“Directive 8020 became a much more ambitious project than we originally intended. And it’s set the quality standard for what we want to do with the rest of the series going forward.” That’s how Will Doyle, Creative Director at Supermassive Games, hypes up the latest instalment in The Dark Pictures Anthology, when we sit down with him at a hands-on preview event.
Having begun the better part of a decade ago, this choose-your-own-adventure franchise has carved out a distinct niche for itself. And it’s a brand that audiences have very clearly defined expectations of.
The second that familiar “Whoa, Death” song starts to blare over the opening titles — summoning Pip Torrens‘ Crypt Keeper-esque host to regale us with yet another tale of bloodshed and woe — you know exactly what you’re gonna get. Each outing in the series presents a new B-movie scenario and populates it with a fresh cast of expendable protagonists. This cannon fodder is then placed at the mercy of your decision-making, courtesy of a branching narrative that can splinter off in all kinds of different directions.
Adopting the role of some unseen puppet master, it’s completely up to you how things progress from there. Perhaps you’ll flex your survival instincts and attempt to keep every single one of your charges alive until the end credits. Or maybe you’ll channel those control room guys from The Cabin in the Woods and deliberately lead your proverbial lambs to the slaughter: ordering them to investigate strange noises in the dark; leading them away from the security of the group; and fanning the flames of their interpersonal conflicts until they can no longer rely on one another’s protection.
Or, as a secret third option, you might try your damndest to safeguard the poor saps in your care and still get them killed by innocent mistake! Not everyone has the keen genre savvy of Randy Meeks, after all.
Regardless of how benevolent a demiurge you’re feeling, these games are among some of the most consistently enjoyable on the market today. They’re a cheesy good time for casual players, while offering more hardened gorehounds the chance to tailor their perfect scary movie experience (manipulating the outcome of events to attain the ideal kill count and score the preferred jump scare quota).
Yet, as winning as this formula might be, even its creators acknowledge that it could do with a bit of a revamp. Getting candid for a moment, Doyle confesses to us that he and the team have always wanted “to do more” to make each successive Dark Picture feel bigger and better than the last. Alas, circumstances just haven’t allowed for that. “We wanted each entry in our anthology to be more than just another story with the exact same mechanics and systems”, he tells us. “We wanted [to] keep pushing ourselves.”
The problem’s been that, up until 2022, these games had been releasing on an annual basis, affording Supermassive very little time to make substantial improvements or ground-up tweaks in between projects. In fact, apart from them dabbling in a new sub-genre each go around (cycling through paranormal horror, psychological horror, creature feature horror, and slasher horror), you’d be hard-pressed to identify what’s meaningfully changed in the world of The Dark Pictures since Man of Medan kicked the whole enterprise off in 2019. Indeed, it’s been pretty stagnant for a while.
But that’s all set to change with the upcoming launch (pun not intended) of Directive 8020.
Changing of the Seasons
With a three-year gap separating Directive 8020 from its immediate predecessor (The Devil in Me), the former has benefited from a lot more time in the oven than its Dark Pictures cohorts. And during that fallow period, Supermassive has found some exciting ways to shake things up.
“When we got to the end of what we’ve categorised as “Season 1” [comprising 2019’s Man of Medan, 2020’s Little Hope, 2021’s House of Ashes and 2022’s The Devil in Me], we took the opportunity to reflect”, explains Doyle. “We had a proper think about where we wanted this series to go, what our aspirations were, and how we could ultimately take it to the next level.
“As a result of this [review], there were a couple of really big changes that we wanted to make. First, we decided to introduce real-time threats and stealth mechanics, with monsters now prowling around the world and actively hunting you down. And then our other new addition was what we call the “Turning Point” system, which allows you to see all of the branching paths and player choices plotted out for you on a kind of visual map. From here, you can then rewind to [forks in the road] and follow different paths to the ones you originally went down.”
At our hands-on preview event, we got to experience a small slice of the title for ourselves and put both of these new features to the test. And we came away with a much stronger understanding of what to expect from this shiny new era of Dark Pictures, now that it’s entering its more confident sophomore season.
One Small Step for Supermassive, One Giant Leap for The Dark Pictures
Of course, while those mechanical innovations are certainly intriguing, the first thing that’s liable to turn heads with Directive 8020 is the dramatic change in scenery. After all, this one will see the franchise boldly going where it hasn’t gone before.
