Directive 8020 Review — We’re not Alone

Directive 8020 is an interactive story set within The Dark Pictures Anthology, a series of standalone horror titles that have rightfully earned a sterling reputation as far as narrative-driven games go. As my first hands-on experience with the anthology, Directive 8020 has certainly captured my interest, enough to make me want to check out the other Dark Pictures titles, and managed to entertain and enthrall me on its own, even if the title is not without its fair share of flaws.

Directive 8020 tells the story of the space-bound vessel Cassiopeia and its crew, a small team of brave explorers tasked with scouting a new Earth-like planet from orbit ahead of a colonization ship. I won’t do you the disservice of spoiling the game’s plot for you, but suffice to say, things begin to go wrong in the wake of a one-in-a-billion disaster that falls upon the Cassiopeia, namely, a meteorite carrying hostile alien life.

The story is obviously the strongest part of Directive 8020, something that I hope goes without saying for a game of its kind. It starts a little slow, which is not necessarily a bad thing, and manages to toss you a few crumbs of tension to keep you interested even during its more prolonged moments of buildup. What is immediately clear is that the title wants you to connect with its cast of characters, who play a central role in both the storytelling and the game’s mechanics.

Said mechanics are pretty typical for the genre. If you’ve played a Telltale game, you know what to expect from Directive 8020: a story-heavy title with occasional bouts of gameplay and a lot of decisions to make that impact the story.

The extent to which your decisions impact the story varies. I wouldn’t say that too many of the important decisions outright change the path of the story, but rather that they modify it: most importantly, there are characters whose lives can be saved or tragically lost depending on your decisions or your performance in quick-time events. This is great, but there are definitely moments in the story that feel like they should be avoidable or determined by your actions that sort of happen no matter what you do. This is, unfortunately, true in every “decisions matter” game to some extent, and I’ve yet to see a title that fully changes based on the decisions you make. Directive 8020 could definitely use some more impactful player choices, however, and I have played games in the genre that do this aspect better.

The biggest thing you can change throughout the story is the characters themselves, with their personalities changed by the “Destiny” system, wherein you determine crucial aspects of a character’s motivations and outright personality based on the decisions you make at important moments.

This mechanic is fun, and I think where it’s most impactful is in the game’s multiplayer. Directive 8020 can be played in local co-op, in which different players control different crew members. It is definitely interesting to see how these characters change based on the people who play them and the decisions they make, creating some tangible difference beyond just slightly different endings or paths to the same outcome in the narrative.

The performances in Directive 8020 vary from strong to middling, and you can definitely tell that there is a wide range of talent between the game’s actors. This isn’t something I usually like to comment on, but in a title so focused on line delivery and close-ups of characters’ faces, it can really take you out of things when someone isn’t giving the best performance.

What is without a doubt the weakest aspect of Directive 8020 is the gameplay. Much of the game is viewed through cutscenes, occasionally interrupted by short segments that amount to either walking simulators or stealth segments. These segments are so simple that they got to the point where I was dreading playing them, and I would actually have preferred the entire game to be a series of cutscenes, or like an interactive movie, occasionally interrupted by choices made by the player.

The stealth segments are simple to a fault, and what the game would call puzzles amount to walking from point A to point B after using a scanner to highlight your objective. The quick-time events are good, and considering how impactful they are in the story, I was actually really pleased with their implementation. Beyond that, however, the game really didn’t need these breaks from the cinematic moments, and I think it would be much stronger without them.

Directive 8020 is a solid story-based game that fans of the genre will be hard-pressed not to enjoy. The gameplay segments are weak and are otherwise just interruptions of the solid story, but impactful quick-time events alongside the turning-point choices do give the game some meaningful player interaction. There are moments where the actors’ performances can take you out of the story a little, the slower pacing isn’t for everyone, and some dialogue leaves something to be desired, but overall, I think the game is pretty solid and should appeal to many looking for an interactive horror experience.

Try Hard Guides was provided with a Steam code for this PC review of Directive 8020. Find more detailed looks at popular and upcoming titles on our Game Reviews page! Directive 8020 is available on Steam, Xbox, and PlayStation.