Synopsis
The Pacific Drive: Whispers In The Woods ARG was an ARG ran by Ironwood Studios from August 20th 2025 to September 9th 2025 in the lead up to the reveal of the Whispers In The Woods DLC trailer.
Timeline
August 20th 2025
The Ironwood Studios Youtube channel started a livestream entitled "can you see?" with the description "come and look".
The stream lasted for 6:58 minutes and was a looping video of a bridge in the Outer Zone with trees in the foreground and a large structure in the distant background. The stream's audio contained an SSTV (Slow Scan Television) transmission in Robot 24 format that looped with the video. When ran through a decoder, this was the resulting image:
August 23rd 2025
The Ironwood Studios Youtube channel started a livestream entitled "wait" with the description "look".
The stream lasted for 8:23 minutes and started with first person video of walking forward towards a Big Dan's in the Outer Zone, turning left then turning to face the Big Dan's before cutting to a stationary view of the Big Dan's at the 14 second mark. The stream's audio contained another SSTV transmission in Robot 24 format. When ran through a decoder, this was the resulting image:
August 27th 2025
The Ironwood Studios Youtube channel started a livestream entitled "signal" with the description "listen".
The stream lasted for 2:29 minutes and started with first person video of walking forward towards a house structure before cutting to a stationary view of the structure at the 3 second mark. The stream's audio contained another SSTV transmission in Robot 24 format however the transmission is cut short at the 19 second mark of the video. The video switches to an ARDA Warning screen and accompanying this screen is faint morse code audio. At the 35 second mark the video loops.
A 38 second clip of a single loop of the stream was also uploaded to Ironwood Studio's X and Bluesky accounts.
When the SSTV was ran through a decoder, this was the resulting image:
The morse code audio overlaying the ARDA Interrupt screen translated to “DECODE THE FAXEI” which was assumed to have been a spelling error by the community and that it was actually “DECODE THE FAXES” as one dot may have been missing from the end of the transmission segment. This was believed to be referring to the following set of Fax Machine messages that were added to the game in the Endless Expeditions update:
| Message | Note | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Z befn kyvp'iv nrktyzex dv, kyrk kyvp'iv rcnrpj czjkvezex reu ivruzex. Ef dfiv. Z yrmv kf xvk kyv nfiuj flk fw dp yvru, reu kyzj zj kyv fecp nrp Z tre uf kyzj reu bvvg zk flk fw kyvzi yreuj | "I know they're watching me, that they're always listening and reading. No more. I have to get the words out of my head, and this is the only way I can do this and keep it out of their hands" (ROT+17 cipher) | ||
| Nw xlhm tfmi crid bfvhv, htjp leys ktlv xkcglyxw, dbp dfyv wvazxlxv pqhfqi wvqni asure. | "If they have your words, they have your thoughts, and your thoughts become their words." (Vigenère cipher, key: FREEDOM) | ||
| Wms umsjbl'r zcjgctc rfc rfgleq rfcw'pc umpigle ml- rfc rfgleq rfcw'pc apcyrgle, cvncpgkclrgle ml. Rfcw qyw gr'q dmp npmepcqq, dmp rfc dsrspc. Rfc mljw dsrspc rfcw uylr gq mlc rfcw fytc amlrpmj mtcp. | "You wouldn't believe the things they're working on- the things they're creating, experimenting on. They say it's for progress, for the future. The only future they want is one they have control over." (ROT+24 cipher) | ||
| Tlngg barhcgu oif wookgrzr, bo hhh usegtums bf errur. | "Trust nothing but yourself, do not hesitate or stray." (Vigenère cipher, key: AUTONOMY) | ||
| M zcyn wdsa ypg ebw aozi jgebgl huiv htamzs vx lwe ngw tnwq. Kq sgc qnrq ipn lps jsofd imb cs clwc bwir glbacy stfreaa thkqrr. | "I cant even use the same method they figure it out too fast. If you cant get the words out of your head theyre already inside." (Vigenère cipher, key: EXCLUSION) |
The ARDA Warning Interrupt screen has a hidden eye symbol overlaying the text of the warning. This can be seen as a faint green discoloration in the original image but can be better seen after editing.