For context, every instalment in The Dark Pictures Anthology thus far has been grounded in either real-world mythology, real-world urban legend, or real-world history. Case in point, The Devil in Me used the crimes of America’s first serial killer, H.H. Holmes, as its jumping off point, while House of Ashes flirted with the Mesopotamian lore of Pazuzu for an adventure set against the backdrop of the Iraq war.
Directive 8020 severs these terrestrial ties, however, and is instead looking to the heavens for inspiration. Specifically, it’s got the Tau Ceti system on its mind. Home to a Sun-like star, this particular corner of the galaxy is the subject of great interest for contemporary astronomers and has been the focus of much scientific speculation of late. That’s because it has an extended habitable, or “Goldilocks”, zone that would appear to harbour just the right conditions for life. If you’ve recently seen Project Hail Mary, you’ve likely scanned a Wikipedia article on this very topic over the past few weeks.
Supermassive‘s curiosity was similarly piqued by the notion — as well as by the NASA quarantine protocol that serves as Directive 8020’s namesake — and decided that they wanted to take the next Dark Picture out of the atmosphere and into the final frontier. It’s a cool shift for the series and one that the team absolutely relished. “We just wanted to do sci-fi horror”, jokes Doyle. “There were a whole bunch of people in the studio that were drawn towards the genre […] I certainly love it; Aliens is probably my favourite film.”
Speaking of which, we definitely get Weyland Yutani vibes from the game’s suspicious Corinth corporation, which, in the inciting incident of the story, dispatches our protagonists to Tau Ceti in search of an Earth analog. You see, in Directive 8020’s bleak vision of the future, our pale blue dot is dying fast, and so it’s up to the plucky crew of the Cassiopeia to find a viable candidate for humanity’s new home.
The thing is, they’re only supposed to do a dry run ahead of the main Andromeda mission (who’ll then get to do all the fun colonising and terraforming stuff). Indeed, the Cassiopeia’s strict orders are to simply orbit the Tau Ceti exoplanets, choose prospective landing sites, conduct geological surveys, and perform any other tasks that will pave the way for the more important second ship to follow. Essentially, anything that stops short of actually heading to the surface of a planet, Cassiopeia.
Alas, for reasons that weren’t fully explained in our preview slice (it seems to have something to do with a meteor strike), the crew ends up crash landing on Tau Ceti f. Much to their dismay, this collision does a real number on the vessel’s critical systems and takes out their comms transmitter as well. Not to mention, because planetary expeditions were never on the cards, they don’t even have sufficient fuel to leave. In short, they’ve got no way of phoning home, and they’ve got no way of getting home.
If that all weren’t bad enough, it’s not long before the crew discovers that this hunk of rock they’re now marooned on does indeed support sapient life. And it ain’t the friendly kind. Cue fiery debates about proper quarantine procedures, impassioned arguments about whether to bust out the standard-issue firearms, and paranoid accusations flying in every direction as an extraterrestrial shapeshifter infiltrates the Cassiopeia and proceeds to pick off its deckhands one by one. It’s basically John Carpenter’s The Thing by way of Ridley Scott’s Alien. Not a bad combo if you ask us!
Close Encounters of the Stealthy Kind
Known as “mimics”, the copycats that’ll stalk you (or, more accurately, stalk the red shirts whose strings you’re pulling) throughout Directive 8020 are able to imitate other lifeforms with uncanny precision.
We’re assured that this idea will be mined for every last ounce of tension possible when the game releases in May, with you never being fully certain about who you can and can’t trust. Verifying the identity of our crewmates wasn’t much of a concern for us, though, because the mimics were in full mask-off hostile mode for the duration of our preview.
Indeed, when we’re dropped into the fray — mid-way through the campaign — there’s already been at least one fatality aboard the Cassiopeia and the aliens aren’t messing around with subterfuge anymore. In response, the remaining scientists pool together their intellect and expertise to come up with (what is effectively) the same plan devised by those lowly space truckers on the Nostromo. That’s right, they’re gonna try and turn the tables on their foe by cornering it in the maintenance ducts! And some poor unfortunate soul has got to go in there to spring the trap.
