The other day I read an old interview with Hidetaka Miyazaki, the FromSoftware director behind Dark Souls and Elden Ring, and it seems particularly relevant here. “I’m a huge masochist, so when I make games like these… this is how I want to be treated,” he said. “” That’s how I make it! It’s just that sometimes other people don’t understand it; it’s for my pleasure.” His interviewer interjects: “Really? You want to be killed deep in the forest, getting punched by a huge mushroom?”
Pacific Drive reviewDeveloper: Ironwood StudiosPublisher: Kepler InteractivePlatform: Played on PCAvailability: Out 22nd Feb on on PC (Steam, Epic) and PS5
“Yes, yes. And the curse area… When I get cursed–”
Interviewer: “You want to die from a barrage of arrows?!”
Miyazaki: “It’s gratifying. I like that, I just wanted to emphasise it!”
Hidetaka Miyazaki would love Pacific Drive. On my roadbound quest into the heart of this game’s cursed and recalcitrant Zone I’ve been battered, smashed and crashed. Zapped, snagged, blasted with radiation, lobbed into a ditch, fired into a tree and also, more than once, lightly bonked on the head by my own car’s boot when trying to close it.