Directive 8020

Developer: Supermassive Games
Publisher: Supermassive Games
Platforms: PC, Xbox Series X/S (Reviewed), PlayStation 5
Release Date: May 12, 2026
Price: $49.99 USD – Available Here $89.95 AUD – Available Here

Overview

When it comes to crafting a cinematic horror game that gives players real consequences for their choices, no team has delivered better over the years than Supermassive Games. With their breakout hit Until Dawn back in 2015 with Sony, the company went on to create a mixed-bag of games making up The Dark Pictures Anthology under Bandai Namco with House of Ashes proving to be their biggest highlight and Little Hope their lowlight. Over this time they were even tapped by 2K to develop The Quarry which helped expand their usual formula and even Dead by Daylight‘s Behaviour Interactive with The Casting of Frank Stone, that once again saw new tools added to the team’s playbook. 

Now, after taking a four year break since their last game in the anthology and dropping the namesake from the title, despite still being part of the anthology, the developers are back with Directive 8020 entirely on their own and looking to deliver something far different than what fans have come to expect.

Story

Players can come into Directive 8020 as their first game, though returning players will likely be caught off guard by more than a few things eventually. That being said, Directive 8020 is set roughly forty years into the future and Earth is in such a dire strait that humanity is searching for a new home among the stars and seemingly located one in the form of Tau Ceti f, a planet twelve light years away and just prime for terra-forming. With this being humanity’s only hope, despite a rival company stating resources would better be used to revive Earth, the crew of the Cassiopea sets off into space with the majority of its crew entering hypersleep and only two “wake technicians” set to monitor the ship’s progress and the slumbering crew alongside the ship’s advanced AI, Oracle. 

With the Cassiopea serving as the scouting ship leading the way and the Andromeda landing crew following a few weeks behind, the mission is simple, wake up the flight crew when approaching the planet, establish orbat around Tau Ceti f, and wait for the following ship to arrive to make the next big steps for mankind on an alien planet. Or at least that’s how things should have been. Not long before the scheduled wake-up time for the rest of the flight crew, a meteorite strikes and pierces through multiple hulls of the Cassiopea, forcing the sleep technicians Simms and Carter to investigate and repair the breech themselves after the AI is thrown into an error and locks down most of the ship to prevent further malfunction. After arriving at the breech and doing some spacewalking, the pair manage to (possibly) avoid disaster before returning in and starting repairs, or at least they would until Simms suddenly goes into a murderous rage and chases Carter down. 

With the Wake Technicians now missing, the Oracle wakes the rest of the flight crew upon approaching the planet including Nolan Stafford, the ship’s stoic and hardened commander, Noah Mitchell, a brash but experienced pilot, and Brianna Young, a highly skilled pilot with a pedigree to back it up. Knowing that something is wrong but unable to investigate due to their narrow window for orbit closing, the group does what it can to try and nail their orbiting window only for catastrophic control failures to break out at a pivotal moment, forcing the ship to do the one thing it wasn’t meant to do, crash land on the planet and take everyone with it. Now, with the rest of the crew awoken by the crash and soon discovering the gruesome remains of Carter, it soon becomes clear that landing on this planet might not be the worst of their problems, as a murderer is among them and worst of all, it isn’t even human.

Directive 8020 is an incredibly interesting beast thanks to the way that Supermassive Games has handled the story this time. Through the eight total episodes that make up the game, players will swap between the five total playable characters, with some of the characters never actually being playable but their fates still depending on the player’s actions. Throughout these episodes players will spend most of their time exploring and discovering little secrets or tidbits of information that slowly build together a picture that something odd is already happening on the ship long before meteorite impact, let alone the events following it. In fact, what the story evolves into past the first contact with the hostile threat turns into a unique blend of sci-fi horror that takes samples out of some of the most classic horror films to date, and while we’ll avoid naming them to spoil the potential threat, it is weaved into the story exceptionally well.

