If you thought Pacific Drive was already a fever dream of roadside horror and DIY car therapy, buckle up. Whispers in the Woods is the game’s first major expansion, and it’s not here to hold your hand—it’s here to whisper cryptic nonsense into your ear while your station wagon catches fire. Again.
Launching later this year on PS5, Whispers in the Woods throws you back into the Olympic Exclusion Zone, but this time the forest isn’t just eerie—it’s actively hostile. Think anomaly cultists, towering effigies, and a tonal shift that leans hard into psychological horror. The Zone’s gone full Blair Witch, and your car is still your only lifeline.
The Fanatics Are Here—and They Brought Symbolic Architecture
Image of Pacific Drive Expansion Whispers in the Wood, Courtesy of Kepler Interactive and PlayStationThe expansion introduces a new faction: anomaly-obsessed fanatics who’ve decided the forest is their playground. They’ve built massive effigies, scattered cryptic symbols, and generally made the woods feel like a place you should absolutely not be. The vibe? Less “mysterious wilderness” and more “ritual site for things that shouldn’t exist.”
Creative Director Cassandra Dracott says the team wanted to lean into the fear players felt during the base game. Mission accomplished. The atmosphere is darker, the stakes are higher, and the forest feels alive in all the wrong ways.
Artifacts: The Good, the Bad, and the Absolutely Unhinged
Let’s talk gameplay. The expansion introduces Artifacts—mysterious objects created by the fanatics that mess with both your car and the world around you. Some are helpful. Most are chaos incarnate.
Each Artifact comes with a condition and an effect. Maybe jumping makes your horn honk. Maybe honking damages your car. Maybe collecting too many wakes up something ancient and angry. It’s a system built on chain reactions and strategic risk, and it forces you to rethink how you drive, explore, and survive.
Lead Designer Richard Weschler calls them the centerpiece of the expansion. They’re unpredictable, they’re weird, and they’re exactly the kind of mechanic that turns a survival sim into a genre experiment.
New Region, New Systems, Same Wagon
Video of Pacific Drive Whispers in the Woods, Courtesy of the PlayStation channel
Whispers in the Woods adds a new explorable region roughly one-third the size of the base game. It’s packed with new junction types, car parts, cosmetics, and anomaly behaviors. Even old anomalies get upgrades, so don’t expect your usual tricks to work.
There’s also a fully voiced narrative layered into the expansion, which means more lore, more mystery, and more reasons to theorize about what the Zone actually is. If you’ve been craving deeper worldbuilding, this is your moment.
For Newcomers and Veterans Alike
Ironwood Studios says this expansion is for everyone—whether you’ve been driving through the Zone since launch or just picked up the game last week. It’s the most ambitious update yet, and it builds on everything that made Pacific Drive weird, wonderful, and occasionally terrifying.
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