Pacific Drive

Really fun gameplay loop, if a little repetitive towards the end. I love the visual style and music and driving through the exclusion zone in the rain is kinda cosy in a weird way. Some of the quirks are a bit annoying to deal with but overall I had a great time with this game.

good game. intersting if you wanna play extraction but not shooter

Just finished Pacific drive and this has to be one of the best story games I’ve ever played. Especially for someone who likes cars it was fun The different challenges made it way more harder then I was expecting A shame they had to end the story sooo soon . I was actually so sad when I found out I had just completed the last mission and the part where poppy signed off. Something I would love is an updated story somehow because the story definitely wasn’t long enough. Either way there’s still much more the explore I still haven’t tried the harder setting for the game and other tweaks like the expeditions but still looking forward to it.

a unique and captivating ride through the unknown Pacific Drive is one of the most unique and captivating gaming experiences i’ve had in a while. it throws you into a surreal, atmospheric world where your car isn’t just a vehicle – it’s your lifeline and your best friend. the game blends exploration, survival, and rogue-lite elements in a way that feels truly unique. the gameplay can be repetitive at times – you drive out, scavenge, survive, and return – but it never really gets boring . there’s something oddly satisfying about prepping your car, navigating strange weather, dodging anomalies, and making it back in one piece. the changing environments and threats in each zone keep things interesting. what really stands out are the anomalies. they’re not just random obstacles – they’re intriguing, unpredictable, and genuinely eerie. from map to map, these phenomena change, making every run feel different. whether it’s a bizarre gravitational, metior shower or creppy exploding dolls, the zone always has a surprise waiting. and let’s be real — if you’re a loot goblin, you’re going to love this game. the scavenging loop is incredibly fun and rewarding. every run is packed with opportunities to find rare materials, weird tech, and vital components, and the thrill of making it back with a trunk full of scrap never gets old. the game also nails its style. the visuals, THE sound/music design, and overall vibe create a moody, almost hypnotic atmosphere. it feels good to play, the fact that you can tweak your own difficulty such as adjusting damage, crafting requirements, and more – makes the game even more accessible and replayable. highly recommended

The fact that this game isn't at least 90%+ recommended is an injustice.

The only bad thing about this game is optimization. PRO TIP: Run on high instead of ultra, game looks identical yet run twice as fast on my hardware.

I live in Washington and drive an old car and I can confirm this is exactly what it's like.

I only spent a short time with this game because it fails the tutorial largely fails the PB&J Challenge: "Write a detailed list of instructions on how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich." The tutorial to the game mechanics should not be a source of frustration, but it was for me because of the amount of time I spent either trying to interpreting what the instructions were or filling in blanks of explanations not provided. Also, the action keys are bloated, any given situation may require as many as three distinct key prompts to act when simply a primary action with an occasion alt action would suffice. It was a distraction and felt unnecessary.

I guess I am just too casual, playing for two hours collecting stuff fallout style, then, twice loosing all my loot. Why am i playing this? I just hold a grinder on things, collect resources, try not to loose them in a mad rush to a portal thing, then improve car and go again? I also despise the save rules, at least give me resident evil style save ribbons. just not for me.

22 Pride flags, one BLM flag and no country flags. Otherwise is a fun and challenging game.

unlike any game I've played. Very fun. Like a mix of stalker and a driving sim. The dark and tense world is countered by lighthearted banter with the NPCs on the radio. Love upgrading my rig and going for a quick drive now and then.

Beautiful, frustrating, rewarding and genuinely different from anything you've played.

Its like micro manige simulater (thumbs up) the game is like scrap macanic if it was a survival story driven game, overall very good but it can feel slow on lower dif

Fun little game about driving in an anomalous region. 8/10 Wish it was longer, occasional frame drops.

I am actively enjoying the game BUT it feels so utterly wasteful and annoying to see the quest say 'get near' and when you sit there on the ground close to it, it changes to 'get up to the bridge and..' pretty much killed myself and wasted a good hour and all my gathered loot and motivation to continue right now. Sidenote - In a game where information is key and using it correctly can save or doom your entire run, it feels only stressful for the game not to pause, when you look at newly gathered information or read prior notes.

