From the first time they climb behind the wheel on PlayStation 5, Pacific Drive asks players to learn survival through intimacy: the battered station wagon is less a tool and more a partner whose health dictates every choice. The base game established a satisfying rhythm of preparation, risky runs, and garage tinkering – each successful return feels earned because the car’s condition is constantly on the line. Whispers In The Woods, the new DLC add-on, deepens that relationship by shifting the theater from open anomalies to sheltered dread beneath a dark canopy; players spend more time weighing the tangible benefits of scavenged parts against creeping, supernatural costs.
Mechanically, the DLC introduces artifacts and attunement systems that make choices feel sharper: carrying an Artifact can unlock powerful effects but also draws new hazards and resource penalties, so runs become tighter bets on what to risk for what reward. This expansion revitalises the core loop by providing emergent, risky toys to experiment with, and the extra garage stations and route modifiers give tangible variation to otherwise familiar runs. Yet the added complexity is double-edged – players who already felt stretched thin by inventory juggling and repair micro-management may find the new systems amplify friction rather than smooth it.
Controls and interface on PS5 keep the driving satisfying: the station wagon has a believable heft and the act of driving through warped, hazard-filled terrain still produces tense, memorable moments. The DualSense adds convincing weight to throttle and brake inputs, and encounters where a misjump or dent changes the rest of the run are genuinely dramatic. However, the console UI still struggles with the game’s inventory density; swapping parts, balancing trunk loadouts and navigating the garage’s menus can feel clumsy on a controller, and those interruptions undercut momentum on longer expeditions. That tension between tactile driving and fiddly management is one of the expansion’s recurring trade-offs, carried over from the main game.
Aesthetic and sound design are where the DLC most clearly improves on the original. The woods are rendered as a characterful, claustrophobic environment – ritual altars, carved effigies and a palette that moves from verdant to blood-tinged undergrowth make exploration unnerving in a productive way. The new ambient cues, the addition of voiced characters and fresh passages of Wilbert Roget II’s score enhance immersion and make many encounters feel cinematic rather than procedural. Still, PS5 performance is not flawless: occasional stutters and longer load pauses in hub sequences blunt some of that atmosphere and will be noticeable to players sensitive to framerate and loading consistency.
Narrative expansion is handled with subtlety: the cult-touched storylines and added side arcs do not rewrite the Zone’s mystery, but they add texture and clearer thematic stakes that make late-game excursions feel meaningful. The new characters, the whispered backstory of the woods and the artifacts’ implied history enrich the world, and the DLC’s eight-to-twelve-hour story length (plus side content) provides a compact but substantial reason to revisit the map. At the same time, mission variety sometimes returns to familiar survival beats – secure, escape, repair – and players looking for radical mission design departures may find fewer surprises than they hoped for.
Whispers In The Woods is an expansion that knows how to emphasise the game’s identity while nudging it darker and more systemic. For players who enjoyed the base game’s melding of driving tension and mechanical care, the DLC supplies worthwhile new toys, richer atmosphere and a resonant story extension that rewards repeated runs. For those who were frustrated by inventory overhead or who need rock-solid console performance, the added systems and occasional technical hiccups could feel like more weight. The result is a confident, sometimes flawed chapter that enhances the Zone’s mystery and gives the station wagon new reasons to be loved – or to be feared.
Score: 8.0/10
Press Play Media 