The debut title from small Australian indie developers Reuben Games, Dead Static Drive launches on PC and Xbox Game Pass.
It’s a survival horror game described by the devs as ‘Grand Theft Cthulhu’, inspired by weird fiction and small town 1980s America as you play as a character named Hearst who is trying to find their missing parents.
You’ll need to steal cars, manage fuel, and choose to fight, sneak or talk your way through encounters with both the humans and monsters you’ll encounter.
In development for several years, the game uses Unreal Engine along with a bespoke narrative engine named Novella to manage the storyline and branching narratives.
It’s an interesting concept, especially given the recent success of survival driving game Pacific Drive, which does something similar from a first person perspective. And smaller indie development projects are always worth following as they can often do something a bit different to mainstream titles.
But it’s worth pointing out that the game currently costs £24.99 on Steam, and currently has a Mostly Negative rating from 29 reviews at the time of writing, with many people saying that it feels unfinished and slightly empty at the moment. The developer has already responded with a day one patch, and is responding to feedback in the Steam community but it does seem that perhaps it’s one title that should have launched in Early Access at a low cost to keep expectations down.
Some of the issues being raised include the lack of a tutorial, no option to rebind keys, UI issues, a clunky inventory system, and various bugs, glitches and issues. But there is some praise for the theme and atmosphere, so if the concept appeals, it might be worth checking out on Games Pass or following for when Dead Static Drive has been polished some more.
Hopefully progress will come fairly quickly, as the survival horror driving genre is one I personally enjoy as something different to sim racing and virtual motorsport. And with a partner who loves horror films, they make for a fun shared sofa gaming experience.
Dead Static Drive is available for the PC via Steam, here or for the Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S via the Microsoft Store, and through Xbox Game Pass .
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