Gateways are how you get back home in Pacific Drive. While the concept of them is simple, there are a few nuances that, I’ll admit, slipped my mind the first time the tutorial let me off the leash. So here’s how they work.
Gateways only occur at the end of your journey. Leading up to the last node on your route, you’re just taking access roads to leave to the next area. This leads me to point number one: gateways aren’t always how you exit a map. Sometimes, you just need to drive to a checkpoint marked on the map.
However, if you reach your destination on your route and there aren’t any obvious exits, you’ll need to open a gateway to return to the garage. By looking at the map, you can tell how you’re going to leave. There will either be a checkpoint with an arrow pointing outward from the map if you’ll be driving, or there will be any number of orange diamond shapes if you can open a gateway back home.
How to open a gateway
To open a gateway, you first need anchor energy, which is gained by retrieving an anchor on the map and putting it into the ARC device on your passenger seat. ARC energy is measured in LIMs, and each Anchor contains a number of kLIMs. You need enough kLIMs to open the gateway. At the start of your route, this is shown at the bottom of your map beside “Charge Required,” but if you already have enough Anchor energy stored, it will just say “Link Gateway.”
Because this is sometimes your only way to escape once your time runs out and a storm kicks up, I’d advise getting your LIMs earlier in your route. If you gather them earlier, you won’t need to worry about whether or not you’ll have enough to make your escape later on. You can tell where an Anchor is on the map by looking for yellow perimeter circles. Once you get close enough, it’s hard to miss an Anchor, even through trees and undergrowth. They look like arc-shaped devices, emit a colored glow, and cast a shaft of light upwards.
You do this in the tutorial, but as a reminder, you need to yank the Anchor from its pedestal and then chuck it into the ARC device in your passenger seat. This will add kLIMs to your supply.
Once you have enough, to open a gate, you simply need to click and hold one of the orange diamonds on the map, at which point a storm will immediately start kicking up, and you have to get out of dodge.
Using a gateway
At this point, I need to warn you that you’re going to need to drive to the gateway. That may seem obvious, but I mean really drive. If you’re too close to a gateway node, it will become inaccessible, shown as a purple diamond with a restricted symbol over it. You have to be a rather large distance away to open it.
What I mean is, don’t drive to a gateway node and then try to open it. I made this mistake once when a storm was already brewing, and I then had to drive away from the node (into the storm), activate it, and then make the drive back to it. I made it through moments before my car bit the dust. It was exciting, make no mistake, but I’m here to help you prevent something like that.
Speaking of which, you may want to repair your car before triggering the gateway because you don’t want it to lose a wheel before you can escape.
The gateway appears like a tremendous column of bright orange light. You can generally see it from any distance away. All you need to do is drive your car into it, and you’ll be taken back to the garage. Immediately hit the brakes, or you’ll drive into the wall.
My last bit of advice is to consider the route you have to a gateway. While you can’t be too close to it, you will at least want to make sure you have a straight shot to get there. Normally, these gateways appear off any roads and deep into the wilderness. There isn’t much you can do about that, but you will want to watch the terrain. The map shows contour lines that let you know the steepness of any nearby slope. Darker shades are low, and light shades are high. Try not to choose one that is on the top of a cliff you’ll need to drive around.
And with that, you should be able to escape back to safety at the end of your drive. Good luck out there.
