Preview: Directive 8020 a 'Huge Step Forward' for the Dark Pictures Series on PS5

Supermassive Games generally releases its trademark style of story-focused horror games at such a consistent rate that it might come as a surprise its premier franchise, the Dark Pictures Anthology, has now been missing in action for two years. That's normal for any other developer, but the Guildford studio defies the usual production demands to where it always feels like its next game is right around the corner. If you take the team's standalone games into account, that's still actually the case, with The Casting of Frank Stone out in a few weeks. For its main franchise, though, a short hiatus has allowed Supermassive Games to upgrade essentially everything that makes a Dark Pictures game tick.

Directive 8020 is the next instalment in the anthology series, billed as a "huge step forward" with a "dark vision" inspired by sci-fi horror classics like The Thing, Alien, and Event Horizon. During a hands-off Gamescom presentation, Will Doyle stated if we took anything away from the session — which we can now pass onto all of you — it is that Directive 8020 is "John Carpenter's The Thing in deep space".

While the game still carries the Dark Pictures branding, it seems Supermassive Games is attempting to pitch the title as a slightly more standalone thing, at least compared to how it handled the likes of Little Hope, House of Ashes, and The Devil in Me. Following the sad passing of Tony Pankhurst, it's not known whether The Curator will return for Directive 8020, for example — Doyle wasn't willing to give anything away in a Q&A section after the gameplay showing either.

However, one thing that stays the same is making a famous face the protagonist. Lashana Lynch, best known for her work in No Time to Die, The Woman King, and a few Marvel films like Captain Marvel, plays an astronaut onboard a ship 12 light years away. Along with her crew, she needs to find a new place for humanity to call home as the Earth withers away. During the journey to Tau Ceti f (a planet that might support human life), though, the space explorer is boarded by an alien race. The extraterrestrials have the ability to shapeshift into your fellow crewmates, cloning them and forcing you to question who's real.

With this intriguing story setup, Supermassive Games says it's heavily leaning into the survival horror genre. Revamped and upgraded gameplay systems allow for that in a "redesigned, amped up, and polished" experience, as Doyle explains it. The camera has been adjusted, relocating and permanently placing it over the shoulder of Lashana Lynch's character, just like other cinematic titles of the current era.

Gameplay has become significantly more involved thanks to new tools and abilities you can use. A utility strap operates computers and machinery from a distance. The scanner is a lot like Batman: Arkham vision, highlighting interactive elements as well as the aliens. A messenger device lets you send texts to other crewmates and make story-changing choices. Finally, a wedge tool opens locked doors and blasts back the aliens. These new mechanics move the title into a position where it's more of a traditional action-adventure undertaking than a narrative experience; what would have previously been quick-time events, for example, are now simply baked into the gameplay loop and are handled quite a bit more naturally.

While we didn't go hands on ourselves with the game, the gameplay enhancements came across positively as leads at Supermassive Games played the demo to us live. As the presentation concludes, it's teased how the aliens spawn a growth that takes over the spaceship, closing off paths you used in previous chapters and opening up brand new ones for progression.

Having released four entries in just as many years, the Dark Pictures Anthology wasn't giving itself enough time to properly evolve. While the stories remained captivating, gameplay interaction with them did not. This amounted to The Devil in Me in late 2022, which lacked ambition as it mostly recycled mechanics and features of the past. However, by finally taking a break, Supermassive Games has given itself some breathing space to go back to the drawing board and properly evolve the series. With body horror themes and a deep space setting, Directive 8020 feels like the right change of tone and place to convince those who fell off the Dark Pictures Anthology to give it another shot. There's definitely potential here, though we'll have to wait until 2025 to see if it's realised.

Are you adding Directive 8020 to your wishlist? Share your own thoughts in the comments below.