Where Dallas drew the short straw in Alien, and ended up being sent into the vent with a Xenomorph, here it’s co-pilot Brianna Young (played by Lashana Lynch, of Captain Marvel and No Time to Die fame) who volunteers for the job. The idea is simple, but risky. She must systematically progress through the tunnels and close the respective bulkheads behind her until the mimic has nowhere left to run. Naturally, she becomes the character we control for most of our ensuing hands-on session, which puts us right in the heart of danger.
Yes, you heard correctly, there’s danger now! Whereas previous Dark Pictures have largely been interactive movie affairs, consigning action to the realm of quick-time events, Directive 8020 has what you might call more traditional gameplay. The Devil in Me laid the foundations for this somewhat with its inclusion of environmental puzzles and a rudimentary hiding mechanic. But Supermassive has doubled down on the concept here.
Most notably, they have introduced conventional enemy encounters that require you to deal with patrolling mimics in real-time. We get a brief tease of this during the maintenance tunnel sequence (which shifts to first-person to heighten the jolts and claustrophobia), but the gloves truly come off when we’re navigating the lower decks of the ship as Biranna and are tasked with sneaking around murderous shapeshifters in order to extend an evacuation bridge.
With a scavenger hunt objective that sees you evading hostiles while hunting for a fuse that can power up your exit route, it feels like the kind of classic horror scenario you’d usually associate with, say, Outlast. Granted, the stealth mechanics are nowhere near as sophisticated in this instance, but it is still reasonably intense and adds a welcome element of interactivity that goes beyond just “Press X to not trip over”.
During this gauntlet, we weave our way through a labyrinthine environment, figure out the optimal routes to our destination, create noisy distractions to lure enemies away from corridors, time our movements to stay out of the line of sight, and even get into impromptu chases when accidentally spotted. It creates way more player agency than we ever expected to see from The Dark Pictures Anthology if we’re being brutally honest.
Adding extra depth to proceedings, we’ve also got a few bits of equipment to give us an edge over our pursuers, including a sonar-like scanner that highlights key points of interest and possible paths, a utility strap that can be used to remotely hack terminals, and a wedge tool that doubles as a defensive cattle prod. The latter is also utilised in nerve-wracking skill-check minigames — similar in presentation to those generator QTEs from Dead by Daylight — that you’ll occasionally need to complete in order to bypass certain locked doors. Take it from us, getting caught in one of these interactions while you have a mimic snapping at your heels is genuinely frightening and urgent. Again, in a way that The Dark Pictures has never been before.
Yet, as heart-racing as they are in the heat of the moment, these encounters aren’t particularly taxing. Especially not if you are a seasoned horror vet. Upon later replaying the section (more on that in a moment), you realise just how scripted it all is and how regimented the enemy patrols are. In that sense, it’s less like the dynamic, emergent stealth of Outlast and more like those bits where you get to play as Mary Jane in Sony’s Spider-Man titles.
That’s not necessarily a problem, though, as Doyle points out that the goal here was not to seriously put gamers through their paces. “The main reason we have introduced those stealth mechanics is to add an element of fear and scariness to the exploration”, he explains. “It’s not to make something that intensely challenges you, and we don’t want it to be too punishing.”
Which is a wise decision on the developer’s part, considering that The Dark Pictures series has never been aimed at the pro-gamer crowd. On the contrary, they can be enjoyed by just about anyone, with the patented “Movie Night” mode actively encouraging you to rope in normie friends and family members who otherwise might be intimidated by the prospect of operating a controller.
“All of our games are quite accessible, and we love that. You can get your gran involved!” Doyle continues. “[That’s why] we made the intensity of those [stealth] moments highly configurable. If you go into the settings, you can make it as hard or as easy as you want. You can even set it so that, should you be caught by a creature, you’ll be immune and won’t suffer any consequences. As for multiplayer, when you’re doing our Movie Night experience, you can tailor the difficulty for each individual player. So, one person can have all the lethal settings activated while their friend, who is just here for the narrative choices, can turn those off.”
When looked at that way, we’re inclined to agree that these fun enemy encounters are likely going to attract more people to Directive 8020 than they are going to deter. Because they’re intense, without being a barrier to entry.
Game Over, Man? Game Over?
Doyle calls these new real-time mechanics “lean forward” gameplay, in reference to the pose you adopt when locking in for an intense encounter. Through binary opposition, he conversely describes all of the usual Dark Pictures stuff as “lean back” gameplay. Those are the parts where you can decompress, look for clues that enhance your understanding of the narrative, spend downtime with the characters, and make the signature branching path choices that this series is known for.
