Press Start may receive a commission when you buy from links on our site at no extra cost to you.
After previewing Directive 8020 recently, I came away with considerable concerns regarding the characters, the setting, and the developers’ want to lean heavily on new stealth mechanics. Having now played through Supermassive’s latest interactive horror title, it’s a shame to have some, but not all, of these worries confirmed. Directive 8020 drifts too often from its strengths in telling a branching story, opting instead to gamble on the staying power of its shiny new, admittedly sound, systems that, like an alien parasite aboard a space vessel, wear out their welcome before too long.
Most people will have played a Supermassive game before and, as such, know pretty much what to expect. Tantalising decision-making, steeped in questionable morality, has made up the developer’s schtick since Until Dawn, and has remained a bedrock and launching pad for all of their works since, right through to The Quarry, as well as their Dark Pictures Anthology. That certainly remains the case here, and Supermassive has made running your finger through the index of story permutations, to see just how the flap of a butterfly’s wings can render your whole crew lost to the void of space, even simpler.
Of the new features introduced in Directive 8020, Turning Points is the best for people who want to explore each and every narrative mutation possible. I love that you’re able to explore the spiderweb of choices post-episode and that the game spells out the conditions that need to be met for that outcome or consequence to occur. Being able to load back in virtually instantly, at a specific nexus point, to alter the canon’s events is a cool freedom that more narrative games like this should have. It also presents as a rewind prompt in key moments, to let players take back a choice or failure instantly, which, granted, does make the game seem less focused on risk and reward, but there are harder difficulty options for those who prefer the idea of no takebacks and permadeath.
Though I haven’t laid hands on a Dark Pictures game other than Man of Medan, I’ve felt these games have long had a certain clunkiness to them in terms of player movement throughout the world. That’s clearly been an area of focus for Supermassive in their break from the series, as movement through the Cassiopeia feels vastly improved. Whether it’s walking, jogging, or running like hell through scripted chases, Directive 8020 is the best a Supermassive game has felt, and it’s made all the more immersive through new, free control over the game’s camera, which lets you more easily take in your surroundings.
The other new feature that Supermassive has placed enormous stock in is the stealth mechanics. I say this because each of the game’s eight chapters has a couple of drawn-out stealth segments that, by the time the credits roll, feel well-worn. That’s not to say the stealth mechanics aren’t sound, they are; however, I found that the creature AI and pathing were predictable, and with there generally only being one threat to deal with, it was wholly unchallenging. But it was the repetition and overreliance on the mechanic that made this entry ultimately feel like a kind of one-trick pony.
After self-declaring Directive 8020 “The Thing in space,” it certainly had a lot to live up to, and it does—mostly. The crew aboard the Cassiopeia crash-lands on an uncharted planet, a prospective new home for mankind, Tau Ceti f after a meteorite strike. Shortly after, its prognosis ‘uh-oh’ as it’s determined the meteorite, which is lodged in the ship’s guts, carried a rapidly spreading, alien organism that can shapeshift and mimic people. What unfolds is a tense, paranoid-riddled descent into madness, and despite my initial concerns, I do think this game’s ultimate threat, in the organism, is rather cool. The story does have a swerve, or two, that I didn’t anticipate, and I think it’s ultimately worthy of being Supermassive’s first big swing at sci-fi.
I do think the decision to have the story jump around haphazardly at the start of certain chapters, regardless of whether it’s meant as a red herring of sorts or not, didn’t serve the overarching mystery or tension in any meaningful way. Quite often, we’d be treated to a time skip, be placed in the roles of characters we’d not met yet, and were expected to make contextless, snap decisions. For a game with a big emphasis on player agency, I certainly didn’t enjoy some of those earlier choices feeling ill-informed or trivial. Other than that, I do think the overall plot, and how my main canon wrapped up was pretty satisfying, and I did end up with a bit of a soft spot for the crew after being concerned over their chemistry.
Not a single movie trope is missed within the crew dynamic here. Brianna Young, portrayed by Lashana Lynch, whose reluctance towards the mission is assuaged by Commander Stafford, her late father’s former crewmate and surrogate father figure, who, like Lethal Weapon’s Murtagh, is getting too old for this shit and is set to call curtains on his decorated career after the mission. Also on board is a proud and brash pilot, an uptight and scrupulous engineer, a philosopher-type who waxes on about the nature of everything, and a medical officer with trauma and baggage. There isn’t a character archetype missed; however, they do mesh well together, and I often found their clashing methods and banter rather refreshing.
Expectedly, the visuals are one of the game’s strongest features, complete with high-fidelity performance capture and a gruesome amount of body horror. Like other Dark Pictures titles, there’s certainly a level of cinematic prestige that’s evident in the production values, and I have to imagine that’s alluring to actors like Lynch, who’s the only performer who both voices and provides likeness for their character. I expect eagle-eyed players will spot familiar faces from past titles, as Supermassive clearly likes using models they’ve worked with before. During stealth sections, there can be a great deal of visual noise and interference that creeps in at the edges of the screen; I expect it’s meant to heighten the tension, though it’s quite unpleasant to look at.
For a game that quite literally stitches itself together on the run based on the choices you make, Directive 8020 hides the seams extremely well. There’s no noticeable break or buffer to speak of, and I’m always quite impressed with how frictionless an experience these games are. Add to that the aforementioned rewind function, which lets players quite literally roll the footage back in an instant, and it’s perhaps the best-running game the team has made.
Directive 8020 is a pretty bold first step into the big universe of science fiction for a team that has set their brand of interactive narrative just about everywhere else. It’s hard to fault the story or characters, even if it regularly dips into cliché. Sadly, the same can’t be said for the gameplay, which, in an attempt to evolve beyond picking between A and B or evading doom within quicktime events, has leaned too hard on repeated stealth moments. Just as we’ve grown accustomed to the same old jump scares, finding a different bench to hide behind became a cavalcade of diminishing returns.