A few hours into playing the Whispers In The Woods expansion for Pacific Drive, I started having deja vu to when I played Echoes Of The Eye expansion for Outer Wilds. In both cases, I was playing a hotly-anticipated, horror-themed expansion for games that I thouroughly loved. And in both cases, I wasn't enjoying the horror-themed systems as much as I thought I would. In the case of Outer Wilds, this was largely due to being exhausted by being a new dad. In the case of Whispers In The Woods, I was similarly emotionally exhausted by family drama that was happening in the holiday season of 2025. I just didn't have as much patience as I needed to play either of these games.
In both expansions, the fundamental gameplay and experience is actually changed considerably from the base game. For Pacific Drive, the methodical exploratory nature of the base game gives way to a much more high-pressure and goal-oriented approach. The base game was all about scavenging the levels for every resource that wasn't nailed down. It was about managing risk and seeking rewards. Or at least, that was how I played it. In the expansion, however, I started feeling like the intent is for the player to get in, get what you need, and get out as quickly as possible!
The big difference between these 2 expansions seems to be their reception by their respective communities. While I was a discordant voice in a harmony of near-overwhelming praise for Outer Wilds: Echoes of the Eye, I am just another noise in the cacophony of mixed and conflicting opinions about Pacific Drive: Whispers In The Woods.
Upon booting up the game with the DLC installed, the garage will be transformed by a mysterious cult.
Spooky stand-alone drive
Perhaps the most controversial aspect of Whispers In The Woods is that it has an economy and progression system that is completely detached from the core game's economy and progression. On the one hand, this provides a roughly consistent level of challenge, whether you're starting the expansion content a few hours into a new save file, or if you're using it as an excuse to re-visit the game after already having put hours into the post-credits free play. On the other hand, it means that, if you were at the end of the main campaign (or beyond), it really feels like the game is forcing a hard reset. And if you are still early in your campaign, a detour to play the expansion will feel like just that: a detour. Aside from the incidental collection of normal resources, you won't be doing much (if anything) that will progress the main campaign, upgrade the garage, or make meaningful permanent upgrades to the car.
Conversely, if you make a pit stop at a cabin or trailer to scavenge for resources, and only find normal, base game materials, it can be insanely frustrating. I recommend having a resource radar handy, so that you know whether a particular scavenging stop is worth the time and effort -- especially if you already have a pneumatic locker or 2 full of an entire campaign's worth of normal crafting resources back in the garage.
You have to re-grind for parts to craft new "attuned" car parts.
Essentially, the expansion creates "attuned" variations or equivalents of many of the game's resources and car parts, which you must now collect from scratch. In fact, during my first visit to the Whispering Woods, all of my car's late-game parts and equipment (that I already had installed) were rapidly damaged and rendered defective. All those insulated and anti-corrosion doors and panels that I had equipped all were rendered "fragile" by the time I returned to the garage for the first time, forcing me to scrap them. When I go back to the main game, I'll have to re-craft all of those. And if I had still been at the early stages of the final act of the base campaign, in which the materials for insulated and anti-corrosion parts are limited, I would probably be pretty pissed by the setback.
And if you want to switch between playing the expansion content or progressing the base game campaign, you'll have to take your whole car apart and re-equip the appropriate parts every time you put a Whispering Chart in or out of the Z.E.T.I. route analyzer.
The expansion areas seemed to almost instantly break
all my advanced base-game car parts!
I also had frequent problems with my Off-road wheels going flat or bald, and I felt like I was constantly replacing them -- long before I had found blueprints to create the attuned wheel equivalents. And once I had the attuned engine, headlight, and wheel parts available, I discovered that many of them need to be "fueled" by placing certain resources in their inventories. They aren't repaired by Repair Putty or other vanilla tools. The unique fuel and repair requirements of attuned equipment added extra, tedious, refueling requirements to runs that were already under plenty of time pressure.
Cloaked in fog and darkness
Regardless of how you might feel about the expansion's economy, I think it's safe to say that where the expansion excels is in its more horrifying atmosphere. This starts with an ominous low-lying fog effect blanketing every junction of the Whispering Woods (and sometimes appears in the garage too). The fog looks fantastic! It rolls around the road, obscuring obstacles and anomalies and forcing the driver to pace your driving so that you don't ram into broken down cars or fallen tree trunks.
