I often have to play a game for a few hours before I feel confident in saying I liked it or didn’t like it. Before I can say this is good or this is bad. Sometimes you play a game that, within 20 minutes or less, makes it clear that it ain’t very good. Sadly, Dead Static Drive was one of those games.
Dead Static Drive has been in some form of development for nearly a decade and has repeatedly gone viral online thanks to its eye-catching art style. And now the isometric survival horror game is out on Xbox, PC, and Game Pass. Often marketed as “Grand Theft Cthulu,” Dead Static Drive has you stealing cars, completing missions, and exploring a monster-infested world that provides a lot of freedom to go where you want to go while trying to gather the supplies you need to stay alive. It’s a cool idea, for sure, but it never comes together. Most of this game doesn’t really work, and with the exception of Dead Static Drive‘s wonderful low-poly art style, there’s little about this game that I enjoyed.
The biggest issue I encountered is how horrible it feels to drive cars in the newly released game. In something describing itself as Grand Theft Chthulu, I expected the cars to handle well and feel fun to drive around desolate cities and highways. Nope! No matter what camera or controller settings I changed, driving in Dead Static Drive is a mess. I never felt in control of any vehicle I entered, and getting around corners without crashing proved to be the biggest challenge. I’m also baffled by the decision not to include any engine noises. The first time I got into a car and drove off, I assumed the game had bugged out and the car should be making noise. Restarted, tried a different car, and nope. Nothing. Silence. I looked at other people’s gameplay and it turns out that this isn’t a bug, but a design choice. And it’s odd! This robs the different cars you encounter of a lot of the personality and makes the game feel unfinished.
A lot of this game feels unfinished, though, so that’s probably why I assumed the missing audio was a bug at first. Combat is a slog, animations are clunky, quests break all the time, and NPCs get stuck on geometry. The inventory screen seems half-finished, missing features like “Quick Move” which makes managing all the gubbins you find annoying as heck on a controller. Characters also don’t have voice lines, which could have been fine, but in a game where cars make no noise beyond tire squeals and the world around you is empty, it just leads to Dead Static Drive being a boring experience.
After about three hours of playing Dead Static Drive, I pulled over and got out. It’s a shame because the world looks amazing, and I like the premise a lot, but what’s here just isn’t worth any more time.