The phone number in the warning (360-320-6232) was found to be a working number and when called would provide the following message:
"Thanks for reaching out to the Advanced Resonance Development Agency. Unfortunately our public communications system is temporarily unavailable due to... technical difficulties. We hope you have a pleasant day and please try again some time in the future."
September 6th 2025
are you listening?
The Ironwood Studios Youtube channel started a livestream entitled "are you listening?" with the description "it's always there".
The stream lasted for 4:54 minutes and was a looping video of an open train carriage with a graffitied ARDA Logo on the right door in the Outer Zone. The stream's audio contained another SSTV transmission in Robot 24 format. The audio of the video also had a droning/buzzing noise between the SSTV signal loops. When ran through a decoder, this was the resulting SSTV image:
The stream's audio was viewed in spectrogram form and revealed the message "ANY DAY NOW" in the audio sections with the droning/buzzing noise.
any day now
Within an hour of the "are you listening?" stream ending, another livestream started on the Ironwood Studios Youtube channel titled "any day now" with the description "soon".
The stream lasted roughly 15 hours with a few restarts and was of a TV set on a workbench in the Auto Shop. However the layout did not match the in-game layout of the Auto-Shop and instead matched the layout seen in the Pacific Drive 2023 Gameplay Trailer.
Social Media Updates
During the "any day now" livestream, Ironwood Studios updated their X and Bluesky header images to match the image in the livestream. A "👁" emoji was also added to the end of their name on Bluesky.
some day
As soon as the "any day now" livestream ended, another livestream started on the Ironwood Studios Youtube channel and went through various name changes and description changes.
The stream was of the same TV set on a workbench in the Auto Shop as the "any day now" livestream.
| Title | Description |
|---|---|
| any day now | (matching description unknown) |
| who is watching | (matching description unkonwn) |
| we are trying to reach you | Matching description unknown) |
| soon enough | (matching description unknown) |
| some day | soon |
| any day now | (description unknown) |
| are you listening | wait |
Other descriptions that appeared during this time included:
- it will happen
- signal unstable
- signal clear
- signal delayed
September 7th 2025
some day
The second stream ran into the next day.
After multiple name changes to the ongoing livestream, the prior "any day now" stream was then deleted from the Ironwood Studios Youtube Channel.
Ironwood Studios also posted and quickly deleted a message in the livestream chat "did you see us"
The description then changed from "wait" to "losing stability" after which the stream ended.
any day now
Within an hour of the prior stream ending, a new stream titled "any day now" started on the Ironwood Studios Youtube channel with the description "signal reacquired". The description was later removed entirely.
The stream had more name changes
| Title | Description |
|---|---|
| any day now | signal reacquired |
| any day now | description blank |
| did you see | we were there |
| stay and look | any day now |
There was then an SSTV transmission which decoded to the following image:
The stream title and description then had more changes.
| Title | Description |
|---|---|
| any day now | broken protocol D323-DCRD.3 |
| some day soon | are you listening |
| can you see | some day soon |
September 8th 2025
The stream title changed to "can you see?" and the description changed to "we are waiting". The stream description was later removed.
At 3pm (GMT -7) a countdown timer starting at 18:00:00 appeared and replaced the eye symbol on the TV monitor. When the timer appeared it was accompanied by another SSTV signal. A new signal was broadcast every hour with the last SSTV transmission being at 1:00:00.
SSTV Transmissions
During the last minute of the countdown Ironwood Studios posted in the livestream chat "can you see?"
At the end of the timer the stream faded to black and then the trailer for the Pacific Drive Whispers In The Woods DLC was revealed in the stream. The trailer was uploaded separately to Ironwood Studios' Youtube channel and a steam page was added for the DLC.