Fog also combines with darkness, rain, and thicker overgrowth to make the road really fucking hard to see and follow, which creates a new challenge that can be frustrating at times. Dirt roads, in particular are almost impossible to keep track of as I drive. Setting waypoints at intersections on the ARC map seems more useful than simply putting a waypoint on the location I want to go to. Otherwise, it can be easy to blow through an intersection, or end up off-road and accidentally cross over a cross street without realizing it.
A thick, low-lying fog adds an atmospheric ambiance, and obscures the road and obstacles.
While driving, the road will often completely disappear for a few seconds under particularly thick sections of fog. I frequently find myself loosing track of the road and wandering off into the dirt or underbrush. Sometimes, I could swear that the fog-obscured road must be moving or shifting under my tires, but I'm pretty confident that the game is not technically capable of literally moving the road. The effect is just that good and that disorienting!
I did eventually learn methods for dealing with this. The most reliable of which was to stop trying to follow the road by sight, and to instead follow other objects that often line or occupy roads. That might be power lines, mile markers, railings, or the wrecked cars that often appear on or beside the road.
I actually used the Paddle Tire for the first time.
I think it might actually be easier to navigate the flooded areas of the map, than actually staying on the road. In fact, following the flooded areas is so much easier that I actually equipped and used the Paddle Tires for the first time in my entire play-time with Pacific Drive. I never felt like these water tires were worth equipping in the marshy areas towards the end of the base campaign, because I still spent most of my time following the roads. But in the Whispering Woods, I'm off-road a lot more, and those water tires are absolutely worth it!
The Whispering Tide approaches
One of the reasons that the Paddle Tires feel more worth it is that I often feel like I need the extra speed to escape the new monsters that pursue the player. This is the thing that perhaps most sets "Whispers In The Woods" apart from the base game. Essentially, there is a new meter called "Whispering Tide", analogous to an Insanity Meter in many Lovecraftian games. As it fills, monstrous entities are summoned into the map and begin pursuing the driver. But unlike the Instability Storm from the base game, this new Whispering Tide meter does not reset between each junction! It persists through an entire run, until you return to the garage.
These monsters are much more threatening than most of the anomalies in the base game, and they come into play earlier in runs compared to the Instability Storm. They can also be strategically gamed by luring them to certain parts of the map in order to give yourself space to explore other parts of the map. They also feel a lot more malevolent compared to base game anomalies. Even the most dangerous base game anomalies always had the feeling of being apathetic forces of nature. The Whispering Tide, however, feels like it is out to get you!
The Whispering Tide feel more malicious and hostile compared to base game threats.
The rate at which this meter fills is increased if you carry more Artifacts, which are required to be sacrificed at Transporation Altars in order to open a portal to return to the garage. But the rate of the meter can be slowed by equipping more attuned parts to your car. Each artifact also applies a quirk-like modifier while it is either stored in the player's inventory or in the car's inventory. These effects can range from harmful effects to actually beneficial effects. And sometimes, the same artifact effect can be either a boon or a bane, depending on the map, or what other equipment and artifacts you bring with you.
One of the early chapters of the expansion had me going into an area of the woods with a special rule that the Whispering Tide meter will rapidly charge unless an anomaly is attached to your car. All the levels on the route had multiple "hare"-type anomalies, so this didn't seem too bad. I could just let a Happy Hare attach to my car and leave it. Or, since I had insulated armor parts on my car, I could even let a Bolt Bunny attach itself and continuously recharge the car battery.
Artifacts trigger effects similar to quirks
for as long as they are in the player's or car's inventory.
The problems began almost as soon as I entered the area and found the first artifact, which caused lightning to repeatedly strike whenever my car headlights weren't on. Again, seemed simple enough: just leave the headlights on. But what kept happening is that the Broken Bunnies would also latch onto my car and cause the headlights to flash on and off, which would cause lightning to strike and knock the Happy Hares and Bolt Bunnies off, and it would take me a long time to find another one. Additionally, the levels were also full of Abductor, Bubble Gum Buddy, and Glowgrabber anomalies. These would also rip the bunnies off my car, and would also rip the headlights off. The headlight artifact became too much of a liability, and I eventually had to just toss it into the woods to get rid of it.
