There has been a lot of hype surrounding the release of Pacific Drive since its announcement towards the end of 2022. Could it possibly live up to the promise of those early trailers? Well, yes. Yes it could.
Pacific Drive opens as you drive your decidedly normal car through the Olympic Peninsula, close to the border of a mysterious exclusion zone, as you listen to some frankly incredible music (the audio in this game is just stellar). This serves as a tutorial of sorts, but once you approach the border wall strange things start to happen until you’re suddenly and inexplicably pulled through a portal and into the zone itself. And this is where the fun really begins.
Trapped in the Olympic Exclusion Zone, your reliable car now in pieces and floating in mid-air, you find an old station wagon [1], and shortly thereafter Oppy’s Auto Shop, which together form the heart of the game.
You quickly discover, through some excellently voiced radio chatter, that it’s not going to be so easy to escape, and you’re sent out on supply runs to anomaly-infested areas of the zone [2] to find resources. These not only repair vital equipment to aid your exit, but also to repair and improve your car.
That car is now your everything [3], and as such you need to treat it right. After each outing you return to the auto shop to repair and ‘pimp’ the vehicle, which is a complete joy. Car maintenance has never been this fun.
