Survival horror meets racing game: In this PS5 game you survive by car

Pacific Drive is a different kind of road trip.

The still young development studio Ironwood was allowed to present its first game as part of Sony’s State of Play. This is another roguelike (or roguelite, respectively), but don’t worry, you’ve never experienced the genre like this. Pacific Drive not only mixes the loop mechanics with horror aspects but also with a racing game. Although you are also on foot, most of the action takes place in the driver’s seat.

That’s what Pacific Drive is all about

This is the story: Pacific Drive tells an alternate story. New technology was being explored on the Olympic Peninsula in the Northwest of the United States, but after an accident left behind radioactive radiation, environmental degradation and supernatural phenomena. In 1955 the region was finally declared a restricted zone by the government. Your task is to find out what exactly happened on the peninsula.

In order to escape the horror you got caught up in while researching, you have to cross the restricted zone. Since nature is going haywire and lightning is raining down from the sky, this is not possible on foot. Luckily, in the middle of the forest, you find a junk-tired, barely drivable station wagon. At least the cart makes it to a car repair shop, which explains it to the base of operations. Here you can plan your runs and improve or repair the car.

The announcement trailer gives a first impression of the crazy premise:

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The Pacific Drive announcement trailer features the auto-survival roguelite

Pacific Drive establishes the “road-lite genre”

This is how a loop works: As I said, Pacific Drive is a roguelite. This means that if you get caught, you start again from the workshop and the game world is (at least partially) reset – but storms should make it look different with each run. There is no more information about the mechanics yet, but your car upgrades will probably remain. So there is permanent progress.

These gameplay mechanics await you: How exactly Pacific Drive plays can only be guessed at so far. Most routes are covered by station wagon, while smelters and industrial complexes are explored on foot. There will probably also be fights from the first-person perspective, because there are monsters waiting in the forests that have not yet been revealed. A self-made weapon can also be seen in one of the pictures.

Weapons appear to be crafted from found parts.

Finally, there are survival mechanics. In the style of apocalyptic horror games you comb the environment for resources. A look inside the car reveals various displays such as the condition of the wheels, a battery indicator and a health meter. So there are several aspects that you need to take care of if you want to make it out of the zone.

The roguelike market is currently flooded with so many games that even solid titles have a hard time standing out from the crowd. Ironwood Studios succeeds in this feat with Pacific Drive by not developing another side scroller or dungeon crawler, but by putting a car in the center. I’m definitely hooked on the concept and will be watching the game closely until it comes out on PS5 next year.

How do you like the somewhat different roguelite Pacific Drive?