This is partially thanks to the fact that while the threat itself often appears in monstrous forms that are twisted beyond recognition, with half-grown appendages or faces sticking out of their sides while a giant mouth full of twisted teeth are eager to feast on the player character, there are just as many moments that a threat will be walking around like nothing is wrong. In fact there are key moments players can poke and prod with information to realize that something is wrong, even if they cannot directly act on it in the moment. Never knowing if the character the player is standing next to is someone they can trust, or the same person they even entered a room with, creates a unique choice dynamic in some truly dire situations that arise.

One thing that does hinder Directive 8020’s story is the fact that, until the last few chapters, the game isn’t necessarily scary. Then the fright meter is dialed up to maximum in these moments especially as the truth is revealed. Prior to this however players are left mostly wandering around and exploring with only a few flash-forwards in time showing just how dangerous things will eventually become, giving players a sample while also dictating character’s fates all at once as they eventually converge at the later chapter. It also doesn’t help that the usual dread of failing a “hiding sequence” or a “heartbeat” event is gone. Instead the game features an entirely different stealth mechanic that we will discuss momentarily and even this has an option to dodge around a failed stealth attempt.

Another element that returns in Directive 8020 is Little Hope’s focus on personality mechanics. Throughout the game players will make dialogue choices both in conversation and in the game’s “message system” that is also a new feature that allows characters to talk with one another through online communication. An element that also comes into play with regards to certain… horror features later. Depending on how players respond they will shift a character’s three primary “stats” around with two determining a certain “locked in” destiny and personality trait. While some of these are smaller in scale and don’t have much repercussion, others can play a pivotal role in how characters automatically react in a given situation. 

Directive 8020 keeps players guessing as to what the real threat may be and what the fate of the crew could possibly be and offers so many branching paths and outcomes that it is rather surprising, using its slow build to unveil secrets and potential nods to danger only to be red herrings, or are they? In fact, the sheer amount of deaths and choice variation is probably the most the game has ever had given what is shown through the menu screens, and this is for good reason. Not only are there areas where a complete catastrophe can break out, but also plenty of moments where savior moments can pull everyone out of the fire and aim for safety. Thus the title delivers a satisfyingly tense horror experience that takes just a bit too long to build up steam but once it does it fires on all cylinders while keeping players guessing at just how many conspiracies are afoot and the many different kinds of horror that can exist in one story.

Gameplay

Usually when it comes to a Supermassive Game players believe they will be in for a series of cut-scenes and dialogue choices broken up with exploration segments where they can find various collectables here and there, followed by danger and quick time events. This is mostly still true but Directive 8020 expands upon most of these features greatly. First and foremost, as players make dialogue choices they will not be shown a “heart” or “brain” gauge like past entries, players will instead need to make choices based on their own thoughts, these dialogue choices dictating a character’s personality and “destiny” that will be locked to a certain trait. 

Similarly during exploration a lot of new elements have been added. Most of the time every character will have a “utility strap” attached to their wrist that can be used as a scanner as well as interact with various electronic systems in a location. The scanner not only works as a way to adjust electrical signals to open doors or undo lockdowns, it also highlights any living organism in an area, meaning both crewmates and hostiles are shown as silhouettes when scanned, making it essential for the new stealth sequence. As previously mentioned, “hold your breath/don’t move” segments have been removed entirely in favor of a stealth system that actively puts the player in danger from enemies that are roaming around an area.

In these locations players will need to use cover to sneak around and avoid being seen by an enemy, or straight up run away from them when they get an opening towards an exit, all while avoiding using their flashlight or standing up to give away their position. In these moments players can often find hackable monitors to trigger distractions to lure an enemy away and create an opening but generally players will need to rely on keeping an eye on their patrol patterns and sneaking through. Ironically, these sneaking segments tend to be a bit too easy and kind of on the slow side, especially since many of them drag on far longer than they feel like they should. It is only near the end of the game that some teleporting style enemies appear that things grow more dangerous, especially since getting caught can result in a death. 

