Four-wheel survival nightmare Pacific Drive gets free update, paid cosmetic content, and 2024 roadmap

Four-wheeled survival game Pacific Drive has officially sold 600,000 copies, and its developer Ironwood Studios has announced that it is celebrating the milestone with a series of content updates throughout the rest of this year. The first of those updates is now live, offering a bunch of free add-ons, as well as some cosmetic DLC.

The first free update for Pacific Drive lets players document their journeys through the anomaly-filled forests of the Olympic Games’ restricted area using a new photo mode. Available directly from the pause menu, this mode gives players access to various camera settings — including depth of field, focus and exposure controls — as well as a variety of aesthetic filters. It’s also possible to change the weather conditions and time of day while you’re there.

Shooting mode arrives alongside the new Juke Jet ability which, once mounted on the side rack of your station wagon, provides a horizontal boost that should come in handy for dodging and drifting. There are also two new upgrade nodes to be found in the garage crafting station, which unlock the Smart Matter Deconstructor and the Vargas Auto-Pac-Vac. The former allows players to dump trash into the Matter Constructor from anywhere in the garage, while the latter deposits materials into the transport box before filling the rest of the empty storage space.

Elsewhere, there’s a new Performance Mode dedicated to the PS5 version of Pacific Drive, new points, interests, and world-building details in Junctions, a new Coastal Highway map, a new Believer sticker and Golden Hood adornment, and more – as seen in Ironwood’s Correction Notes.

The free update (official version 1.6.2) arrives alongside a new paid DLC pack known as the Friendly Dumpster Customisation Pack. This pack features a selection of decorative-themed cosmetic items to decorate your station wagon, including a recycled steering wheel, a Dumpster Devotee sticker set, a Gift Shifter, an Air Trashener, a Dumpster Idol, and a Cuddle Can.

As detailed in Pacific Drive’s new post-launch roadmap for 2024, this summer DLC batch will be followed by two more releases before the end of the year. This fall, players can expect a free update featuring new difficulty modes, game customization settings, and cosmetics, along with another paid cosmetics pack. A winter update will follow, but details on that are still under wraps. More will be revealed “in the coming months.”

If you haven’t tried Pacific Drive and its clever buggy in its wonderfully bizarre incarnation of the Pacific Northwest yet, it’s worth investigating. Eurogamer’s Chris Tapsell described it as “an exhausting and strangely endearing nightmare” in his four-star review, and it’s currently 40% off, meaning you can get it for £14.99 on PS5 and PC.