Pacific Drive: Whispers in the Woods Review – More Screams Per Mile

Pacific Drive: Whispers in the Woods

If you’re reading this, you’re probably in the know. But just in case, Pacific Drive was one of the more unique action-adventure survival games of 2024. Set in the already-gloomy Pacific Northwest, Pacific Drive was about surviving a foray into the Olympic Exclusion Zone, an area filled with supernatural energy and monstrous anomalies. A headed-for-the-junkheap station wagon became your partner in survival. The loop was simple: drive, collect upgrades and parts, survive long enough to make it back to the garage, and tinker with your car. Each time out, you could make it a little farther. Whispers of the Woods is a significant addition to Pacific Drive. It adds several new systems and a whole new area to explore.

Alternate Routes

Some DLC is for endgame players only. In the case of Whispers of the Woods, the new content is accessible for only a few hours in the game. However, the base game’s systems are already opaque enough that my advice would be to spend a good amount of time getting comfortable with Pacific Drive’s world first. The DLC adds some new systems that really only apply to the new zone and slightly alter the basic loop.

The new content takes place in the titular Whispering Woods, a substantial new zone that visually slants a little more towards horror. This is certainly true of the Woods’ new enemies, like the cultish Highwaymen, the spiderlike Huntsman, and more. The Whispering Woods has an entirely new and separate narrative about a cult that worships the zone’s anomalies, which might make less sense without having played Pacific Drive’s main campaign.

The fundamental mechanics of Pacific Drive — tense excursions into the woods, scavenging for parts, and upgrading the station wagon — remain intact. However, much is new. The Tide is a world-altering, monster-releasing phenomenon. A meter constantly ticks off towards the next Tide. To slow the Tide’s return, you need synergy. Synergy comes from finding and using Attuned parts for the car. There are altars in the Woods which contain artifacts. Artifacts have both positive and negative effects. Artifacts can also be sacrificed, which opens up a portal home somewhere on the map, but also speeds up time to the Tide.

Clear as Mud

Whispers of the Woods relies on the same tech tree and energy mechanics as Pacific Drive, which means that the parallel stories can be equally viable in upgrading your car. However, while in the Woods’ content, repairs require harmonic energy, which needs to be extracted from Attuned parts. There’s a new Harmonizer tool that slowly transfers energy.

While Pacific Drive has a tension-inducing and mechanically rich concept, no one would argue that its implementation is perfectly elegant. The game can be dense and frustrating, with some tedious garage tinkering, clunky driving, and overall lack of clarity. Whispers of the Woods isn’t a panacea. But Pacific Drive has been receiving updates since launch, and the developers have taken sandpaper to some of the rougher edges. In terms of performance, Whispers of the Woods arrives in good shape, with few issues on the PC. The game’s already unnerving audio design and subtle electronic music help add an extra helping of horror in the expansion.

Pacific Drive had a unique hook and rightly deserved praise for its fresh take on the survival crafting genre. Whispers of the Woods offers an alternate starting adventure for new players and rich new content for veteran players returning to the game. It doesn’t radically reinvent the base game, but nails the perfect balance of fresh and familiar that makes DLC most effective.

***PC code provided by the publisher for review***