I found the story very engaging, and enjoyed how atmospheric the game was overall. The core game play is about gathering resources and crafting to explore further all the while fending off eldritch/si-fi anomalies . I'm impressed with how the story element of caring for you vehicle is explained in the narrative. I'm not much for horror games and this one has a lot of gameplay options to help anyone who is, like me, a big weenie.

This game was a wild ride. Literally. I loved every second. It starts out a little slow but the pacing quickly picks up from your first actual drive. 47 hours spent well if you ask me. This game is a top reason to me why I love playing indie titles. The story is a 9/10, gameplay is an easy 10/10, the ending was really heartwarming. While you never actually see them. the characters manage to feel so real, like they're there with you as you drive through the Pacific Northwest. (perfect setting BTW) And it gets pretty creepy sometimes. The monsters aren't really anything that would chase you, but for the first few hours of playtime you don't know that. There are some areas that exist just to make you paranoid. All in all, it's a great game. P.S I don't really make reviews for games, but this game really deserved it. Well done Ironwood Studios.

4.1 Hours in July 4th, 2025. Really fun, honestly. I've had a fun time with it, if you're willing to expend a good few hours. I highly recommend playing it, don't expect Joy buzzes. But do expect a slow building interest.

Great game so far really liking the characters already right off the bat, made me laugh a few times and haven't even dented the game.

Great game but the UI and controls are very frustrating. For sure the keyboard commands are janky. One time it's 'E', other times it's long press E, then for some reason it's left click or long left click or some such and sometimes Tabing gets you IN a menu but doesn't work getting you OUT of a menu unless you press the magic combination of buttons first. I'm constantly cycling through all these because there doesn't seem to be any consistency that I'm aware of. Game needs a UI/Controls QA pass for sure. That aside, great fun and very immersive. Deep crafting and blueprint system (if very unintuitive). You'll definately want to checkout some youtube videos and visit the Discord for questions. Thumb's up especially if it's on sale.

I barely started the game and I'm loving it. The only issue is that I can't get past the feeling that this would be the perfect coop MP. People don't play a game like Schedule I because it's a good game, people play it because of the social aspect of it. Pacific Drive mood is awesome while playing alone, but I'll never be able to shake the feeling that it would be even better playing it with a couple of friends.

Super great vibes, great music and the nature and scenery of Oregon or Washington State in the US. The tech reminds me of ghostbusters and the spooky yet chill vibe is like Gravity falls or Life is Strange

Very Fun game about driving and looting with an incredible story to go with it

its a fun game with some creepy mannequins just remember don't take you light of them because well you will find out lol

Pacific Drive is a stylish, atmospheric road trip through America, blending 50s–70s retro-futuristic vibes with solid gameplay and storytelling. The music, visuals, and overall style give it a unique identity that sets it apart from anything else. The concept is simple but brilliant — you’ve got a car, a mysterious road, and a mission to survive the journey. There’s no grind, just a well-paced, immersive experience with a cool, engaging story driving you forward. I didn’t run into anything I disliked — the game knows exactly what it wants to be, and it delivers. I’d absolutely recommend Pacific Drive to anyone who enjoys atmospheric single-player adventures, sci-fi mysteries, or just wants a game that feels different in all the right ways. 👍 10/10

So far this game has been amazing, not only has it been an absolute vibe to play but it's actually doing it's job as a horror game to terrify me at every moment(maybe I'm just paranoid so it works more on me but still) I would absolutely recommend this game to anyone who wants a horror game that is a vibe most of the time while maintaining horror elements

Great Game, super fun. I got a bit burnt out about the item\ingredient collecting about 3/4 through the game. I turned down the requirements for crafting. I still recommend the game and look forward to a follow up.

Wonderful atmosphere, compelling game mechanics, and but holy COW! This game runs like a hay bale with buckets for wheels. It runs terribly on a powerful desktop PC. It also runs terribly on steam deck, and from everything I've read of other users' experiences, it runs terribly on every piece of hardware that you attempt. So could the developers fix this issue? Hopefully. It's incredible they haven't yet, if you google "Pacific Drive performance" you'll find every attempted fix under the sun, but at the end of the day it's probably just laziness and haphazard development, Basically this is an AAA dev cosplay, and a game that makes you spend more time in the Steam overlay browser trying to troubleshoot. Essentially, just people being bad at their jobs - on purpose. I love to troubleshoot tech problems when there's a solution, and fortunately that is basically the premise of this game. But I can't be bothered to play it anymore because it feels like it's is built on a house of cards. Apparently they "fixed" the asinine save system, for the second time, a couple months back, but don't bother until you see someone running this "artistic art style" game on a regular piece of hardware without turning your PC into an 850W space heater.

