The Seattle-area independent production studio behind the hit video game Pacific Drive raised $4 million in seed funding.
The round, led by Lifelike Capital, is aimed toward financing Redmond, Wash.-based Ironwood Studios’ next game.
Pacific Drive, released in Feb. 2024 for PlayStation, Xbox, and PC and published by Kepler Interactive, is a “driving survival” game set in 1998, where players build, fix, and customize an old station wagon in order to survive a science-warped zone in the rural Pacific Northwest.
Notably, PD features no traditional combat; instead, you must outwit and evade environmental dangers while using scrap metal and scavenged parts to keep your car in working order. (You can read GeekWire’s review of Pacific Drive here.)
“As a team we are very thankful for the opportunity to keep making games and at the same time so incredibly excited for what the future of Ironwood holds,” Cassandra Dracott, Ironwood’s CEO and creative director, said in an press release. “This funding round points us towards the best version of that future and we’re thrilled to work alongside Lifelike Capital to make it a reality.”
GeekWire reached out to Ironwood Studios for further comment.
As per an official release from Ironwood, PD has sold over 1.5 million units since its debut, in addition to being released on both the Xbox Game Pass and PlayStation Plus subscription services. Ironwood released a paid expansion for PD, Whispers in the Woods, in October.
In addition, filmmaker James Wan (Saw, The Conjuring) acquired the TV rights for Pacific Drive in 2024, though there has been no further public information about the project.
