How long is Pacific Drive?

Working out how long Pacific Drive is, and what sort of time it takes to beat the game, all depends on a couple of things. Firstly how dedicated you are to drilling through the story alone and, basically, the luck of the zone - with random events, anomalies and road layouts all factoring in to how long it'll take to finish Pacific Drive.

How long does it take to finish Pacific Drive?

How long to finish pacific drive — (Image credit: Ironwood Studios)

Pacific Drive guides

Pacific Drive quirks
Pacific Drive transmuters
Pacific Drive dumpster pearls

From my experiences you'll easily take 30+ hours to finish Pacific Drive. The original review guide suggests you can clear the story alone in just 12-14 hours but that seems highly unlikely to me. I ended up closer to 50 hours by the time I finally rolled credits, but that's partly because I spent a lot of time doing supply runs and exploring the zone to try and scavenge up vital supplies - my engine was nearly permanently broken while I tried to rustle up enough Pacific Drive gas cylinders to fix it, for example. It also took me an age to find enough Thermosap Crystals, a story critical resource near the end that always appeared in scarce amounts, in the worst, most dangerous zones possible.

So how you explore and unlock routes through the zone, and where the dangerously unstable extreme areas appear, play a part. To some extent the upgrades you unlock and attach can also affect things as well from the protection they give - or conversely, lose, if they break while you're out. If you need a particular resource or objective in a hot zone, it's likely to be a more dangerous drive that will see you either taking longer to complete or having to detour for repair supplies to fix everything back up after. Basically, while you can cut down the time by being focused, it's just going to be down to the luck of the run everytime you set out.

© GamesRadar+. Not to be reproduced without permission.