Pacific Drive's road to reshaping the survival genre

22.02.2024 - 15:35 / gamesindustry.biz / Pacific Drive

Most developers focus on just one genre for their first title, but Ironwood Studios decided to create a fresh take on two for its debut game, Pacific Drive.

At first glance, Pacific Drive – which launches today on PC and PS5 – seems like a typical driving game, primarily focused on exploring the Pacific Northwest in a station wagon. But players will soon come to realise that all is not what it seems.

At its core, the game is all about survival. Set in 1998, players are tasked with escaping the apocalyptic environment of the Olympic Exclusion Zone which becomes more hostile as the game progresses.

"It's this weird station wagon game set in the Pacific Northwest," Ironwood Studios founder and creative director Alex Dracott tells GamesIndustry.biz. "It's surreal, it's a survival game, but it's also a little bit spooky. It's got different elements that are very exciting."

Pacific Drive is as much a love letter to the Pacific Northwest as it is a game inspired by Dracott's childhood. He recalls "foundational memories" of road trips and camping in his family's station wagon, which compelled him to go on trips by himself when he was older to visit abandoned sites, partly to collect references for art and partly to just explore.

"It was while I was doing that that I started getting this sense of there being something about the woods out there and being alone on the road," he explains. "There's an emotional connection that you end up forming with whoever you're travelling with, whether it's a friend or a car."

Which is why, Dracott explains, they decided to lead with a silent protagonist. There are a few NPCs that talk to players through the radio, but he highlights the importance of "removing as many filters as we possibly could to connect you with the car."

That's the focal point of Pacific Drive: forming a bond with the car that's uniquely personal to the player.

"We want you to play you in this game rather than a very scripted, fleshed out specific character in the same way that when you find this old station wagon, you stumble across it," Dracott says. "It's not given to you by someone else, it's not a gift with its own history. It's just there – the history is what you make of it."

The team experimented story-wise at the beginning of development, with the initial plot being that the player was going to save the car from being buried under rubble. But the scope of Pacific Drive's narrative changed once playtesting began.

"Players would remember moments that were much more systemic and organic, like forgetting to put the car in park and having to chase after it, all the while knowing a storm is coming and they have to get back to the garage," Dracott recalls. "Those were the foundational attachment pieces and we