However, I found that same lightning artifact again later, and this time, I was able to put it to great use. In the areas of the Whispering Woods that are in perpetual night, I was able to ditch all my battery extensions in the garage, and simply equip a lightning rod, some insulated car panels, and the artifact that makes lightning strike when my headlights are off. As soon as my battery would die, and my lights would go off, lightning would start striking around the car, and would hit the lightning rod soon enough. This would recharge the battery, and allow me to keep going with the lights on for a little while longer. The fact that I didn't need extra batteries or jumper cables meant that I could equip more storage, which allowed me to haul more loot (including salvaged attuned car parts) out of the run.
Cult machinations
There are a lot of smaller, nagging annoyances with this expansion. First of all, I feel like the difficulty curve is messed up. The first region of the Whispering Woods is cloaked in perpetual night. This is great for establishing the new, more horrifying atmosphere, but it also dumps the player right into the difficulty of having to navigate without being able to see the road in front of you, while also having to learn how to avoid the Whispering Tide and deal with the new mechanics. I feel like there maybe should have been 1 trip in daylight, maybe even without the fog, to introduce some of the new concepts such as the altars, Whispering Tide, and attuned materials.
Oppy, Francis, and Tobias are replaced by an unknown cultist narrator, who instructs us to look for audio tapes.
After a few trips, once I got the hang of dealing with the Whispering Tide, and I replaced all my base game car parts with attuned parts, the game got really easy. Almost tediously boring. I didn't take any damage to my car across multiple trips, aside from the occasional flat tire, or an attachment developing the "Fragile" or "worn out" trait. But then, suddenly, at the mission to retrieve Audio Log 4, the difficulty suddenly ramped up. Suddenly, my car started taking damage, I had trouble keeping my battery charged and gas tank filled, and I had to start using health kits again. My Harmonic Resonance also started continuously draining, despite having attachments equipped that were supposed to increase Harmonic Resonance. So I still don't know what's going on there.
I also miss having Francis, Oppy, and Tobias greeting and congratulating me whenever I return to the garage. Instead, I occasionally have one of the Fellowship indoctrinating me into their cult as I pull back into the garage. But even that is inconsistent. I think I heard exactly 1 new line from Francis in the entire expansion, which occurs after opening the gateway in the opening area. He tells you to "run away".
Instead, the expansion follows the story of someone named Jack, who gets recruited and indoctrinated into the cult by an ARDA-appointed therapist. All the audio logs explain the history of the cult and their rituals and indoctrination tactics. I like a good cult story, but this all feels so cookie-cutter, dull, and predictable, and there just don't seem to be any stakes for the player character.
There have been multiple base game content updates,
including decorations hidden throughout the zone.
Gameplay-wise, all we are doing is looking for audio tapes that tell us the next bit of story. There isn't much intrigue or mystery about what's going on in the Whispering Woods. It just doesn't feel like there's a whole lot of reason to stay in the woods and take risks. Just grab the tape and get out.
On the upside, re-visiting the game for the expansion did mean that I got to play with a lot of the new features, items, and resources that had been added to the base game by post-release updates. I had finished my original campaign right as a lot of these new upgrades started coming out, and so a lot of this stuff was still very new to me. For example, I think I had found 2 Goldshells in my last couple runs before I had completed the base campaign and stopped playing, and they were just sitting in the garage because I had no idea what to do with them yet.
There's also a bunch of new decorative and cosmetic items for both the car and the garage, and these rare cosmetic parts seem to be much easier to find now. Pretty much every run, I'm coming back with at least 1 or 2 new car decorations. Some of them are from the expansion, but many of them are base game parts.
Overall, I feel underwhelmed with "Whispers In The Woods". It's more atmospheric, for sure, and I was happy to have an excuse to go back to this game that I loved. But many of the new mechanics just felt tedious to deal with, and the narrative just wasn't compelling. I think if this expansion's story weren't so completely self-contained and isolated from the main game, I would have liked it better. But hey, at least I didn't get completely stuck and unable to proceed, like I did in Outer Wilds' "Echoes Of The Eye" expansion.
"Whispers In The Woods" is certainly atmospheric, but I didn't find it as compelling as the base game.