Directive 8020 Review (Xbox): Who Can You Trust?

It’s been four years since Supermassive Games has added an entry into its Dark Pictures Anthology series, and the interactive horror genre has been quiet without them. The once yearly output of Dark Pictures did seem to create a bit of a quality problem, so did the time off create a new and reinvigorated installment? Directive 8020 responds with a loud yes, boasting new visuals, smoother and varied gameplay, and choices that truly matter in a multitude of ways. This is the first interactive narrative game where I’m fully committed to multiple play throughs, wanting to uncover every secret, and see every possible outcome. I wouldn’t have expected this before I started the journey, but Directive 8020 may very well be Supermassive’s best game yet.

Choices

With a game that sinks or swims based on the narrative, Directive 8020 stays afloat over the course of its runtime, with an oppressive sense of dread, a truly wild mystery, and cosmic horror story that never lets up. The base premise sees a crew of astronauts on a mission to survey a new planet for humans to colonize, with a team of varied personalities and skills gathered to make sure these efforts happen without a hitch. In a call to films like Alien or The Thing, horror soon strikes as a violent lifeform begins to take over the ship, intent on killing the crew, or deceiving them by replacing them with a doppelganger. It’s a great point of stress and tension, as even before the crew figured out what was happening, I as the player was always worried about being caught alone with a replacement. That sense of dread stays with us, even as the stakes and enemy start to evolve, mysteries are solved, only to be substituted for new questions.

All of this is sold by a stellar cast, headlined by Lashana Lynch, but we are introduced to five seperate playable crew members, each with different skills and personalities. We get to play these characters in different pairings, alone, or during different periods of time. These instances come with choices, narratively or gameplay, which build into a “Destinies” system, which determine certain actions that crew members will take on their own later in the story. Even small conversations while chatting with fellow crew mates can have a big impact on the ending, making every decision intentional, and nothing feels unimportant. You can even text while exploring or doing tasks on the ship, building the personality each crew member has, but also being aware an imposter might be the one responding to you. With so many story branches that lead to extremely different outcomes, getting everyone out alive is a tall task, and with the wrinkle that everyone isn’t human, these decisions are as life and death as they come.

Hold Your Breath

Speaking more on the branching story, one of the bigger additions to this Dark Pictures title is Turning Points. Each meaningful choice in the game branches out into the full narrative tree we are used to seeing, and Turning Points allows you to rewind and try again at these junctions. Of course you can play in certain difficulties that don’t allow the use of this feature until game completion, but it’s a nice addition for those who may have missed a QTE prompt or felt unfairly duped by a mimic. I enjoyed the use of it to allow me to explore areas where I missed a collectible, or jumping back to a particular interesting character interaction so I could work towards a new “Destiny” I didn’t have before. The unseen prompts don’t spoil things either, only show the basic setups to view the new scene, and having all of this timeline manipulation from the start will be a boon for certain players, especially those who fall victim to Directive 8020’s newest gameplay addition, stealth.

That’s right, on top of the horror story and gruesome deaths we’ve come to love, this game has more in depth 3D exploration, with survival horror stealth sections that can lead to an untimely demise. On top of the polished pieces of the studio’s usual work, these stealth challenges offer a new spicy mixup, much needed from a simple binary option of failed tap of the X button. Being trapped in a room, barely able to defend yourself, and needing to find a way though the only exit adds extra tension these types of games need. It forces me to utilize tools, reroute power, or sneak through vents all while being pursued by something I can not kill, reminding me of titles like Alien Isolation. These additions of survival gameplay, meaningful open area exploration, and knowing any moment you could die outside of a scripted story moment, made the game more engrossing, a direction the studio should continue to play with in the future.

Final Verdict

Directive 8020 is Supermassive Games’ most chilling and best horror game yet. The new engine shines with the most beautiful and atmospheric environment yet, with an amazing cast of crew members we desperately try to keep alive. The survival horror stealth sections provide the interaction I’ve been craving from the genre, and the sense of dread as you figure out who to trust never left me. It’s not only one of the best games in its sub genre, but one of the better horror games in recent memory.

Directive 8020 was reviewed on Xbox with a code provided by Supermassive Games. It is also available on PlayStation 5 and PC.

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