James Wan Plans To Adapt One Of 2024's Spookiest Games Into TV Show

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Kuching-born filmmaker James Wan, who directed modern horror classics such as The Conjuring, Insidious, and the original Saw film, wants to turn driving-survival game Pacific Drive into a TV show.

Malaysians are no strangers to horror, even ones that take place in cars on a long stretch of highway (Yellow Volkswagen on Karak, anyone?) so who better to helm this project than someone with Malaysian roots?

Created by independent game developer Ironwood Studios and released on 22 February on video game platform Steam this year, Pacific Drive puts players in the Olympic Exclusion Zone, a fictionalized abandoned version of the Olympic Peninsula in Washington, USA.

Players need to survive in the eerie abandoned zone by traversing it in a station wagon provided at the start of the game, and scavenge for resources to maintain or upgrade their vehicle and to keep themselves alive.

Unlike most survival games, there are no traditional “enemies” that the player would need to fend themselves against (sorry, no guns and grenades here). Instead, there are environmental threats called ‘anomalies’ that can damage the player, their car, and the environment.

Players would be completely alone in their experience, which makes the game even more spooky.

The level of detail is quite advanced too, as part of surviving requires players to perform tasks such as patching flat tires with a sealant, fix a broken spark plug, or find fuel to add to the station wagon.

As you can probably already tell, much of the game revolves around the station wagon you’ll be driving around. The game is titled ‘Pacific Drive’ after all, not ‘Pacific Walk’.

All we know right now is that James Wan will be executive producing the series through his production company Atomic Monster. At the time, there is no official release date or even a trailer yet.

PC Gamer Senior Editor Christopher Livingston mentioned in a related article that the biggest challenge for a Pacific Drive show is coming up with a main character.

“In the game, your’re just a mute driver and the station wagon is the star of the show. There are characters who guide you through the world via radio, but it’s mostly just you and the car, and the car has far more personality than you do,” he wrote.

That sounds almost like the Mad Max: Fury Road game, where Max’s character is overshadowed by his Magnum Opus car that can be heavily modified to lay waste to his enemies.

If the main character in the Pacific Drive TV show is depthless or maybe just not a great one, we can probably count on James to build a world and environment that will chill us to the core, as he has done in his previous films.

Variety notes that James’ production house Atomic Monster is also currently developing a horror reboot of classic sitcom The Munsters known as 1313, a Robocop series for Amazon, and a live-action Gargoyles for Disney+.

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