Or perhaps not, as Directive 8020 does give players an option to avoid instant-death upon being caught but the risk is still there. Eventually every character will be given a wedge tool that is meant to override door lockdowns using a simple mini-game but this wedge-tool is also basically a powerful mace combined with a cattle-prod that can be used to stun and escape a foe if players nail the QTE correctly. The wedge-tool does have a cooldown upon use, though players can adjust the cooldown timer to fit their playstyle if they see fit. In fact, there are a lot of elements players can adjust to fit the game to their style, making Directive 8020 ironically one of the most approachable horror games yet.

While the title still offers previous accessibility options such as holding rather than button mashing to complete certain prompts, limiting prompts to one button only, and even giving warnings about important incoming QTEs, players can now adjust other features as well. This includes adding on-screen indicators of where enemies are located, though this can glitch a bit and show enemy directions when looking through camera systems or even during a cutscene, and the aforementioned cooldown timer to parry a grab. Of course, there are still plenty of ways to die in Directive 8020 and many of them come down to either failing a quick time event or making the wrong series of choices and getting one or two characters killed as a result. 

Though remembering what players have already done in the past can be key to staying alive here, as some play a pivotal role in certain life or death choices. Earlier it was mentioned that the game has a messaging system and this is also done through the utility strap. Here every character can occasionally send messages to other characters, talking about what is happening and getting questions all the same. Sometimes these questions can be quite informative, especially with how players should react accordingly to what they find out.

Another returning element from a previous game, but one not attached to The Dark Pictures Anthology but instead The Casting of Frank Stone is the ability to “rewind.” Called “Turning Points” this time around, players can rewind to literally any point in the story and either explore a location to find collectables they may have missed or reload a sequence that saw a character die early and play on from there, seeing how fate might have unfolded differently with everyone alive. Or perhaps killing someone on purpose to see how things can change without them. Explorer Mode turns this feature on right from the get-go, giving players the option to automatically be able to rewind if they stumble into a deadly choice or failed quick time event while Survivor Mode is the classic experience. This sees players living and dying by their choices and only unlocking the ability to rewind upon completing the game, though given that there is a very special secret hidden away behind solving a lengthy puzzle that can only be accessed through rewinding, it is certainly worth it. Though sadly, the long requested feature of being able to skip previously seen dialogue or events is still not available, meaning players will need to play through entire segments again if they wish to see someone’s fate change fully.

Audio & Visuals

One thing that was always impressive about Supermassive’s games even back with their original Until Dawn release was how expressive and impressive the character models and faces appear and over time we’ve seen this develop through every horror game the company has worked on. Now, after taking two years to bring Directive 8020 to fans after Frank Stone it is clear that the company has overhauled their graphics engine as it is easily one of their best looking games to date with the most lifelike looking characters possible, especially since the title does feature a signature actress as one of the primary leads as well as other actors. As a result the expressions characters make while talking are quite impressive and it also results in some of the most brutal looking deaths that players can stumble into if they aren’t careful. It also helps create some wonderfully twisted monster and environmental designs, especially in the latter half of the game when everything goes to hell.

The voice work throughout Directive 8020 is handled exceptionally well as all of the actors whose appearances have been used for their characters voice them as well. This means that the voice work not only matches the mouth flaps perfectly but the voice work is completely believable, whether someone is acting horrified, stern, or incredibly creepy. As for the soundtrack the title features a decent collection of standard background music throughout the game and surprisingly includes unique songs for every chapter’s ending screen.

Overall

Directive 8020 is not just Supermassive Games’ first step into space, it’s also their first step into trying to create a cinematic horror game that is more than just a series of walking cutscenes and QTEs. By reducing the potential failure states of mini-games and including stealth sections the title places more agency on the player, even if the stealth itself is rather basic and a bit too easy, especially since players always have at least one “escape card” per sequence. Thankfully the storyline it has to tell is one that builds up a quiet dread that something isn’t right, not just with the horrific thing that has crashed into the Cassiopea, but perhaps the entire mission itself. This keeps players guessing as to what truly is going on, layering on the mystery and dread until it all explodes, just like the character’s might if players aren’t careful in what turns out to be close to one of Supermassive’s best Dark Picture games yet.

Capsule Computers review guidelines can be found here.