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Join Now!Directive 8020 is the latest in Supermassive Games’ Dark Pictures Anthology series. In the not-too-distant future, somewhere in time and space, Earth is on its last legs, and our attempts to colonize Mars have failed. An intrepid crew of ten has set out on a four-year journey to Tau Ceti F, and everything that can go wrong does, and I had a fun time trying to save this gaggle of snark-filled astronauts.
The Cassiopeia
Narrative game reviews tend to be short, as the gameplay mechanics are few and the story is far too easy to spoil. The backstory and early goings on in Directive 8020 are that Earth is running out of resources. It is the near future, and man has reached and colonized Mars.
Our small red neighbor is dying, though, and an unsuitable target for terraforming. Tau Ceti F is the target of our crew’s journey, yes, the same Tau Ceti from the recent Marathon game and Project Hail Mary movie.
Your crew of 10, 8 of whom are in ‘hyper sleep’ with 2 sleep technicians keeping an eye on the ship, is to survey the planet ahead of a colony ship’s arrival. There are 8 levels in the game, which took me roughly 6 hours to complete the first time.
Decisions and quick-time events will determine who lives and dies as everything that can go wrong does. The plot was fairly straightforward, with a few easy-to-guess twists that didn’t mar my overall enjoyment. What did, especially early on, was the banter between your crew.
For a group of scientists, military pilots, and medical personnel, there was far too much snarky horror-movie dialogue for my liking. I know that has been a signature of Supermassive’s Games since Until Dawn, but it just didn’t fit as well for me in such a serious, sci-fi setting.
Choice and Consequence
Turning Points are the parts of the game where binary choices lead to various paths. The game does a solid job of accounting for characters’ personalities and whether they’re alive, incapacitated, or dead as you progress. These Turning Points allow you to quickly rewind and give different choices a go.
In my main playthrough, I kept everyone alive, achieving what I believe to be the ‘best’ ending. Using the Turning Points system, I was able to go back and replay through various scenarios to see alternate outcomes and have fun picking off my crew one at a time, for scientific reasons, of course.
Alongside your A or B dialogue choices are a small number of gameplay systems. As a (damned good-looking) third-person title, there is a light amount of platforming to do. It is mostly ‘walk up to thing and press A’, with a couple of QTE’s.
Shenmue’s legacy lives on as, at key points of the narrative, and especially towards the end, you’ll be tasked with hitting the right button at the right time to succeed a harrowing in-game cutscene.
Difficulty settings control how long the window for QTE’s is, as well as how often you need to mash a button to succeed with those focused on your thumb’s speed. The majority of the gameplay, however, is hiding from enemies.
No spoilers, but after a few hours into the game’s time-displacing narrative (you jump back and forth in the story), I was sick of playing hide and seek. At some points, your character will have a ‘pry tool’ which doubles as a stun stick. If you’re not using it to open and lock doors, you can ‘parry’ enemies that detect you with a QTE.
I was never caught a single time by the game’s brain-dead and blind AI. The only times I had to use my pry tool for defense were in cutscenes that were going to make me no matter what. Pressing B and hiding behind waist-high boxes was never fun, from the first to the final level. What was great the entire time was the setting
Youuuu Are Notttt Alooooone
I think that Directive 8020 has some of the best art style and polish that I have seen from the Dark Pictures Anthology. The space scenes, as well as Tau Ceti F, are downright gorgeous.
The character models are incredibly close to breaking that uncanny valley barrier that few titles going for such hyper realism have achieved. The main thing that gave it away to me was the jittery nature of their micro-movements during conversations.
The skin texturing, eye movements, and facial expressions are excellent. Performances are fantastic across the board, helping carry some clunky opening dialogue designed to give you these characters’ history together in two-sentence chunks.
It doesn’t always work, but when it does, it’s pretty damned fun to watch. A spoiler-filled review could go on about the various areas you see, actions you do, and how enjoyable it is to see the changes, both small and large, that can occur.
The game’s soundtrack does a solid job of building tension without overly relying on jump scares. They’re still there, so keep the volume down if you’re particularly susceptible to them. Playing through on PC, the game ran great, with no bugs to speak of.
Wrapping Things Up
Directive 8020 is a solid sci-fi yarn let down by some early snark-filled writing. The plot is serviceable in showing you some gorgeous locations full of people you may or may not want to save, and a bevy of monsters you’ll get bored hiding from. If you’ve enjoyed the studio’s previous work, then rest assured that Directive 8020 may well be worth checking out.
Directive 8020
Played on
PC via Steam
PROS
- Looks fantastic
- Solid acting and VO
- Turning Points allow for easy replayability
CONS
- Writing starts off poorly
- Playing hide and seek gets really boring
