Pacific Drive Gameplay Explained: What Is It All About?

Last week, we went over virtually all the details we have on Pacific Drive's technical aspects: the upcoming New Weird delight is, from the looks of it, going to run well on a wide range of PCs, which means that fans of Simon Stålenhag can breathe a sigh of relief. Now, with that out of the way, and with the game coming out on February 22, it's time to talk shop, and by 'shop' we mean gameplay.

Because, yeah, sure, this is a game about driving around, but that's about as concrete of a descriptor as calling Half-Life an FPS would be. Both claims are obvious as a pine cone in your soup, and about as useful, to boot. Down below, we've assembled a comprehensive summary of everything we know about Pacific Drive's gameplay loop. So, if you're intrigued by the prospect of driving through an anomalous exclusion zone, this is the place to be.

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The Gameplay of Pacific Drive Explained

Pacific Drive is, at its core, an explorative survival game. It's all about you and your grindmobile as you travel through the hostile, inhospitable Olympic Exclusion Zone, over in the Pacific Northwest. The main character in the game is, as such, not even your in-game avatar, but the car itself, which changes and evolves as you slam more and more anomalous sci-fi greebles onto it.

Broadly, Pacific Drive tasks you with unravelling the mystery behind the location itself - which pulls its inspiration from some of the finest works of science fiction ever. The most obvious is, certainly, the Roadside Picnic from the Strugatsky brothers, but we find it hard not to draw a parallel with Jeff Vandermeer's Area X trilogy, too. Everything around you is hostile or, if not outright hostile, then illogical to the point of breaking reality itself. Physics is merely a suggestion in the Olympic Exclusion Zone, after all, which means you'll need to trick out your jalopy station wagon into an Overlanding monster like you've never seen before.

The core gameplay loop of Pacific Drive is, therefore, simply about driving through the OEZ, collecting new parts for your jalopy, and avoiding violent distortions of reality that threaten to turn you into a newt. Or something along those lines.

Get 2Game's limited-time Pacific Drive discount while you still can!

Driving, with a dose of paraphysical survival horror

Really, the Olympic Exclusion Zone is as much of a character in Pacific Drive as the customizable station wagon is. This location is the crux of the experience, and its innate weirdness is what kicks off the whole adventure to begin with. The vast majority of the game's survival elements rely on the OEZ being an absolute bastard to travel through, and the obvious implication is that there are some hidden horrors prowling about.

Now, the developer Ironwood Studios hasn't yet chimed in on the what, why, and how of the Olympic Exclusion Zone. Obviously, that's the ultimate mystery at the core of Pacific Drive, and we expect that the game's narrative development will be a huge draw for players to keep coming back for more, over and over again.

What we do know, however, is that the OEZ shifts and changes whenever you leave your in-game garage: like something you'd see in a roguelite game. We also know that the game will allow players to tweak and customize their station wagon however they see fit, which means this will be one of those games we absolutely need to keep coming back to, to see everything there is to see in it.

It's like Control, STALKER, and the Sons of the Forest in one

Circling back to the narrative and gameplay inspirations for Pacific Drive, this game is essentially a dream come true for fans of modern New Weird games, and for those who want a new kind of survival gaming experience. Narratively speaking, cues are taken from Control, as you'll need to square up with a similarly overbearing company presence - ARDA - as you progress through the OEZ. Their leftover gear is also a phenomenal source of high-tech gadgetry, however, so you're going to want to weigh your choices for sure.

Obviously, STALKER comes into the picture as one of the first modern games to task the player with surviving in a wide open and anomalous environment. Hell, Pacific Drive could be rebranded into a STALKER experience with relatively little effort if you squint hard enough, but we do think it's way more interesting to come up with something new in regard to the exclusion zone itself.

Finally, it's important to drive home the fact that Pacific Drive is a true-to-form survival game. It's just that your car is your main tool, your main source of "nourishment", and your mobile HQ. The car is the most important aspect of your Pacific Drive experience, which helps set the game apart from other modern survival experiences, such as Sons of the Forest. Obviously, though, the point of comparison remains.

Jump Into Pacific Drive on February 22 with 2Game's Discounts!

Naturally, we're extremely excited to finally jump into Pacific Drive on February 22 and, in fact, we're going to prepare a huge selection of guides and tips & tricks articles for you to peruse in the coming days. As soon as the game comes out, you're going to want to tune in to our Community Hub to get the latest scoop on cutting edge Pacific Drive developments, and we'll help you progress through the game in a more optimal fashion.

Before that happens, though, definitely consider making use of 2Game's pre-release discount for Pacific Drive! It applies to both the base edition of the game and the goodie-loaded Deluxe Edition, but you need to act fast and grab a copy before February 22. Once you're set up with a Steam key, you're mere days away from exploring the Olympic Exclusion Zone, and we promise it'll be an experience you'll remember for a long, long time.

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