Stacked with some absolute sausages in a month, it is Pacific Avenue, a car-centric first-person survival game, is what excites me the most. I, along with other media outlets, got an early look late last week, so hop in the passenger seat and let me take you for a ride.
Pacific Drive seems close to survival, where you have to venture out again and again to find supplies, escape dangerous forces, and ultimately uncover what’s going on around you, all from the driver’s seat of an American station wagon. The whole game revolves around your car. It’s more of a character than you, representing your progression and style, and the star of the show. It’s a supernatural road trip, not a base builder like Rust.
– GAME TRAILER VIDEO –
The game loop is as follows. You start out in your garage, a sanctuary away from the Pacific Northwest and all its dangers. Once you’ve fixed as many cars as you can, you can head to the map and speed up to one of the many dangerous locations in the forested wilderness for a dangerous and potentially lucrative adventure.
In the backcountry, it’s all about navigating the rugged wilderness and rough roads, navigating between abandoned buildings filled with useful gear and mysterious power anchors that, when returning to base, can make future journeys easier. The further worlds you travel, the more valuable materials you can find. As you might expect, though, the farther you go, the more dangerous you get.
How dangerous? Well, thanks to the paranormal activity happening in these areas, you’re going to run into all sorts of problems, including devastating wind gusts that send your car flying around the road (if you go outside to grab something shiny , that would be horrific), electric waves or acid goo can wreak havoc on your ride. There are also monsters roaming around, Broken Bunnies will cling to your car and wreak havoc, or Abductors will snatch parts of your car until you get it back.
Eventually, the storm will blow in. This turns the area blood red and raises the hazard level to 11. At this point, you’ll have to rush back to the only safe spot on the map, which will shoot you straight back to the garage as soon as you reach it. Hopefully your boots are full of loot and any quest you can think of is up for grabs.
The Garage itself is the player’s hub. You can charge your car battery or fill up your gas tank here. Here, you can spruce it up with new colors, stronger doors and off-road-ready tires. You can also research new car upgrades, garage stations where parts can be disassembled faster, gas can be refueled faster, and more. As you progress through Pacific Drive, both your car and garage will become more advanced as you invest more time and resources.
You’ll still want to keep an eye on your car though, because things can get weird. Over time, they can get rough and tinkered, developing quirks. We’re talking headlights that turn on and off when you use the windshield wipers, just enough to be noticeable but not intrusive enough to make you feel unduly frustrated with your car. As you drive the car more and more, it becomes more of a protagonist than you. You’re just a pair of hands gathering resources and raising an actual character: your trusty chariot.
The idea is that, eventually, you’ll be able to venture further and face greater challenges. Along the way, you’ll beef up your garage and cars, uncover what’s going on in this chaotic corner of America, and maybe even collect some new paint and bobbleheads along the way. It’s a survival game, but with the energy of car maintenance and problem solving on the road. It has the same appeal as the subgenre of driving games, where you handle a gnarly car instead of a shiny top-of-the-line car. The patchwork mentality of Long Drive, but instead of relaxing on a long empty road, you face the worrisome world around you.
People clearly love American road trips here, hours-long trips through nature reserves and fast forests in a very special part of America. Founder and creative director Alex Dracott talks about the team’s work with his own personal station wagon, offering anecdotes of them bouncing around in the car to record accurate audio from the suspension. They were even escorted from a small town during taping because the town police were unsure of a strange car full of people and audio equipment.
From what we’ve seen early on with Pacific Drive, it’s this love of cars and nostalgia for Oregon road trips, combined with a game loop that’s passionate and intelligent, that makes Pacific Drive worth watching.
