Supermassive Games officially announced Directive 8020 during Gamescom 2024. Known as the fifth entry in The Dark Pictures Anthology series, this upcoming interactive drama and survival horror game has been described as a deep space take on John Carpenter’s The Thing.
During Summer Game Fest Play Days, I finally spent hands-on time with the game and walked away thoroughly impressed. Here are more thoughts on my time with the demo and what you can expect when the final game launches on October 2nd for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC.
In Space, Death Takes Many Forms
Directive 8020 is a third-person perspective sci-fi survival horror game from the same team behind Until Dawn and The Quarry. The story takes place 12 light-years away on the planet Tau Ceti f after a crew aboard the Cassiopeia colony ship crashes. Shortly thereafter, they discover that an alien organism capable of mimicking its prey is hunting them. Actress Lashana Lynch (No Time to Die and The Day of the Jackal) leads an ensemble cast of five playable characters who will have to make important life-altering decisions that can change their fate.
The demo was presented in three parts. The first portion opened with a cinematic cutscene conversation between Brianna Young (Lynch) and Cassiopeia Commander Nolan Stafford (played by Danny Sapani). This takes place two days before the start of their expedition and revolves around them reminiscing over Young’s father. There are references made to Earth being in dire straits, and Young chooses how to respond to a question asked by Stafford.
The second part of the demo takes place four years later aboard the Cassiopeia. Commander Stafford and Technical Engineer Josef Cernan encounter an alien posing as Stafford. They both end up getting temporarily separated from each other. This leads to Cernan being hunted by another alien in a dark corridor on the ship.
During this portion of the demo, I played as Cernan and tried to escape past the alien. This required scanning the environment for areas of interest, triggering nearby alarms, and using stealth to escape. While weapons may be available in certain cases, other scenarios, like this one, will require logic and timing. The encounter was satisfyingly intense. This part of the demo concluded when I reached an escape ladder on the other side of the room.
The third and final part of this demo had me playing as Stafford and making an important decision. After scanning a crew member and not knowing if he was an alien clone or not, I was given the choice to shoot him or let him live. Once I chose to kill him, I quickly discovered he wasn’t an alien clone, leaving other members of the team divided on my actions.
This was one of many pivotal moments in the storyline where you can rewind key decisions by using the new Turning Point option. This feature lets you experience all the outcomes of your choices in a single campaign playthrough. Typically, some players prefer replaying the full game to see how things play out differently. Introducing this option will give players more freedom to explore everything this game has to offer while being mindful of their time.
Directive 8020 was built in Unreal Engine 5 and looks remarkable. The dark atmospheric vibe of the game, coupled with the horrific sounds of the aliens, pulls you deeper into this world. While the demo might have been short, it was more than enough to prove that Supermassive continues to excel at creating compelling survival horror experiences such as this one.
Verdict So Far
Directive 8020 is shaping up to be another great Dark Pictures Anthology, with a release scheduled for the perfect time of the year. If you’re a fan of the other Dark Pictures games or the survival horror genre in general, this is one title that you should keep an eye on.
Directive 8020 launches on October 2nd for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC. Are any of you looking forward to the game? Let us know in the comments section below.
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