Dead Static Drive

Sttanding in front of our childhood home, the flames consuming the building’s façade, we’re questioned by an officer assigned to the suspected arson. Marcus, the sheriff, is leery of our reappearance after a long absence and only when he’s satisfied with our answers does he divulge some crucial information: the corpse at his feet belongs to neither of our parents. And so a new question arises: where are they? The moment Marcus suggests we follow him to the nearby community of Frozen Stretch to investigate a lead, we keenly join forces. There, a doppelgänger awaits us. Another Marcus, dressed in the same clothes, repeating two lines of dialogue over and over. This is no eerie twist in Dead Static Drive’s tale of Lovecraftian horrors infesting its idyllic countryside. It’s a good, old-fashioned bug, one that makes further pursuit of the game’s main quest impossible. Our first playthrough ends abruptly there.

Wary of that inglorious conclusion, we decide to take things slower for our second attempt. After all, this is such a gorgeously visualised world that speeding along the highway as the camera zooms out to reveal more of the exquisite scenery – the waves languidly crashing on the coast; the pastel-hued bushland tinted by the early-morning light; the abandoned petrol stations taken over by vaguely humanoid abominations – is a pleasure in itself. And, gradually, some elements of intrigue, even beyond that brittle main quest, start to seep in. A local politician’s confession of a shady land deal with a company interested in the area’s ley lines, for example, and a teen who ran away after her mother fixated on a mysterious stone circle found outside their home.