Directive 8020 Review (PS5, Xbox Series X/S, & PC)

Supermassive Games has mastered the art of interactive cinema, and after sinking hours into their catalog, I can say with confidence that no one does it quite like them. The best horror experiences can now have you be an active participant, moving the pieces on the board to your pleasure. You can no longer blame premature deaths on anyone but yourself when you’re given relatively extensive control over the direction the story goes. Ideally, you make choices that influence the story and character arcs, as previous Supermassive Games have done. Until Dawn was the first to set the bar of engaging interactive cinema, followed by The Dark Pictures Anthology. 

Directive 8020 is the next in The Dark Pictures Anthology bunch, taking us to yet another horror sub-genre you’ll instantly be familiar with. At least gamers who’ve spent their free time freaking out at the monster stalking the claustrophobic walls of a haunted spaceship. The Alien series, and the story borrows from The Thing’s stark imitation of a victim. But is the end-result ultimately a distinct work of art worthy of carrying the mantle? One thing Supermassive Games has done differently to usher us to a new direction is to incorporate survival horror. So, stealth, in addition to a choice-driven narrative. But has the risk paid off? 

In this Directive 8020 review, I’ll break down what you can expect from the new game in easy-to-digest detail.

Setting the Scene

Earth has inevitably dug its own grave. And the solution is, you guessed it, colonizing a new planet. But first, an expedition team has to be sent into space to investigate viable, potentially new homes for humanity. And so, your team bunkers in the Cassiopeia spaceship, traveling 12 light-years from Earth. Destination? Unknown. But before we set down on humanity’s potentially new home, a meteorite strikes you down onto the planet Tau Ceti f. And I like how the planet you crash-land into doesn’t necessarily pose the initial threat. It’s, instead, an alien organism that barricades itself in your spaceship during the collision that begins to spread. And worse? You can’t tell it apart from your own crew because it’s able to mimic your friends. 

Hence, The Thing inspiring Directive 8020’s mimicking of the victim, where you might attack a creature before you. But how do you know whether they are truly the enemy or merely the victim? It’s a tense bargain that amps the uncertainty Supermassive Games have mastered over the years. Their craft has been posing questions that are tough to answer because getting them wrong may very well cause the death of someone in your crew. Your decisions carry weight, or more rightly, consequence in these types of games that make them so damn thrilling to trudge along to. 

It’s how Directive 8020’s story ends up grabbing your attention. You genuinely feel intrigued to find out how your choices impact the characters’ relationships and growth. And whether your choices may be so wrong that your crewmates end up paying the price. The opposite is true, as well, where there’s a “perfect ending.” And that heightens the need to replay the game, trying to figure out the “path best taken.” 

Decision-Making Under Pressure

Plenty of factors go into devising the most destabilizing tense moments in games like Directive 8020. You need characters with depth, characters you grow to care for. The kind that you feel desperate to protect, and whose deaths will destroy you. And in some respect, you do form that special bond to some characters, while others fall a little flat. I can’t quite put a finger on what derails certain characters from thriving fully. It may be the stiff animations of some that break immersion. Others seldom have conversations that break the walls of their professional relationships. Your crewmates are the best in their field, the team humanity is relying on. And they can remain a little rigid in their roles, neglecting to show their motivations and humane side. 

On the other hand, Directive 8020 finds other ways to amp the tension. Say, having consequences that materialize near instantly from when you make a tough decision. That way, emotions are still strong, and the impact is felt more deeply than if you were to continue playing and even forget that you’d made such a daring decision. 

Second Time Around

The game also tries to give you flexibility in your journey through rewinds, but I’m unsure how effective it is in amping tension. You can essentially rewind time to undo a wrong decision you made from the menu. Thus, taking away the need to restart the game to discover alternate paths. But it can take away the impact of your decisions. That having to sit with the consequences of your choices is taken away. 

Granted, rewinding is totally optional. But the feature being there is tempting. And giving in to the temptation also comes with unraveling twists and turns that should have been further ahead. 

Goosebumps

I do enjoy the quick-time events, though, where you have a few seconds to make up your mind. Those are always fantastic ways to get your heart racing, and can feel terrible when you aren’t fast enough to make the right decision. 

And then you have the mimicking feature, when you have to decide whether someone is an enemy or your fellow crewmate. On paper, it sounds like a perfect way to amp up the tension, especially when choosing wrong has the worst possible result of death. Yet, Directive 8020 drops the ball a bit when it comes to execution. You’re meant to have a hard time telling apart the real person from the mimic. And yet, mimics show telltale signs you can’t miss of being the enemy. They act strangely and may even look off. 

Hide and Seek

Directive 8020 is definitely more active, requiring you to control five characters’ exploration of the shape-shifting spaceship. You’ll navigate claustrophobic walls and solve puzzles, but also primarily engage in stealth. Before stealth fans get excited that it’s some comprehensive gameplay system, it’s hardly. You mostly play hide and seek with the monsters lurking about. Hiding in the darkness is the best way to go. But you also have a scanner you can use to detect any nearby monsters. If you anticipate one approaching, then you try not to make a sound. Crouching is the most effective way to move about, searching for a place to hide. And the environment design is easy enough to find a place to crouch behind. 

Take it slightly up a notch, and you can study enemy movements. They patrol the spaceship in predictable routes that you can avoid. Caught in a tight spot? Well, you can temporarily stun them with your baton. But otherwise, you’d better make a run for it. And that’s pretty much it, which, as you can imagine, gets boring after a few hours in. When enemy patrols are predictable, when hiding places are right there, when there aren’t innovative ways to deal with encounters. I get that Directive 8020 chooses not to have combat at all, but stealth should feel helpless, but at the same time, give you creative ways to maneuver intelligent stalkers.

Look and Feel

As for the visuals, Directive 8020 looks polished, alright. It’s a stunning sci-fi aesthetic, with a broody atmosphere. It’s just the level design that feels like a letdown, with repetitive rooms and boring walls. More intricate level design would have made stealth interesting, to have environmental designs that make running and hiding almost like a puzzle. Voice acting is stellar, as is the licensed music in places.

Verdict

Supermassive Games takes a leap of faith, including adding more active gameplay to its usual interactive horror movie style. But does it pay off? To some extent, yes. There are genuine moments of peak tension. But those come from making the tough choices that previous games have mastered. The kind of choices that bear consequences as heavy as the death of a beloved character. 

It engages you in not just the story but the character arcs, where you carefully study their motivations and relationships with one another. And with the mimicking mechanic, the stakes are higher. Yet, the execution fails to create believable duplicates. Not to mention that not all the character arcs are as deep as you might hope. Other features, like rewinding to correct your mistakes, are a double-edged sword. 

It may save you time, having to restart to discover all the alternate paths. But at what cost? You lose the tension when you know that a few clicks can correct your mistakes. Plus, some twists reveal themselves too soon. And then you have stealth, which could definitely have been more innovative. Perhaps Supermassive Games ought to go back to what they do best, which is purely interactive cinema.