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Pacific Drive is a first-person driving-survival game with a demo now available, it's really interesting and nice to see something different but for Steam Deck and Desktop Linux it needs a fix to get working.

More about the game: "Pacific Drive is a first-person driving survival game with your car as your only companion. Navigate a surreal reimagining of the Pacific Northwest, and face supernatural dangers as you venture into the Olympic Exclusion Zone. Each excursion into the wilderness brings unique and strange challenges as you restore and upgrade your car from an abandoned garage that acts as your home base. Gather precious resources and investigate what’s been left behind in the Zone; unravel a long-forgotten mystery while learning exactly what it takes to survive in this unpredictable, hostile environment."

When you try to launch it will give you an error about Microsoft Visual C++ Runtime, but it's easy to install using Protontricks. The method is the same across Steam Deck and Desktop Linux.

For Steam Deck, make sure you're in Desktop Mode. Steam Button -> Power - Switch to Desktop.

  • Steam Deck / KDE Plasma - Open the Discover store, in the search box (top left) type in "Protontricks", click it and hit Install (top right). 
  • Manual install / GNOME - available via Flathub. On GNOME desktops, you can also download via GNOME Software.

Then go through these steps once you've loaded it. First, select the game in the list:

In the next menu just select the default:

After that select to install a Windows DLL or component:

Then finally on the next screen scroll down to vcrun2019 or vcrun2022 (either should work fine):

It will bring up an extra installer window for vcrun, just go through it and once finished you can close it all and then the game will run just fine.

Check out Pacific Drive on Steam. The demo is well-worth a go and the full game launches February 22nd, and apart from the above issue the demo works really well with the current stable Proton 8.

Trailer below:

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Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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About the author -
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I am the owner of GamingOnLinux. After discovering Linux back in the days of Mandrake in 2003, I constantly came back to check on the progress of Linux until Ubuntu appeared on the scene and it helped me to really love it. You can reach me easily by emailing GamingOnLinux directly.
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8 comments

Botonoski Feb 8
The Pacific Northwest has always been a favorite region to explore IRL. Just a wide variety of natural terrain, drive half an hour in any direction and you'll feel like you're in a different state all together.
Perfect place for an exploration focused game really, I'll certainly look into this title.
Seegras Feb 8
Looks good, but.. is it intentionally "Stalker"? Even the Region is called "Exclusion Zone" too...
whizse Feb 8
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  • Supporter
Car Mechanic Simulator crossed with STALKER? Love it!
Quoting: SeegrasLooks good, but.. is it intentionally "Stalker"? Even the Region is called "Exclusion Zone" too...
Well, yes, but presumably this one is full of zombified athletes . . . sprinters, javelin and discus and hammer throwers, weight lifters and whatnot . . . it is the Olympic Exclusion Zone, after all.
Jarmer Feb 9
Can you please let us know how your performance has been on the Deck or desktop? From the steam discussions, lots of people are saying it's almost unbearably bad, but of course, I trust people's opinions here more than there!
Nezchan Feb 9
Tried the demo and, as expected, had to do all the falderal up there to get it to work. Nothing too tough, at least.

Seems pretty fun, although I can do without all the "find a thing in the dark while your vision is obscured" stuff. Performance also dipped kinda hard when I got to the garage, although I didn't have time this morning to monkey with settings much.
Chrisznix Feb 10
Liam, many thanks for your great efforts in these articles! This site gets better everyday!
Anza Feb 12
Quoting: Purple Library Guy
Quoting: SeegrasLooks good, but.. is it intentionally "Stalker"? Even the Region is called "Exclusion Zone" too...
Well, yes, but presumably this one is full of zombified athletes . . . sprinters, javelin and discus and hammer throwers, weight lifters and whatnot . . . it is the Olympic Exclusion Zone, after all.

I didn't see any Olympics going on, so I guess the Olympics exclusion is working.

As for the technical issues, I must have done something wrong as the game worked for me. It asks to choose between DX11 and DX12 at startup and I left the default which was DX12.

Performance was tolerable.

As for the game, it was fun. Just got the car pimped up, so the regular gameplay loop is probably going to start. Let's see how much I have time and how long the demo is going the be available.
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