Rest assured, all of that remains ingrained in Directive 8020’s DNA. For example, at one point during our hands-on session, we take control of Captain Stafford and have a heart-to-heart with Corinth CEO LaMarcus Williams. Over the course of this tête-à-tête, a few questions are posed about Stafford’s faith in the mission, which, in turn, gives us an opportunity to define his values and better establish his relationship with Williams. When we respond to the ensuing prompts, a message appears in the top corner of the screen informing us that our characterisation of the captain here will influence his portrayal in the story going forward.
Speaking about this, Doyle says: “When it comes to Directive 8020, we have this new feature based around ‘character traits’, whereby each member of the Cassiopeia crew can end up in one of two positions depending on how you’ve had them interacting with each other. This will determine their [overall] trajectory.”
Without seeing things through to the end, it’s hard to gauge just how measurable an impact these dialogue choices will have. Yet there was another fateful decision we made in the preview that had far more obvious (and immediate) repercussions.
Winding the clock back to just before Brianna’s journey into the maintenance ducts, we’re briefly put in the shoes of Senior Mission Officer, Laura Eisele. Invested with great authority in emergency situations, it’s ultimately her call to authorise the use of firearms aboard the Cassiopeia or not. And by that, we mean that it is really our call as Eisele’s unseen puppet master.
Obviously, we do grant permission for the captain’s revolver to be taken out of storage here. It’s only got six bullets, and we’re confident that there’ll eventually be a downside to it being in the possession of a bunch of paranoid civilians who don’t quite trust each other. But, hey, it comes in handy when Brianna is ambushed by a mimic later on, and Technical Engineer Cooper is able to come sprinting to the rescue, shooting the alien at point-blank range.
That’s more or less where our demo ends, by the way. Or it would be, were it not for another new feature that we’ve been dying to try…
Speaking of which, once we’re kicked back to the main menu, we promptly navigate to the “Turning Points” screen. From here, we’re presented with what looks like a subway map, in which our narrative choices are effectively the stations and their consequences are the tracks they lead us down (for good or ill).
“We wanted to give people the opportunity to more conveniently explore our massive branching narratives”, explains Doyle. “We’re [trying] to signal to players that: A) The game is branching and B) their decisions do have consequences. Turning Point allows us to show people how deep it goes and how expansive the branching paths really are with a visual map. I want to make it easier for people to see everything that’s on offer.”
It’s more than just a chart that keeps track of what you’ve seen and done, though. On the contrary, the big appeal of Turning Point is that it allows you to rewind back to dilemmas you’ve faced previously and choose a separate path.
In our case, that meant we could navigate to the node titled “Loaded Question” and reverse our earlier decision to authorise firearms. Returning to this exact narrative junction, we now choose the “refuse” option instead, which sees Eisele forbidding the use of any gun on the grounds that a stray bullet could potentially hit the ship’s core systems.
We then play through Brianna’s section as before — now with a few different lines of dialogue — to arrive at that pivotal moment where she is accosted by a mimic. With no gunslinging hero to save her this time, the co-pilot has to fend for herself in a QTE melee. Engineer Cooper does eventually turn up again and wrestles the alien away, but not before Brianna has her eye viciously gouged out. So, yeah, it’s a less ideal outcome than the first one we got.
Seeing this alternative version of events play out is proof positive that our choices do matter in Directive 8020. And the Turning Point system made it quicker and easier than ever before.
Raving about the feature, Doyle enthuses: “By giving [players] the option to rewind to key branching moments, they don’t have to play again right from the beginning to experience the changing scenes. It’s about having a bit of care and consideration for the players’ time.”
It’s definitely a welcome option that can, of course, be deactivated if you want to preserve the more old-school Supermassive experience. We expect trophy hunters and completionists, in particular, will get a lot of mileage out of it.
Between this, those invigorating real-time enemy encounters, and a visual upgrade from moving to Unreal Engine 5, Directive 8020 is looking to be an encouraging start to The Dark Picture Anthology’s second season. One that, to paraphrase Doyle, even your grandma could enjoy. Assuming she’s okay with graphic ocular maiming, that is.
Developed and published by Supermassive Games, Directive 8020 is coming to PlayStation 5, Xbox Series and Steam on May 12.