Peak, but it gave my grandpa ptsd of the war and blasted my skull open with a 24 caliber rifle.

One of my favourite games of 2024, loved playing through it, and now replaying with the addition of Expedition update adding nice roguelite elements that I love. Biggest praise I can give is, that i don't like driving games nor do I care about cars that much, but this game is the sole exception in that.

A great single player, story-driven experience. The addition of mid-mission saving was a winning move for me; I'd shelved the game solely because of the length of missions requiring a significant time investment for each session.

This game is an amazing experience, the vibe, aesthetics and game design is incredibly appealing and fun, this car driving and car Mechanic survival craft is some of the coziest feeling and fun gameplay, the DLC's are hella cool as well. 10/10 game for me, though the experience is not for everyone, this is a damn fine first game for Ironwood

Love the immersion and the atmosphere. Great crafting system too. Runs can feel a bit same-y at times, but everything else about the game is so very good that it makes up for it, especially if you're a loot goblin.

Not very fun and filled with shit that I didnt ask for. Neat for the little bit you can get out of it before it becomes a slog of endless monotony

Buy this, play this, soil your pants because the immersiveness and horror aspects are out of this world. Oh and the story and gameplay are goated aswell ig.

Great game, made even better with the fact that you can add your own music to the Radio. Such a great idea. When you are pedal to the metal, a radiation wave touching your back bumper while Mute City is blasting... Peak Pacific Drive.

[h1]PACIFIC DRIVE - 9/10[/h1] [h2]46 Hours Played | 45/49 Achievements[/h2] [h3]Gameplay & Mechanics[/h3] [b]Pacific Drive plays like a looter-shooter, but with your car as the weapon, inventory, and best friend all in one.[/b] The gameplay is tense, immersive, and genuinely [i]unique.[/i] There's nothing quite like the feeling of venturing into the unknown in a janky but beloved station wagon, scrambling to gather resources, and narrowly escaping with your engine sputtering. Your car isn’t just a vehicle — it becomes your lifeline, your shelter, and your friend. As silly as that sounds, the game does a great job of making you feel like you're truly bonded with your car. The "Quirk" system is beyond unique, and without spoiling anything, it's hilarious and borderline annoying, but in a good way! [h3]Story & Worldbuilding[/h3] This game offers a strange, fascinating story with great delivery. The ending is not quite what I'd hoped for, but that doesn't detract from it much or sway my opinion on the game overall. The writing is solid, and the lore is surprisingly deep if you pay attention and dig through the Records and Frequency Files scattered throughout the game. [h3]Visuals & Style[/h3] At first, I wasn't very impressed with the graphics and visuals. They did grow on me quickly though! While not AAA graphics, the style and art fits the atmosphere well, helping the Zone feel alive. I had great performance with the visuals turned all the way up (Ryzen 7 3700X, RTX 3070, 32GB RAM - but definitely overkill for this game). [h3]Audio & Voice Acting[/h3] The voice acting is just excellent. The characters feel well-written and natural, and the dialogue adds a lot to the experience. The music isn't necessarily iconic or memorable in my experience, but it complements the gameplay well and enhances the vibe. I'd say I used the game music and radio 80% of the time, and Spotify music the other 20%, mainly just when grinding stuff out. [h3]Difficulty & Progression[/h3] Starts off easy, gradually getting more difficult - and sometimes it's no joke lol. The world and car can be very unpredictable, so you have to be ready for anything and everything to go wrong at any time. The endgame can be a little grindy, but it's not too bad if you enjoy the core gameplay loop. [h3]Replayability & Value[/h3] The story itself can be finished in around 20-25 hours if you rush through it, and easily 50+ hours if you take your time to explore and collect stuff (recommended). Getting 100% Steam Achievements will probably take around 50 hours. After finishing the main story and most side content in ~35 hours, I still kept going back for achievements and collecting lore-related stuff. DLC would absolutely drag me back in! [h2]Conclusion[/h2] Highly recommended, and $30 is totally fair for what you get! It's not AAA, but easily is one of the best indie games and honestly probably isn't far from AAA quality. Ironwood Studios crushed it here, and I'm looking forward to what else they have to offer!

it is too good to much atmosphere pretty, engaging, exciting, spooky. makes you keep going and going and going ...the downsides the story is not really fleshed out, it ends too soon with too little impact - you'll definitly end the overarching story without getting most upgrade - leaving upgrades feeling less neccesary and only nice to haves - not wanted or needed. the zone is amazing and inspiring - every map is an opportunity for greatness or faliure - loot or loss just needs a bit more lore and reason to go on....

