Dead Static Drive Review (Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5 & PC)

Dead Static Drive sounds like the perfect spit ball for a ghoul-centric survival-horror game: a lonesome road; a civilization on the brink of extinction; a last-minute pilgrimage to find a wayward family. It almost sounds like Pacific Drive, but it isn’t. No, because in Pacific Drive, it almost felt as if you had the weight of the world on your shoulders—an old gas-guzzling vessel with a knack for breaking down every six to seven minutes, and the constant fear of falling behind in a world devoid of comfort. In Dead Static Drive, however, the fuel is plentiful, and the only fork in the road that you have to tackle is the concerning amount of clutter that it stows beneath its windscreen. There’s no real threat for you to tackle, nor is there a reason for you to want to keep the pedal to the metal. It’s just you, the road, and a synth beat to keep you ticking.

Honestly, there’s a good idea for a game here. No, there’s a great idea for a game here. Say, if you took out the redundant features and the lack of on-road curveballs, then you would have a thrilling voyage with all of the right trappings of a well-oiled horror. Yet, there’s something missing here, and it doesn’t take all that long to come to terms with that rather disappointing reality. A nightmare untold; a journey across a twilight metropolis; a synth wave aesthetic riding shotgun; and a seemingly allusive destination that couldn’t emerge from the horizon quick enough.

To add insult to injury, while the game does initially show promise, what with its captivating premise and somewhat palatable character creation suite, the cracks begin to merge roughly four seconds after you begin your journey. For me, it felt as if a new record had been broken before I even exited the first room; a tap of the jump button immediately locked up the entire game and left the camera rotating aimlessly. A soft reboot later, and I was able to try my luck for a second time. Sadly, though, it didn’t get any better from there. The journey hit a downward spiral, and I, oblivious to it all, was merely the passenger princess without a sense of purpose.

To call Dead Static Drive a broken game would be an understatement, truly. Fact of the matter is, with its plethora of game-breaking bugs and UI issues, it is an absolute nightmare to work through. And not only that, but also how to make sense of what on earth it is that you’re supposed to be doing. Rather annoyingly, text boxes vanish in mere seconds, transitions make little to no sense at all, and the game, as a whole, often leaves you in the dark with no real breadcrumb trail for you to follow. And this is just the tip of the iceberg, believe it or not. Oh, there’s more. Stick with us.

No Time to Waste

Dead Static Drive certainly doesn’t waste time with all of the usual padding; instead, it drops you into a world without any context, and hands you the task of, ‘you owe this stranger thirty bucks — better hop in your car and drive half way across the state to find your parents.’ What I mean to say here is that, while your purpose becomes a lot clearer as you venture further down the beaten path, Dead Static Drive makes little to no effort to flesh out the details or invite you in. It gives you the keys to a car, and it tells you to drive. After that, it basically provides you with the opportunity to daisy chain and drift your way through various pitstops until you eventually run out of gas. Emotionally, that is.

Unlike a lot of story-driven games, Dead Static Drive refuses to introduce you to its world through a series of arcs and stepping stones. The dialogue is ridiculously choppy, and you have little to no time to come to terms with the situation or, more importantly, why you should even care about it. Thirty bucks? Missing parents? Whatever — just drive, kid.

What entails over a relatively sizable campaign is a networking excursion, of sorts—a timeline of pitstops and brief encounters with a so-called nightmarish world in which you must frequent in order to progress deeper into the map. You can visit various buildings, loot items and spoils for your vehicle and backpack, and essentially toy around with certain aspects of your car, like the headlights, for example. But, that’s about as good as it gets, unfortunately.

Sloppy & Sluggish

Minced with a tedious inventory management system and a lot of unnecessary screen-hogging clutter, Dead Static Drive immediately becomes a headache to watch unfold from the driver’s seat. This isn’t to say that it doesn’t play well, because it certainly has its moments. The ambiance, too, isn’t all that bad, as it captures the desolate aura surprisingly well with its frequent squawks and windchimes, howls and synth melodies. Frankly, I can’t complain about any of that. And yet, it’s everything else, sadly, that dampens the overall experience. Oh, and don’t even get me started on the driving mechanics; Micro Machines did a better job of mirroring the experience, and that launched over thirty years ago.

Honestly, I wish I could say something good about Dead Static Drive, but I just can’t. Frankly, it has the potential to become a great game in the distant future, but to be clear, it’s still a several miles from being anything remotely playable. It isn’t all doom and gloom I’ll admit, as it does harbor some neat touches and, not to mention, a solid visual aesthetic that feels oddly reminiscent of its chosen time period. For the most part, though, the negatives far outweigh the positives, and it doesn’t take all that long for it to reveal its true colors and dampen your hopes of ever locating the silver lining between the rain clouds. A crying shame, really.

Verdict

Dead Static Drive has all of the right ideas, yet sadly lacks the wax-on, wax-off capabilities needed to bring them to a playable survival-horror game that not only feels enjoyable to navigate, but rewarding to complete. Due to its awful optimization and plethora of game-breaking bugs, at no point does it ever feel entertaining, much less incentivized enough to keep you moving forward to the next destination. In short, it’s sloppy, dull, and quite simply, a wasted opportunity. Tough luck, Reuben Games.