Howdy! I’m Blake from the Ironwood Studios staff and we’re proud to introduce Whispers in the Woods, a serious narrative and gameplay expansion to Pacific Drive.
When Pacific Drive first launched in February 2024, gamers joined their trusty station wagon to courageous the haunting, anomaly-filled Olympic Exclusion Zone. The sport’s distinctive mix of driving, tense exploration, and scrappy automobile upkeep shortly resonated with followers of automobile and survival video games alike. Now, we’re excited to convey gamers again to the driver’s seat and again to the Zone in Whispers in the Woods, coming later this year for Ps 5.
Return to the Zone
Whispers in the Woods takes you on a brand-new journey again into the Olympic Exclusion Zone. Obtainable after your first few hours in the recreation, the expansion could be pursued alongside your principal marketing campaign and explores the rise of a terrifying group of anomaly obsessed fanatics hidden deep inside the depths of the forests.
With their look, the expansion brings a change to the woods of The Zone not like something you’ve seen earlier than. Not solely do new anomalies roam the forests, however huge effigies adorned with cryptic symbols fill the panorama as the recreation’s ambiance takes on a darker extra horror centered tone.
“From the very starting, we knew we wished to take the mysteries of the Olympic Exclusion Zone in a brand new route for this Expansion.” says Cassandra Dracott, Inventive Director at Ironwood Studios. “We had heard a lot suggestions and so many tales about the concern folks had skilled in Pacific Drive and in With Whispers in the Woods, we knew we wished to lean exhausting in that route.”
It’s not only a tonally completely different expertise both. We’ve added a wholly new absolutely voiced narrative in the expansion and with it, we’re capable of proceed constructing on the world of the recreation and the surreal nature of the Zone. We’ll depart you to theorize what occurs subsequent – however it wouldn’t be Pacific Drive if we weren’t additionally supplying you with new experiences to have together with your 4 wheeled companion.
Uncover Artifacts
Whispers in the Woods brings extra of the whole lot you’d hope for in a Pacific Drive expansion. New objects, automobile elements, cosmetics, junction varieties, and anomalies await. We’ve even added new behaviors to outdated anomalies to assist maintain you in your toes. The biggest and most vital addition nevertheless, are the model new Artifacts.
“As you gather these mysterious objects, you’ll have to deal with their unpredictable automobile and world altering results, forcing you to continually adapt and alter your technique on the fly.” provides Richard Weschler, Lead Designer on Whispers in the Woods.
Created by our mysterious group of fanatics, Artifacts are the expansion’s gameplay centerpiece. Impressed by our quirk system, every Artifact is imbued with a situation and an impact mentioned situation creates. Maybe each time you bounce, your automobile horn honks. Perhaps when your automobile horn honks it additionally takes harm. Whereas some could grant you unusual benefits, others will add twists and turns to the way you play. Artifacts may even play off of one another to create chain reactions.
It’s as much as you to determine which Artifacts are the proper ones on your time in the Zone. It doesn’t matter what kind of Artifact you and your wagon discover, two issues are true: gathering lots of them can be important to your time in the Whispering Woods, and when you maintain too many, rather more harmful issues deep inside the forests will slowly awaken.
A significant expansion for brand new and returning gamers
Since its launch, we’re proud to have a couple of million gamers globally. In the 18 months since launch, we’ve continued to help the recreation with a number of free updates like April 2025’s Countless Expeditions replace, which added countless journeys into the Zone, doubled the dimension of the radio tracklist, and added the droop run function.
Whispers in the Woods nevertheless, is the studio’s most formidable replace but. With hours of recent gameplay and story content material, plus an explorable area near one-third the dimension of the base recreation, the expansion represents a big step ahead for each new and returning followers and we’re extremely excited for everybody to expertise it.
“We see this launch as each for our longtime gamers and a welcome signal for newcomers,” Cassandra provides. “If you happen to’ve been driving via the Zone since day one, Whispers in the Woods goes so as to add a model new, extra terrifying tackle the Olympic Exclusion Zone. And when you’re simply beginning out, this expansion marks the finest model of the recreation up to now with new methods and content material to seek out and discover.”
Whether or not you’re returning to your acquainted station wagon or beginning contemporary in your first journey into the Zone, Pacific Drive: Whispers in the Woods affords a haunting new journey and we will’t wait so that you can expertise it later this year on Ps 5.