Directive 8020 Might Give the Dark Pictures Saga a Massive Upgrade

Developer Supermassive Games truly made their people connected the fearfulness crippled scenery with 2015's Until Dawn, but the Dark Pictures Anthology truly brought the vigor by offering gaming's closest analog to Netflix's Black Mirror series. With the latest installment connected the way, the developers person plans for an ambitious instrumentality that yet ventures into sci-fi fearfulness portion besides putting players successful much nonstop power of the tense encounters that await the characters successful this acheronian story.

At Summer Game Fest 2025, we got to play a peculiarly fateful brushwood from the upcoming Directive 8020, which continues the Dark Pictures saga. We besides saw conscionable however the sci-fi fearfulness escapade crippled mixes things up with much real-time gameplay encounters that bring the bid and its beardown communicative hooks person to a existent endurance fearfulness experience.

Taking spot successful the acold future, wherever Earth is connected the verge of collapse, a unit of scientists and abstraction colonists question to a distant satellite poised to go humanity's adjacent home. But arsenic you'd conjecture for a fearfulness game, the satellite is location to different malevolent entity, and the unit is forced to past against a mysterious alien beingness that tin mutate and instrumentality the signifier of immoderate surviving idiosyncratic connected committee their ship.

Actress Lashana Lynch – seen successful The Day of the Jackal and Captain Marvel – leads the formed of characters arsenic the aviator of the ship, and her aboriginal scenes successful Directive 8020 marque her specified a compelling pb successful this bleak story. The crippled leans into akin themes of paranoia, isolation, and fearfulness of the chartless – which makes for an fantabulous setup for a Dark Pictures game. The developers were peculiarly inspired by sci-fi films similar Event Horizon, Alien, and John Carpenter's The Thing, which helped found the benignant of fearfulness and consciousness of dread that Directive 8020 goes for.

According to crippled manager Will Doyle, who guided maine done the SGF demo, Directive 8020 volition inactive diagnostic galore of the hallmarks of a Dark Pictures experience. Still, it volition besides people the commencement of much progressive gameplay sequences and choices that purpose to summation the fearfulness origin wrong this extended episode.

"I've had this thought for much real-time threats successful my caput for a agelong clip and passim play 1 of the Dark Pictures, and the main crushed we wanted to bash it was to summation the fearfulness origin for the games," said the crippled director. "There's thing much scary than erstwhile you're successful nonstop power and the creatures are trying to hunt you down and termination you. That gets your bosom pumping, and that was a important portion of our motivation. We besides wanted to grow our assemblage with much engaging gameplay. It's inactive a cinematic, story-driven game, but it does person moments wherever you are making those decisions and actions with much nonstop control."

I got to spot this real-time enactment series during a communicative conception wherever the Captain and different unit subordinate were confronted by their alien impostors. Playing arsenic the 2nd unit member, the imposter mutates into a grotesque monster, and I person to evade it from wrong the attraction country of the ship. This played retired successful a tense and unnerving stealth series that felt akin to Dead Space oregon Resident Evil, which lends Directive 8020 a classical endurance horror-like feel. As this is simply a Dark Pictures game, imperishable decease is simply a thing, and if I hadn't gotten this quality retired distant from his imposter, the main communicative would person evolved differently.

However, Directive 8020 heightens the consciousness of paranoia and hostility erstwhile making fateful endurance choices. Given that Supermassive Games' pedigree of fearfulness escapade games is astir making decisions to support a radical of survivors and friends live to the extremity of the communicative – the added twist successful Directive 8020's communicative with your unit being replaced by alien imposters presents an unsettling wrinkle.

A fateful infinitesimal occurred erstwhile the Captain returned to the unit and had to determine wherever to sprout a unit subordinate who had seemingly travel successful interaction with the alien entity. Much similar the games from the developers, these flashpoint moments are among the astir consequential points successful the story. Without giving distant spoilers, I made a determination that I would travel to regret. Still, according to the crippled director, these moments tin besides beryllium rolled backmost utilizing the turning constituent strategy – which acts arsenic an optional communicative tracker and rewind system, allowing players to presumption antithetic moments and take a antithetic way if they wish.

So far, Directive 8020 is acceptable to beryllium a invited instrumentality to the Dark Pictures series. And with the absorption connected giving players much nonstop power of the enactment portion besides heightening the consciousness of distrust successful your dwindling enactment of survivors, the adjacent crippled looks to connection 1 of the much unsocial and game-changing episodes the bid has seen yet.