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Pacific Drive received its “largest ever free content update” this week, one which introduces a brand new way of playing Ironwood Studios’ vehicular survival game. But you’d better step away from the newswheel, bucko, because I’m hijacking this article for my own devious ends. While the headline addition of the update is some fancy-sounding expeditions, it’s a secondary feature developer Ironwood Studios has folded in, which actually made me consider reinstalling the game.
You see, although I admired much about Pacific Drive, from its anomaly-strewn slice of West Coast woodland to its surprisingly intense vehicle simulation, I ultimately bailed on the game for one specific reason: saving. Previously, Pacific Drive only autosaved upon entry to a new junction (the game’s name for its open-ended, driveable map chunks) with manual saving limited to your garage.
The latter functionality I was fine with, but the former meant if you were mid-junction and suddenly had to attend to life stuff, you could end up losing a big slice of progress. This happened to me several times, until eventually I got tired of running through the same chunk of world again.
It seems like I’m not the only person to have suffered from this issue. “We firmly believe in the core design of the Pacific Drive gameplay loop and the risk that comes from a potential lost run. However, we know that sometimes life happens,” writes Ironwood in its Steam update blog. “Since launch, through feedback and discussion about the game, players have made clear that there is an ask for the ability to save the game at any point.”
Consequently, the new update adds a “suspend run” feature that sounds like a more traditional save and quit, letting you maintain your progress up to the moment you stop playing. It appears this was tricky to get working, as Ironwood says it will provide a “more technical explanation” in the future. But knowing that I can quit without losing any progress definitely makes me more inclined to play again, as the game was tough enough without forcing you to play through entire junctions at a time.
Right, news hijack over, normal service resumes. The update’s primary addition to Pacific Drive is expeditions—offshoot driving adventures that have a more conventional roguelite structure. Ironwood explains how they work in the blog. “Expeditions start in the garage with an ever-changing set of challenges and restrictions, generating new routes, and ramping up the difficulty to ensure that every journey feels fresh.”
These expeditions will feature new junction types, including Pit Stop junctions that provide a safe area to repair your car and recuperate from your travels. Expeditions also introduce a new shop called Ida’s Exchange, an itinerant trader who’ll appear at different points along your journey. Intriguingly, expeditions are not a separate game mode, but unlock at an early point during the campaign, and can be completed in parallel with the main story. If you acquire useful items and upgrades on an expedition, you’ll be able to use them to progress your adventure, which is pretty neat.
There are also a few other things the update adds, like upgrades and new functions for the plasma scrapper and thermal vacuum and over an hour of new music comprised of 21 tracks from both new and returning artists. It all amounts to a pretty beefy range of additions. To coincide with the update, Pacific Drive is currently on a 40% discount, meaning you can pick it up for $17.99/£14.99. The discount ends April 15.
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Kurt Indovina
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