone. Inside we find every single element of the game catalogued, starting from the pieces of the car up to the “anomalies”.
As for the driving system, Pacific Drive offers good command response and pleasant physics feedback, achieving an effective compromise between simulation and arcade. Maintaining control of the car is not easy but not impossible either, with the player having the tools to dominate the vehicle even in the most frenetic moments. Of course, don't expect to become expert drivers in the space of a few minutes: establishing a connection with the vehicle – be it with the on-board interface or with the steering wheel – will require time, dedication and a good dose of failed experiments. The first stages will be tough and complex, but as soon as you manage to transform the car into an armored vehicle, you will be able to give the anomalies a run for their money.
The Zone and its dangers
Now it's the turn to talk about these anomalies, which will try in every way to hinder our path, causing extensive damage to the car and our avatar. Since each anomaly has unique characteristics, we leave it to you to discover how they can make your life difficult, but suffice it to say that even the most harmless one should not be underestimated for any reason. In the Zone you will never be safe and the succession of threats will put your nerves to the test.
The Zone is divided into explorable maps, divided by danger and presence of resources. At the deepest points, exploration will become particularly difficult, especially due to the high level of radiation. Pacific Drive is an extremely punitive survival game and the price to pay in the event of death is high: if we fail to return to the garage safe and sound, we will have to say goodbye to all the resources collected. This means losing what you obtained during an expedition and throwing even an hour of play to the wind, with the aggravating circumstance of finding your car reduced to a sieve.
Every minute spent in the Zone is one step closer to death, so it will be important to return to the central hub as soon as we have the chance. By taking advantage of the energy of some devices, we will be able to make a portal appear in a specific point of the map, thus unleashing the ire of the Zone which will try to prevent us from returning to the garage. The seconds that separate us from the opening of the portal to returning home seem like hours and the tension is palpable, we must exploit alternative routes to dodge the dangers and escape the narrowing of the safe zone, which is becoming more and more oppressive.
Pacific Drive knows how to build a constantly increasing level of tension, but not always for the right reasons: the automatic save system is too harsh on the player, forced to reach the next map to get one. We understand the desire to implement roguelike mechanics, but this should not translate into a penalty system for those who simply need to abandon the game at any time.
Postcards from the area
The Olympic Exclusion Zone is not just a place to travel in our car, nor a simple receptacle for adventures. It is an environment that has its roots in a well-defined artistic and cultural imagination, attributable to works such as Twin Peaks and Wayward Pines, but not only. Walking along the dark streets in the company of our radio gives magnificent sensations, and it is in moments of pure quiet that you realize the good work done by the artistic team.
The game world is not composed solely and exclusively of endless forests: there are alien-looking valleys, natural habitats dramatically distorted by the radiation and anomalies that live there. The further we enter the Zone, the more we will have the impression of entering a dangerous place. We do not hide from you that many locations reminded us of the paintings of Simon Stalenhag, a Swedish author who became famous for his retro-futuristic illustrations. Just like in the artist's images, the panorama of Pacific Drive is often polluted by megalithic structures belonging to a distant past, a symbol of scientific progress as ambitious as it is reckless.
The game defends itself well on the artistic front, but it is on the technical aspect that it falters: the frame rate on PC is not always stable, with sporadic cases of stuttering that occur during interactions. Nonetheless, Ironwood Studios has been able to manage the potential of the Unreal Engine, finding a good compromise between graphic and artistic rendering.