The Dark Pictures Anthology has had some ups and downs since it started back in 2019 with Man of Medan. It's had a lot of "almost great" games that come crumbling down right near the finish line, like Little Hope and The Devil in Me. It's most successful title being House of Ashes, which began as a grounded war story before throwing itself full tilt into alien vampires as two soldiers from opposing sides slowly become the best bros ever put to a disc. It's a wild ride and probably my favorite game Supermassive has put out. I've been very critical of the series over the years, and I mention this because I really do want these games to succeed. When they hit, they hit and become favorites for replays to see all the branching paths, play co-op with a friend, or just to re-experience the story. From what I've played of the preview demo, Directive 8020 absolutely has the potential to be up there alongside Until Dawn, The Quarry, and House of Ashes.
It's been four years since the release of the previous game, The Devil in Me, which added a lot of gameplay tweaks to feel more like an adventure game than an interactive movie, while still never straying too far from that standard Until Dawn set. It certainly set that title apart, as while I had issues with the narrative and QTEs, the enhanced interactivity made it easily the scariest of the bunch. (I say that as someone who doesn't like being scared, but it's incredibly tense and memorable because of that.) Directive 8020 is leaning much further into this new gameplay style, with the majority of the demo focused on sneaking through the spaceship the game takes place in and avoiding strange, The Thing-like organisms impersonating crewmates.
Before we dive into the gameplay, let's back up a bit for the plot, because this demo is very weirdly structured. It begins 18 hours after... whatever happened happened, with two characters moving through the ship to reach something called the scanner as oxygen levels slowly drop. After this section ends, we jump back to hour 0, just after, once again, whatever happened happened. There's a weird growth attached to the crashed vessel, and one of the crew, Simms, has gone rogue and possibly killed another member named Tom Carter. Once again, two crewmates set off to the maintenance layers to trap her in one section of the ship. It's a weird way to structure a demo, and while it gave me a good idea of the gameplay, I was pretty lost on the plot.
That gameplay is pretty great though, and oddly similar to rally racing. As you stealth through the ship, you're guided over comms by your companion, who will let you know which doors to take, when to stop and hide, and when to book it. It's all scripted so you won't get any dynamic directions, but surprisingly it makes things more tense to know that you really just have to trust the person on the other end to keep you safe, something I'm sure will depend on your relationships in the full game.
You're not entirely helpless though, just mostly. You have a tool that essentially serves as a get out of jail free card if caught by the enemy, as you can perform a QTE to stun a foe for a short time. This stun is on a fairly lengthy cooldown, though, and, as we'll see later, sometimes even it can't save you. You also have something called a Utility Strap, which can be used to activate certain objects in the environment to serve as distractions and get enemies out of their patrol routes for a short time.
The game offers a surprising amount of freedom in these sections. You're free to explore if you want, get caught, and hope you can outrun them, or creep through the environment like a ghost. In the 0 hour section, when I was being hunted by a monster without the aid of my companion, I waited to activate a distraction until I had already snuck past, giving me the opportunity to turn my back and crouch sprint to safety undetected when I could have used it earlier to break up their patrol route. It's small choices like this that can make a big impact.
Case in point, the scenario I just described was actually my second run through the demo. The first time I got caught by the monster which, despite stunning it afterwards, alerted it to my presence in the general area. This meant it was on my trail, and quickly caught back up to me, ending the stealth section and causing my character to lose an eye in the ensuing struggle. In my second run, I took my time, made it to my objective - to extend a bridge for my companion to cross over to my side of the room, and was now afforded some QTE prompts in that same struggle to save my eyeball. It's this interweaving of more traditional gameplay with Supermassive's typical choice based-stories that makes Directive 8020 so exciting to me. What you do when you are fully in control matters just as much as choosing dialogue options.
I think that's why this demo is structured the way it is: putting the new gameplay style up front and in the back, with dialogue options sandwiched in the middle. Don't worry though, as dialogue still has a big impact on how things play out. In a scene where the crew is deciding how to handle Simms, I was given the choice to authorize the use of the ship's one and only firearm, just in case. I authorized this the first time, and the gun was the only thing that got the monster off my character after she lost her eye. The second time around though, I chose not to. Things could have ended very badly without that backup plan, but thanks to decent stealth skills, I totally avoided catastrophe. I imagine not using the gun in that instance will have some payoff later in the game, but we'll have to wait and see in the full version.
I was excited for Directive 8020 before playing the demo, in the way I've been excited for all the Dark Pictures games (and The Quarry), but after playing the demo? I genuinely think this could be a massive leap forward for Supermassive's titles in all aspects.
Directive 8020 releases May 12th for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S.
