Directive 8020 Is A Massive Step-Up For The Dark Pictures Anthology

I've been hooked on Supermassive's choice-based horror games since watching a playthrough of Until Dawn a decade ago (I didn't own a PlayStation 4). Lucky for me, the studio has primarily been concerned with making more of games like that ever since, and I've played almost all of them.

I had the opportunity to get hands-on with Directive 8020, the fifth instalment in the Dark Pictures Anthology, at Gamescom. Over about an hour, I was able to play the first of eight episodes.

Directive 8020 is an anomaly among Dark Pictures instalments because, by the time it releases, it will have been four years since the last entry in the anthology was released. The other games were all released in the same four-year window between 2019 and 2022.

The explanation for the slower development cycle is simple: Directive 8020 is more ambitious than previous instalments. A focus on additional gameplay features, combined with a switch to Unreal Engine 5, has caused Supermassive to take its time in refining the next instalment, rather than rushing it out underbaked.

Every game in the Dark Pictures Anthology focused on a sub-genre of horror, with Directive 8020 representing sci-fi horror.

Long, Dark Voyage

I played as Carter, an astronaut aboard the Cassiopeia, a spaceship en route to Andromeda to scout the galaxy out for potential colonisation. Given the length of the journey, the crewmates rotate in and out of cryo-sleep with only a couple of people awake on the ship at any given time. Carter is a father who misses his family, but is stalwart in his belief that volunteering for the voyage was the right thing to do.

There's an implication that colonising Andromeda is a necessity, which could suggest humanity has ecologically devastated the Milky Way.

Carter is paired with Simms, a homesick astronaut hiding her pain beneath a mask of dry humour and sarcasm. The pair hear a massive crash somewhere on the ship and quickly team up to investigate the source of the noise.

After deciding whether or not to consult an artificial guide named 'The Oracle', I'm immediately met with a pop-up about branching paths. Directive 8020 is expanding upon a similar system from The Quarry, where the player is informed when their multilinear story has branched based on a decision they've made.

The menu now has a section that shows where your narrative has branched off, and gives you the option to rewind back to specific decisions and play from that point onwards. There's also a counter at the bottom of the screen that shows the number of potential deaths that could have happened during this episode (and the number you ended up witnessing).

The rewind feature could be one of the more controversial aspects of Directive 8020, because some players don't think you should be able to change past decisions. However, this feature is completely optional - nobody is forcing you to rewind your choices.

This feature has been added for players who want to view every permutation of a decision without having to replay the entire game. Executive producer Dan McDonald compared it to deleted scenes that were often included in physical DVD releases.

The visual fidelity of Directive 8020 is much higher than past Dark Pictures games, which were created with Unreal Engine 4. The lighting is excellent - perfectly capturing the lonely blue tones and excessive shadows that inhabit the near-empty vessel.

The characters' faces are photorealistic; after all, Supermassive were already adept at digital scanning even before the switch to UE5, and the new technology elevates this aspect of Directive 8020 even further.

After consulting the Oracle, Simms and I exited the Cassiopeia to inspect the impact from the outside of the ship. There were a couple of faux-scares along the way, just to set the scene. Outside, we discovered a sizeable hole in the side of the ship filled with organic matter. Fantastic, I'm sure that's nothing to worry about.

Take Control

Something that Supermassive is emphasising with Directive 8020 is additional gameplay sections. Previously, almost everything consequential happened in a cutscene or quick-time-event (QTE) sequence, but now, your characters can actually die during gameplay.

Supermassive flirted with this in The Quarry - there were sequences where you're rooted to a spot, aiming a gun, and you could die if you didn't react appropriately. You can also now freely control the camera, while previous games often had the camera at a fixed angle.

In Directive 8020, I was thrust into a stealth section, and this wasn't smoke and mirrors. If you get caught by your pursuer (I won't spoil), then you will immediately be met with a brutal murder scene, and there isn't even a last-ditch QTE to save Carter. I can see why, with the stakes so high and death so close, Supermassive felt it was appropriate to add a rewind feature.

The ending of the preview sets up for the next part of the episode, where we (presumably) meet the main cast. There are five playable characters - the standard for Dark Pictures games, and the cast includes Lashana Lynch (Captain Marvel) and Danny Sapani (Black Panther).

Supermassive's portfolio appeals to a certain community - players who enjoy narrative games and horror movies. In my opinion, the quality of the anthology was beginning to slip by the time The Devil in Me was released, so I'm happy the studio stepped away and took the time to improve its formula for Directive 8020, rather than insisting that it release a game every year.

The combination of Unreal Engine 5 and additional gameplay features means that Directive 8020 is Supermassive's most ambitious game yet, which can only be good news for a community already willing to play every one of the studio's games. Do I think Directive 8020 is different enough to attract a new audience? No, not necessarily - but it could bring back fans who might have been burned out by the regularity of Dark Pictures releases, and are now sufficiently ready for a new release.

As someone who has enjoyed every Supermassive horror lark, I'm firmly in the target market, and I'm very excited to see more of the Cassiopeia when Directive 8020 releases next year.

The Dark Pictures Anthology: Directive 8020

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