You know that feeling when you're driving home late at night, the rain is drumming against the windshield, and for a split second, you feel like the car is the only safe place left in the world? That's the hook. That's why Pacific Drive worked. It wasn't just about the anomalies or the Olympic Exclusion Zone; it was about the relationship between a person and a machine that’s falling apart. If you’ve finished your run or gotten tired of your station wagon’s quirks, you’re likely hunting for games like Pacific Drive that capture that same mix of high-stakes maintenance and atmospheric dread.
Honestly, it’s a weirdly specific itch to scratch.
Most survival games treat your base as a static thing—a house you build or a chest you shove loot into. Pacific Drive made the base mobile and fragile. You weren't just "playing a game"; you were a mechanic in a supernatural wasteland. Finding something that replicates that mechanical intimacy isn't as easy as looking at a "top ten survival games" list. You have to look for games that understand the "machine as a character" trope.
The Mechanical Bond: Why Most Survival Games Miss the Mark
When people ask for games like Pacific Drive, they usually aren't looking for Minecraft or Rust. They’re looking for "The Car." Ironwood Studios tapped into something psychological. Your car was your armor, your storage, and your best friend. If a tire popped, you felt it in your soul.
Take My Summer Car, for example. It’s janky. It’s punishing. It’s incredibly Finnish. But it is perhaps the closest spiritual ancestor to the "fix-it-up" loop. You aren't just clicking "repair" on a menu. You are physically tightening bolts. You are worrying about the battery. While it lacks the sci-fi horror of the Zone, it shares that DNA of "if I don't take care of this machine, I am going to die in a ditch." It’s an acquired taste, mostly because the game actively hates you, but the satisfaction of hearing that engine turn over is identical to the relief of escaping a Gateway in the Zone.
Then there’s Subnautica.
People bring this up constantly because the Cyclops—the massive submarine you eventually build—is essentially the station wagon of the sea. You can decorate it. You can build inside it. You have to manage its power cells. When a Reaper Leviathan starts chewing on the hull and the internal lights go red, the panic is exactly the same as when a Minuteman starts dragging your car toward an anomaly. It's that "this is my home and it's being violated" feeling.
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Games Like Pacific Drive That Nail the Atmosphere
Atmosphere is the other half of the equation. The Zone was lonely, but it felt alive. If you want that specific brand of "something is very wrong here and I’m just passing through," you have to look at S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl.
It’s the obvious comparison, sure. But it’s obvious for a reason. Both games deal with "The Zone"—a place where the laws of physics are more like suggestions. In S.T.A.L.K.E.R., you don't have a car to hide in most of the time. You just have a gas mask and a gun that’s probably going to jam. The inventory management feels similar; you’re constantly weighing the value of a weird artifact against the weight of the ammo you need to stay alive. It's grittier, and the "anomalies" are less colorful and more "melt your face off," but the tension is a direct match.
The Loneliness of the Long Drive
There is a sub-genre of driving games that focuses on the journey rather than the destination. Jalopy is a great shout here. You’re driving an old Laika (basically a Trabant) through the Eastern Bloc. It’s not supernatural. You’re just trying to get to Turkey. But the car breaks down. Constantly. You have to stop, open the hood, swap out the carburetor, and keep an eye on your fuel. It’s a lo-fi version of the Pacific Drive loop.
- Jalopy: Focuses on the fragility of the car and the mundane struggle of travel.
- The Long Drive: A more surreal, infinite-procedural version where you scavenge parts in a desert. It’s weirder, buggier, and captures that "I found a better door in a shed" energy perfectly.
- Void Train: You're customizing a train instead of a car. You move through interdimensional voids. It’s a bit more "crafting-heavy" and combat-focused, but the "mobile base" aspect is front and center.
Why "The Car" is Your Only Friend
We need to talk about Mad Max (2015). It’s an older title now, but it’s often overlooked in these conversations. Your car, the Opus, is everything. You spend the whole game upgrading the engine, the armor, and the spikes. While it’s an open-world action game rather than a survival-horror-lite, the emotional attachment to the vehicle is the same. When you’re caught in a Great White sandstorm and you’re desperately trying to fix the car while lightning strikes around you, it feels like a cousin to Pacific Drive.
It’s about the vulnerability.
In Pacific Drive, you are weak. The car is strong. When you step out of the car to grab some lead plating or scrap a wrecked hull, you feel exposed. Dredge does this exceptionally well with a boat. You’re a fisherman. The world is beautiful during the day and horrifying at night. You upgrade your engine to go faster, your lights to see through the fog, and your hull to survive the "things" in the water. It’s got that "one more run" gameplay loop that makes you stay up until 2 AM.
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Survival Without the Wheels
If you can move past the requirement of a vehicle, some games like Pacific Drive hit the same psychological notes through their environmental storytelling. Voices of the Void is a massive one here. You’re a scientist in the Swiss Alps listening for signals from space. It’s just you in a base. You have to maintain servers, fix power outages, and deal with... things... that show up on your radar.
It’s terrifying because of what it doesn't show you. It shares that sense of "scientific equipment as a survival tool" that Pacific Drive used with its various scanners and HUD elements. You spend a lot of time looking at screens and worrying about battery percentages.
A Note on Hardcore Simulators
Some people love the tinkering more than the driving. If you’re the type who spent three hours in the garage in Pacific Drive just organizing your lockers and painting your panels, look at Stationeers. It is a brutally complex space station simulator. We’re talking about atmospheric pressure, gas mixtures, and actual logic circuits. It’s not for everyone. It’s "The Garage" turned up to eleven.
The "Weird Fiction" Influence
You can't talk about these games without acknowledging the "New Weird" literary genre. Pacific Drive owes a huge debt to Roadside Picnic by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky (which also inspired S.T.A.L.K.E.R.) and Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer.
If you want a game that captures the vibe of the Zone—the shifting reality and the feeling of being an ant in a giant's playground—check out Control. It’s not a survival game. It’s a 3rd-person shooter. But the "Oldest House" is essentially a giant, indoor version of the Olympic Exclusion Zone. Objects of Power are basically Anomalies. The lore is dense, scientific, and slightly insane. It fills that "I want to know what happened here" void that the logs in Pacific Drive left behind.
Practical Steps for Your Next Journey
Choosing your next game depends on what part of the "Drive" you liked most.
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If you liked the mechanical tinkering, go with My Summer Car or Jalopy. Be prepared for frustration; these games don't hold your hand, and they certainly don't have a "friendly dumpster" to spit out spare parts when you're stuck. You’ll be looking up guides on how to wire an alternator, and honestly, that’s part of the charm.
If you liked the mobile base and exploration, Subnautica is the gold standard. Just don't go too deep if you have a fear of the ocean. Or do. The terror is the point. Dredge is the better "low-commitment" version of this; you can play it in shorter bursts, but the "weirdness" factor is just as high.
If you liked the horror and the Zone, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 is the heavyweight champion. It’s beautiful, bleak, and will kill you for standing in the wrong place. For a more indie, experimental version, Voices of the Void provides a unique "base-defense" horror experience that feels very much in line with the scientific mystery of the Exclusion Zone.
Stop looking for a 1:1 clone. Pacific Drive is a bit of a unicorn. It's a "Road-like" (a term people are trying to make happen, for better or worse). But the spirit of the game—the bond between a person, their tools, and a world that makes no sense—is alive and well in these other titles.
Start by downloading the Subnautica or Dredge demos if they’re available, or just dive straight into S.T.A.L.K.E.R. if you have the stomach for it. Just remember: keep your headlights on and always carry a spare roll of duct tape.