Pacific Drive’s summer update adds a photomode and is the first of a new roadmap of free updates to come this year

“Dumpsters, DSLR’s, and Drives”

Image credit: Ironwood Studios

Station wagon survival ’em up Pacific Drive has received a summer update which adds a photomode, new upgrades for garage machinery, a new sideways dodge manouver for the car, and a piece of paid cosmetic DLC. This is the first of a new roadmap of post-release updates still to come.

Does the use of “roadmap” here constitute a pun?

Pacific Drive | Dumpsters, DSLR’s, and Drives Summer 2024 Update

Pacific Drive’s Dumpsters, DSLRs & Drives update trailer.Watch on YouTube
The photomode can now be launched from the pause menu, and lets you fiddle with depth of field, focus control, and exposure times, as well as overlaying visual filters and altering weather conditions and time of day. Standard stuff now, as far as photomodes go, but very welcome in a game world as atmospheric Pacific Drive’s hazily lit forests.

Your new equippable car ability is the Juke Jet, which literally seems to be a small jet engine you can tape to both sides of your vehicle. It lets you horizontally dodge your car left or right, all the better to avoid obstacles looming out of the fog.

Finally in the free update, there’s two new nodes to unlock via the Fabrication Station on the garage upgrade tree. Those are the Smart Matter Deconstructor, which processes all the junk you collect but don’t want, and the Vargas Auto-Pac-Vac, which will automatically “deposit materials into your transfer trunk”.

You can read about the new paid DLC over on Steam. The cosmetic items don’t interest me much, but the sale of these items is what’s funding post-release free updates to the game. Of which there are more to come: this autumn they’re planning on adding new difficulty modes, game customisation settings, and free cosmetics, with another as yet “redacted” update planned for the winter.