The Ultimate Beginners Guide To Pacific Drive

Last Updated on 26 February, 2024

Not even a week into its release, Pacific Drive has already been garnering the attention of gamers all around the world. The survival game makes you drive around in your station wagon as you scavenge resources and make it back alive. Today, we bring you a number of tips & tricks in our beginners’ guide so that you can have the best possible start on Pacific Drive.

About Pacific Drive

Released on February 22, Pacific Drive is a survival game released by Kepler Interactive and created by Ironwood Studios. The player travels the Pacific Northwest in the game, either on foot or in a station wagon, while trying to figure out how to escape. Featuring a surreal sci-fi setting in the year 1998, you have no one but your station wagon as your companion as you venture into the Olympic Exclusion Zone. The vehicle can be customized and repaired in the garage which serves as the base of operations.

The game is currently only available on Windows and PlayStation 5.

Pacific Drive Beginners Guide

To have the best possible start at the game, here are a bunch of tips and tricks you should incorporate into your runs:

1. Most of the available tools in the game have multiple purposes:  The crowbar deals damage, and pries open chained doors & locked car trunks. Meanwhile, the scrapper scraps materials, including locked trunk doors. The impact hammer breaks plasma containers and also breaks chained locks.
2. After each run, whether successful or not, you will come across the auto shop. If you fail or cannot finish a run, the game gives you a consolation prize in the form of the friendly dumpster. Check the dumpster for materials every time you come back. The dumpster will provide you with materials such as scrap material, plastic, rubber, and more. This dumpster will serve as an infinite source of materials in the early game.
3. To get even more materials, make the most out of your scrapper. Across the dumpster, there is an old car on which you can use your scrapper tool to obtain materials such as plastic, glass, duct tape, rubber, and scrap metal. Next to the car, there is a shelf with a computer and radio which you can also salvage for materials such as copper wire, electronics, and more. In between your drives, you can also use the scrapper on random cars parked by the road for more components.
4. Speaking of drives, always use your parking brake to avoid unexpected problems when stationed at a slope. You don’t want to see the sight of your car rolling down a slope, hitting a tree, and then get damaged in the process.
5. Unlock the Fabrication Station as soon as possible in your playthrough. You can unlock this station by completing the quest, Build The Antenna. The Fabrication Station enables you to upgrade almost every part of your car to endure every terrain, improve defense, and increase storage.
6. Focus on getting better tires for your station wagon during the early game. Upgrade to summer tires as they handle roads better and last way longer than spare tires. Even though they don’t handle as well as summer tires, consider switching to off-road tires later.
7. The key to efficient repairs is the Matter Regenerator. Once operational, simply place the repairable parts into it before your next run. To construct the Matter Regenator, you need 30 pieces of plastic, 10 pieces of rubber, and 6 chemicals.
8. Before you head out on your runs, be sure to double-check that you have packed all the essentials. It’s a wise thing to bring an electrician’s kit or two with you when you’re out scavenging. This can help you break through electronically locked doors that you will come across in the zone.
9. Even though fuel is more than readily available, make a habit of topping up on long drives. Most abandoned vehicles have at least a bit of spare fuel lying around in the tank.

Follow these tips from our beginners’ guide and you’ll get an uber-smooth start to Pacific Drive. Do check out our guides section for more of such gaming guides.