Earlier this week a press release about Arctic Drive dropped into my inbox and, although upon first inspection it didn’t appear to be my usual cup of tea, I was strangely compelled to dig just a little deeper.
Developed by Pebbles Games and PlayTogether Studio, Arctic Drive is co-op survival road-trip set against a backdrop of ice and snow. It’s a first-person adventure that will take place in a procedurally-generated tundra, and therein you’ll have to scavenge your way to survival, either alone or with up three of your finest prepper friends.
Buried at the bottom of the presser was an invitation to put some questions to the developers, and so with my interest piqued, I put together a short Q&A and fired it over. And now, after reading the answers that came back from Clement Marthe, the founder of PlayTogether Studio, I’m even more interested in getting my hands the demo mentioned at the foot of the page!
RL: Arctic Drive looks like an interesting game. What can you tell us about it?
CM: Arctic Drive is a survival road trip game in a procedurally generated frozen wasteland. Drive and upgrade your off-road vehicle alone or with up to 3 friends, scavenge for fuel, food, and parts, and survive hunger, thirst, and sub-zero temperatures.
It’s a game that may test your friendship in harsh conditions 🙂
The thing that caught my eye was the proc-gen world design. What can you tell us about the challenges of building a new open world every time you start again?
We made our own custom system to procedurally generate the world in multiplayer. The main challenges are optimization and aesthetic because it has to be generated fast, looks high definition, but also be well-composed.
A world where trees are flying and rocks spawn inside trees is not something you want to be in. So we had to make sure our terrain generation systems did it right every single time.
As a game designer, a procedural experience could be quite challenging to balance, especially with systems that interact with each other. Fortunately we have strong communities around our studios that playtest the game and help us identify what could be improved.
Now I’m not accusing you of being a roguelite, but if it were one it would have character progression via upgrades, but, in your game it sounds like your inventory is all important. How can players make their characters feel like their own?
In Arctic Drive, you play individual human characters, but the main focus point for your progression and customization is your car. The game revolves around your vehicle, and allowing multiple layers of customization to this is very important, to ensure the player feels the impact they have on their game. Both in terms of gameplay and aesthetics
How do the survival sim elements come in?
That’s where your inventory comes into play. You have to survive in multiple ways: keep your character healthy by taking care of nutrition, thirst, and body temperature. Your car also needs fuel and oil to move.
So you are always on the move, to look for scarce resources and ways to improve your survivability, such as better car parts, trailers with equipment, advanced consumables that you can access only with certain tools, etc.
You will be able to customize the difficulty of your journey before starting your game.
What is a typical gameplay loop like, in terms of run length and general variety?
You start by an initial “repair your car” phase (it gives players a little introduction to the core mechanics of the game: scavenge resources, improve your car, load up your car, and go):
You wake up in your house in the middle of nowhere, grab some supplies (food, water, fuel, oil), get in the car and drive to find car parts and a trailer. Survive as long as possible by scavenging the land, look for points of interest for a big amount of loot. You will encounter environmental dangers, traps, as well as fauna.
A run length is from 10 mins to many hours. Players will be able to save and load to the latest save, and since the game is a sandbox type of game, they could play as long as they survive.
Finally, when do you think we’ll be able to get our frozen mitts on Arctic Drive?
Hopefully we will have a demo ready for early 2026 🙂
If, after reading all that, you’re interested in knowing more, I suggest you check out the announcement trailer below, and then wishlist the game over on Steam.
