Pacific Drive welcomes you to the Olympic Exclusion Zone

I’m Blake, and from everyone here at Ironwood Studios – hello! We’re stoked to finally reveal Pacific Drive to the world in State of Play.

Born from the rhythm of an engine, Pacific Drive is a run-based first-person driving survival game. As you explore the Zone, your car is your lifeline: scavenge resources to maintain and improve your car — as long as you keep it running, it will protect you from the surrounding dangers.

In 1955, the United States government seized a region of the Pacific Northwest by eminent domain. The Olympic Peninsula became the staging ground for promising new technologies, but these utopian creations came at great cost: severe radiation, environmental collapse, and supernatural horrors. The government walled off the area and established the Olympic Exclusion Zone. What happened inside was never disclosed.

Rumors and stories about the Zone run rampant, compelling you to go and explore its perimeter. Your plans go awry and you’re now stuck inside – you don’t know it yet, but the only way out is through. You find a barely running station wagon deep in the woods, miraculously unlocked and able to make the trip down the hill into the valley. Here you come across an abandoned auto shop which becomes your base of operations, where you safely repair and improve your car between runs. Do your best to survive, solve mysteries, and search for a way out — or become part of the ongoing legends of the Zone.

Structured as a “road-lite”, each trip from your garage into the Zone is full of strange anomalies and technologies, and plenty of radiation. If you keep your car in good shape, you’ll be safe to explore, scavenge for resources, and drive further into distinct biomes that offer more valuable rewards. The land shifts with every passing storm, making each journey a unique experience. Discovering new resources will allow you to outfit your vehicle with defenses, trick out your garage, and find more dangerous routes that bring you deeper and deeper into the Zone.

Since its founding in 2019, Ironwood Studios has been hard at work on Pacific Drive, and we’re extremely proud to be working with PlayStation to bring it to life. Our team loves filling surreal settings with layered systems that allow players to have their own unexpected and unique experiences. We’re always dreaming about urban legends and the forests of the Pacific Northwest—two things the Olympic Exclusion Zone is absolutely full of. It doesn’t hurt that we’re all big fans of a good old fashioned road trip, either.

As you settle into what remains of the Zone, you’ll discover that it’s not quite as abandoned as you think — this place is full of old tales and legends, some long gone while others still linger. Remember to keep your eyes on the road, the woods are deep – and not entirely empty.

Pacific Drive is coming to PlayStation 5 in 2023.