Route 48 vs The Long Drive vs Pacific Drive: an honest comparison
Route 48, The Long Drive, and Pacific Drive all give you a car and a long road. But they are very different games. The Long Drive is an open road trip through an almost endless desert. Pacific Drive is a finished survival game with a garage, a mystery, and no guns. Route 48 is a driving survival game in Early Access, with gun combat against zombies and armed survivors.
Full disclosure: we made Route 48. We tried to be fair to all three games. The facts about the other two games come from their Steam pages and from the official Pacific Drive website. We do not compare prices or review scores, because they change.
The three games at a glance
| Feature | Route 48 | The Long Drive | Pacific Drive |
|---|---|---|---|
| Developer | HOLY STUDIOS | Genesz | Ironwood Studios |
| Status | Early Access since 2026 | Early Access since 2019 | Full release in 2024 |
| Players | Single-player | Single-player | Single-player |
| World | New procedural world each game | Random, almost endless desert | A zone that changes each trip |
| Combat | Guns, against zombies and armed survivors | Not the focus | No guns or knives |
| Platforms | Windows PC | Windows PC | PC, PS5, Xbox Series X/S |
Route 48
Route 48 is a first-person driving survival game by HOLY STUDIOS, an independent studio. It launched in Early Access on Steam on October 12, 2026, for Windows PC.
You drive into a procedurally generated open world. Every new game generates a new world with different roads, towns, forests, loot locations, and encounters. You scavenge for fuel and parts, manage your fuel, and repair damaged parts. A broken vehicle can mean the end of your journey, but you can continue on foot. You search abandoned buildings for food, weapons, ammunition, medical supplies, fuel, and valuable equipment. You fight zombies and armed hostile survivors with guns, in first person, or you avoid them.
Early Access is planned for approximately one year. More vehicle parts and customization, more firearms, more procedural biomes, and more types of zombies and hostile survivors are planned for the full version.
The Long Drive
Developer: Genesz. Released: 2019, Early Access. Players: Single-player.
The Long Drive is a road trip game in an almost endless desert that the game generates at random. The Steam page puts the focus on freedom, driving, exploration, and immersion. It says that the car maintenance and survival elements are minimal. The world has no invisible walls, and the Steam page says that you can climb the mountains in the distance.
The Early Access version has cars that you can drive, a motorcycle that you can take apart, and fuel stations. The Steam page says that a full tank lasts about 500 km.
Pacific Drive
Developer: Ironwood Studios. Released: 2024. Players: Single-player.
Pacific Drive is a first-person driving survival game. Kepler Interactive published it. You drive a station wagon through the Olympic Exclusion Zone, a strange area in a reimagined Pacific Northwest. Anomalies and hazards, such as Zone Storms, fill the zone. An abandoned garage is your home base. There, you repair and upgrade the car with the resources that you scavenge, and you craft new equipment. The zone shifts with every journey, and you uncover the mystery of the area as you go.
Pacific Drive has no guns. The official Pacific Drive FAQ says that it is not a combat-focused game. You craft tools to survive and to maintain your car. The same FAQ says that the studio has no plans for multiplayer or co-op.
The main differences
The world
- Route 48: a new procedurally generated open world in each new game, with roads, towns, and forests.
- The Long Drive: one long road through a random desert that seems to have no end.
- Pacific Drive: a zone that changes with every trip, and a garage that you return to.
The car
- Route 48: you scavenge for fuel and parts, and you repair damaged parts. If the car breaks, you can continue on foot.
- The Long Drive: car maintenance is light. Fuel and distance are a large part of the trip.
- Pacific Drive: the car is the center of the game. You repair it, upgrade it, and protect it from the zone.
The danger
- Route 48: zombies and armed survivors. You decide when to fight and when to avoid danger.
- The Long Drive: survival elements are minimal, and the open road is the focus.
- Pacific Drive: anomalies, storms, and the zone itself. You survive with tools, not weapons.
The status
- Route 48: Early Access since October 2026. Early Access is planned for approximately one year.
- The Long Drive: Early Access since 2019.
- Pacific Drive: a full release since 2024, with an expansion, Whispers in the Woods.
Which one should you play?
Each game suits a different player. Use these questions to choose:
- Do you want a calm, open road trip? Play The Long Drive. It is the most relaxed of the three, with light survival and a huge desert.
- Do you want a finished game with a mystery and no gunfights? Play Pacific Drive. Your car and your garage are the center of the game.
- Do you want gun combat against zombies and armed survivors? Play Route 48. You also get a new procedural world in each new game.
- Do you want to help shape a game? Play Route 48 or The Long Drive. Both are in Early Access, so both can still change.
These games do not replace each other, and you can enjoy more than one. For more options, read our lists of games like Pacific Drive and games like The Long Drive.
How we compared these games
We used the Steam pages of all three games and the official Pacific Drive FAQ. We used only facts that we could check, and we left out prices and review scores.