Pacific Drive Reviews
An intriguing set-up, with an impressively ominous atmosphere, is spoilt by overfamiliar roguelike elements that ruin the pacing and increase the repetition.
Watching the pre-release teasers, I was under the impression that Pacific Drive would be a sort of an interactive road movie. Instead, we got a rogue-lite car action with the interaction limited to avoiding colored blobs in the environment and recycling trash for progress.
No matter how careful you are, it only takes the slightest thing to bring everything crashing down.
There’s a lot here that feels great, but it’s the inconsistency that lets it down. All those great moments are padded by a framework that doesn’t do them enough justice. Too much emphasis on scrounging, an unfocused narrative, and a generally poor feeling of momentum and progression. I’m still certain that there are some who will be able to overlook the game’s flaws and latch onto its unique charm. However, I think just as many people are going to bounce right off it. Either way, it isn’t a comfortable ride.
The whole game is something you’re either going to love or hate. Pacific Drive isn’t going to leave many (or any) people saying, “Enh, it was okay.” You might think it’s a brilliant take on the survival genre, or you might think it’s endless amounts of busy work without enough of a payoff, but either way, it’s guaranteed to get a reaction out of you.
“Pacific Drive” is a bold experiment in genre-blending, offering a fresh perspective on survival and driving mechanics. It’s a game that demands patience and rewards curiosity, one that will enchant you with its atmospheric world even as it tests your mettle with its challenges.
Pacific Drive is about laboring towards something and enjoying the results – feeling the sense of progress, along with the satisfaction and motivation such tangible progress brings with it. There are undoubtedly hours upon hours of gameplay to be had for those possessing unrelenting patience, those true warriors of attrition that would see Pacific Drive’s systems through to their ultimate culmination.
Pacific Drive captures the spirit of working on your car in a game that heavily leans into the crafting experience over its driving roguelike elements.
A love letter to Boris and Arkady that brings their anomalous horrors to the Pacific Northwest. Pacific Drive makes up for what it gets wrong in pacing with imaginative gameplay and exceptional design.
Pacific Drive toes the line between "challenging fun take on the survival-horror genre" and "too complicated for its own good." The game is full of interesting lore, hardcore crafting mechanics, and a world of driving with plenty to explore. While the driving can feel repetitive at times, if you can get a hold of the system, you'll have plenty of fun in the Pacific Northwest.
Balancing Pacific Drive’s scrappy systems can be punishing, but the riveting tension of each drive through its unnerving world was always enough to keep my hands placed firmly on the wheel.
If you fight your way through, Pacific Drive is a solid survival game, but it can only really shine with the car upgrades.
Review in German | Read full review
Pacific Drive is an atmospheric car survival game that presents us with an interesting perspective of the world and unique systems that we haven't seen anywhere else. If you have strong hardware at your disposal and want to check out something unique then I am able to recommend Pacific Drive, even though it probably needed a little more time in the oven.
Review in Polish | Read full review
Pacific Drive successfully reinterprets the core of the survival genre, centered around the bond with your station wagon. While the POV driving mechanics and the anomalies often provide relentless, occasionally exhausting challenges, the game still retains a charm that makes you want to take the wheel once again.
Review in Korean | Read full review
Pacific Drive is an intriguing experience and, despite being way more complicated than it should in some of its choices, it's a compelling game that feels like a breath of fresh air for video games' lovers.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Pacific Drive is made for fans of survival games and sci-fi adventures. With its captivating anomalies and subtle horror, the hugely important and extensive maintenance of the station wagon and the somewhat frustrating ruthlessness. Pacific Drive offers a unique experience with a charming flair and is a great debut from Ironwood Studios.
Review in German | Read full review
Pacific Drive is a unique RPG and survival crafting game in a landscape choked with unimaginative copycats and clones. That alone makes it worth checking out. Its story, atmosphere and basic loop are engaging and satisfying. At the default difficulty though, its design and mechanics can frustrate in ways that neither skill or time can overcome. Pacific Drive offers a refreshing RPG experience but the ride is sometimes bumpier than intended.
Pacific Drive is an imperfect but unique journey into the unknown. It is a good survival game in which the eerie atmosphere, the customization of one's car, and the adrenaline rush of racing make one forget the flaws.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Pacific Drive offers a chance to take a beautiful vintage car to the forbidden Zone with a total of radiation and anomalies. Aside from the dangers, there's no avoiding the elaborate micromanagement on this trip, where every part of the car must be inspected, upgraded, and weaponized down to the smallest detail. Yet the driver's role is purely pacifist and collectible. Collecting resources is essential to continue on the road, as is crawling through every wreck. The atmosphere at this point is so thick it could be sliced, helped by the well-balanced audiovisual aspect, which is underlined by the fact that the authors have managed to create an authentic night in which you can't see a step. Charismatic characters, subtle humor, and an intriguing storyline all make this a dangerously addictive ride.
Review in Czech | Read full review
Pacific Drive manages to combine elements from roguelike and survival forms and combine them with the catalyst of the old station that we have all seen in some American movie of the 80s.
Review in Greek | Read full review