This is a highly enjoyable game. There is a lot going on but it really captures the eerie/comfy vibe it's going for.

A very beautiful game, even not at max settings, it plays well, the gameplay loop is enjoyable, and while I spent a lot of the game playing on the standard difficulty, I ended up changing a few settings to make the game a bit easier on the heart. The story is easy to follow but is interesting to unravel as you play. I really got a feel and connection to the characters, they're all well done and I was pleased with the ending.

Amazing game, good story. And the continue to add stuff post launch! Would highly recommend. Only issues I have is I feel like it's missing some threat on the drives. Like it feels like something should be hunting you

Solid original game, different from most games out there. Rouge-like with a story and a car you upgrade through the game. The environment is your enemy.

Bacana o jogo por enquanto, tem certa dificuldade e você consegue optimizar o veiculo

A very unique experience that I've not gotten out of any other game before. The ability to add custom songs to the radio is also great.

One of the best games I've seen in a long time. It has a wonderful soundtrack that fits perfectly with the game, exquisite story-line, little/no bugs. I can tell that passion went into making this game an experience of a lifetime, doesn't eat up half your life grinding, or any of your time really, overall 11/10. Devs, you should be proud of this game, this is a masterpiece, love you guys!

The atmosphere of this game alone is worth the money, very good/fun survival... car... horror... game?

Interesting story, great core game play loop. I kept coming back for more and enjoyed every minute.

Very dynamic game play which is layered with the game's calming atmosphere in driving, collecting/grinding materials, and listening to various radio stations within 'non-hostile' or 'least hostile' paths within the route map. Although, for my first time it is rather frustrating when there are limited amount of resources for expanding and upgrading your vehicle (in order to make it more resistant towards natural environments and hostile entities). But I guess it's just my skill issue as a beginner -- maybe I need to find a different strategy to grind and upgrade. In conclusion - amazing game!

A unique game that takes inspiration from Roadside Picnic in a different manner than most. If you dislike driving in games and/or you dislike resource gathering and crafting in games, you will hate this game. However if you like both of those, this game is for you. Add on a bit of horror and the concept of a Zone done really well, it's an experience you really can't find elsewhere right now. There is allot of gameplay settings that can be tweaked, you can (almost) fully customize the difficulty of the game to your liking, and allows you to toggle different quality of life features on or off. The car itself is highly customizable, both in decor and in components, which is a good thing as it is a focus of the game. The Driver (the character you play as) can have their equipment upgraded as well, making them more survivable and giving them more backspack space. The story is quite good, with many logs, recordings, and visual storytelling scattered about the areas you visit. The world perfectly matches the theme of the game from the start. Pacific Drive is a game you should take at your own pace to fully enjoy, it's not the type of game you want to rush to the end in. There is allot of things you will miss if you do, as the game is lovingly crafted. There was obviously care and passion behind the development of the game, and it shows. The game, to be fully fair, is a bit buggy and sometimes has issues with optimization, but not to a serious degree and i haven't run into a game breaking bug during my playthrough. It's certainly more technically sound than allot of the games released these days, and allows you to choose between DX11 or DX12. I can highly recommend this game, it's an experience you will likely not find anywhere else, and it's one of the games you'll feel empty without once you finish playing it. That is likely the highest praise i could give it, that it's one of the games you don't want to end.

Pacific Drive feels so close and yet so far from a truly phenomenal experience. It's environment, art style, and music are all truly memorable with a truly novel and captivating gameplay loop. Unfortunately Pacific Drive falters in a few ways. Most importantly is in its lack of diversity. While there are a large number of anomalies to discover, most require a similar reaction from the player: "Don't drive there!" or "Avoid that obstacle!". While these can be fun at first, over the course of the game most of the anomalies blur into the same simple obstacle to avoid. Pacific Drive is absolutely worth your time. I think it's a fantastic lesson to game designers holistically. Just expect to be left wanting a more.