I’ve seen beauty in games before. Sweeping vistas, meticulously crafted characters, worlds teeming with life. But Pacific Drive… it’s a different beast entirely and the most unsettlingly beautiful game so far this year.
It’s a paradox.
It’s a love letter written with radioactive ink.
It’s music for a night that will never end.
It’s unsettling; it’s unforgettable.
It grabs your throat and whispers something in your ear, which makes you want to stop the struggle and submit to its calls.
It’s the most captivating game I’ve played all year.
And it’s introduced me to a sort of beauty I’d never have believed could exist.
A haunting landscape you never want to get out of
The Olympic Exclusion Zone is a place where nature has gone wild, and nature has every plan to keep it that way. It’s a place where sunlight filters through the fog in a way that’s unnerving but also breathtaking. Towering trees stand like shattered sentinels and the very air seems to hum with a threat, even when nothing else seems to be happening. One thing was certain to me within an hour of gameplay—Pacific Drive isn’t your average virtual driving vacation.
This was always meant to be a world of unsettling beauty; a world where you know you are not safe, but still there’s no place on Earth (or beyond) where you’d rather be.
What’s even more disturbing than the landscape are the anomalies—bizarre, unpredictable entities that want you to drive no more. They pulse with an eerie light, they snatch cars right off the road, and they’ll send shivers down your spine with their otherworldly designs.
It’s like stepping into a David Lynch fever dream, and you won’t be able to look away.
An unnerving soundscape that you can always hear… faintly
Pacific Drive doesn’t just look unsettling; it sounds unsettling too. The soundtrack is a haunting mix of custom-licensed tunes from Pacific Northwestern bands. These tunes set the perfect mood for your terrifying road trip (if you ever wanted one). It’s like the very spirit of the region is woven into the music—that’s how astonishingly well the music enhances the eerie and immersive atmosphere of the game.
There’s a likable sense of realism to the game’s soundscape. Creak of your car, whisper of the wind through the trees—everything adds up beautifully, though unnervingly.
There’s another layer to the sound of the game. Investigative podcast-style audio logs draw you into the mysteries of the zone and recount some of the chilling events that led to the current state. Night Vale-esque radio broadcasts crackle with cryptic warnings and strange occurrences. Even if you’re not paying attention, you can sense the sounds are hinting at the horrors that lurk just beyond your headlights.
If the briefing to the composers was to ‘make it sound like the beauty of the post-apocalyptic world’, they’ve nailed it. If you’re anything like me, the sounds will haunt your dreams long after you’ve put down the controller.
The unsettling beauty of the unknown
Nothing about Pacific Drive will remind you of Need For Speed, even though both are games from the same genre. Look at the anomalies themselves. They are the heart of Pacific Drive’s unsettling beauty. Their enigmatic nature (and not to forget—their bizarre designs) is a constant source of delicious dread.
Some, like the traffic light abductor, are hauntingly beautiful in their simplicity. They lure you in with a pale glow, then latch onto your car with a sickening crunch, and drain its energy as you try to escape. Others, like the towering spires that pulse with an eerie light, defy the laws of physics. And then there are the grabbers, shadowy figures that snatch your car and drag it to who-knows-where.
But not all anomalies are out to get you. The Pacemaker can charge your car’s battery and even turn ordinary scraps into valuable resources. It’s a reminder that even in the darkest corners of the Exclusion Zone, beauty can still be found.
A beautiful paradox of a game
It’s not exactly clear what Pacific Drive wants to do to you. Does it want to haunt you? Does it want you to escape into a world that just can’t be? Does it want you to think again about whether you know what beauty is?
To be honest I don’t know yet, even though I’ve played it for more than 50 hours.
All I know is that I love the beat-up old station wagon.
I love the eerie silence of the Olympic Exclusion Zone.
I love the way the sun filters through the fog.
I love the feeling of dread that washes over me every time I see a grabber lurking in the distance.
I love the thrill of discovering a hidden pacemaker, knowing that it will charge my battery and maybe even transmute some precious materials.
I love the sense of accomplishment I feel when I finally reach the abandoned pit stop, my battered car barely holding together, knowing that I’ve survived another day in the Zone.
I love Pacific Drive.
By the way you can check out more articles on PS5 games on Gamespace.com
