| “ | Hunted by an alien organism capable of mimicking its prey, the crew of the Cassiopeia must outwit their pursuers to make it home alive. | ” |
Directive 8020 is the first installment of the second season of The Dark Pictures Anthology series, and the fifth installment overall.
It is an interactive drama survival horror video game with space and body horror elements under development and published by Supermassive Games for a multi-platform release on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC in the first half of 2026.
Synopsis[]
Earth is dying and humanity is running out of time. 12 light years from home, Tau Ceti f offers a small sliver of hope. When the colony ship Cassiopeia crash lands on the planet, its crew soon realize they are far from being alone.
Hunted by an alien organism capable of mimicking its prey, the crew of the Cassiopeia must outwit their pursuers to make it home alive. As they battle to survive, they are confronted with the hardest choice of all: to save themselves, they must risk the lives of everyone on Earth.
Plot[]
Prologue[]
Main Story[]
Gameplay[]
See this page for full gameplay of the anthology.
In a dramatic step forward for the series, the game features real-time threats, all-new stealth gameplay mechanics, 5-player online co-op, and enhanced interactive cinematics powered by Unreal Engine 5.
Characters[]
Protagonists[]
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Antagonists[] |
Supporting Characters[]
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Soundtrack[]
Development[]
Directive 8020's original title design
The title of the game was trademarked on February 1, 2022 along with 4 other titles, although no information was known about it.
The first glimpse of the fifth installment in the anthology and the season two premiere appeared in The Devil in Me's gold picture showing a pair of astronauts walking on the outside of a spaceship, before one of them is blown away due to an explosion from inside the ship. Moreover, as the credits end, the teaser trailer is shown.
The teaser opens with a voiceover of Commander Stafford of the forward reconnaissance vessel Cassiopeia in the Cetus constellation. He says that his crew has successfully rendezvoused with the Charybdis marker and detached the booster ring, and the crew are in high spirits as they make their final approach to Tau Ceti f. He also reports that the ship suffered a minor impact that the technicians are restoring. The audio then cuts to a broadcast from Tomas Carter, who reports that something is wrong with Simms, and that she is trying to kill him. It then cuts back to Stafford reporting that their next transmission will be broadcast from orbit around humanity's future home, before he signs off.
The video of the teaser depicts the abandoned Cassiopeia, with a cracked space helmet and blood droplets floating in front of a window that looks out onto Tau Ceti f, a potentially habitable exoplanet with a sinister purple glow. There are two brief cuts to footage of a pink growth within the ship interior.
On December 31, 2023, Supermassive Games posted a teaser for the game featuring the purple planet being observed on a camera with static.[1] On August 2nd, 2024, Supermassive confirmed that the game would appear at Gamescom later that month.[2]
The announcement trailer was revealed at Gamescom on August 20, 2024.[3] The story trailer was released on February 12, 2025, revealing the game's release date on October 2, 2025.[4]
In late April 2025, Supermassive Games began publishing weekly interviews with protagonists about the Cassiopeia mission. It began with Laura Eisele on April 22,[5] followed by Nolan Stafford on April 30,[6] Samantha Cooper on May 7,[7] Josef Cernan on May 15,[8] and finally Brianna Young on May 21.[9] On May 30, The Dark Pictures website published profiles of the astronauts, including both the previously revealed protagonists and new supporting characters, such as Zoe Anders, Noah Mitchell, Tomas Carter, Pari Simms, and LaMarcus Williams.[10]
On June 7, 2025, a second trailer for the game was shown in the Future Games Show: Summer Showcase 2025.[11] The footage switches between the crew being scanned to check if there are mimics among them, and the astronauts either escaping or fighting the aliens. It concludes with Brianna's message begging to save them. The Turning Points feature was also announced.[12]
On July 22, 2025, it was announced that the game was delayed to the first half of 2026.[13]
On October 15, 2025, a gameplay teaser was shown in IGN's 2025 Fan Fest: Fall Edition.[14] The teaser introduced first person mechanics for the first time in the anthology.[15]
On October 30, 2025, a new showcase teaser was shown that revealed that Directive 8020 now supports RTX.[16]
On the weekdays upcoming to Halloween 2025, Supermassive Games began publishing small short-video teasers about the game.[17][18][19] The video posted on October 30 asked the audience to vote for either a 'trick' or 'treat' for the following video being posted on Halloween, which detailed the aftermath of Eisele encountering the Alien Hunter.[20]
On Halloween, 'trick' had won, so a video was posted showing the death of Eisele.[21] A video showing Eisele escaping, labeled 'treat', was posted 12 hours later, since it had lost the poll.[22]
The main inspiration for Directive 8020 is John Carpenter's The Thing (1982). The developers have even described the game as "The Thing in space". [23] Will Doyle has listed other outer space themed horror movies that they took inspiration from which include Solaris (1972),[24] Alien (1979), Event Horizon (1997), Pandorum (2009), Prometheus (2012),[25] Life (2017),[24] Sputnik (2020), as well as H.P. Lovecraft's cosmic horror.[25]
Reception[]
Special Releases[]
System requirements[]
Trivia[]
References[]
- References to Directive 8020 appear in other installments of The Dark Pictures Anthology:
- In Man of Medan: the label on a jeep being manufactured by Corinth.
- In Little Hope: an article about the Apollo landing in a newspaper.
- In House of Ashes: the original home of the vampires being the Cetus constellation.
- In The Devil in Me: memorial of the ship "SS Cassiopeia"; the last paragraph in the second page of the Anxiety Book; Erin's quote about a rocket being able to be launched from the nerve center; a magazine titled "Future Vision: Countdown to Mars".
Other[]
- The title of the game is a reference to NASA Directive 8020 (superseded by Directive 8700 on June 22, 2022)[26], which was about controlling biological contamination from outer space.[27]
- Directive 8020 has is the first game in the anthology with a different cover style, as it does not feature the skull and compass.
- Starting with Directive 8020, Bandai Namco Entertainment is no longer the publisher of the anthology and has been replaced by Supermassive Games itself.
- Directive 8020 has the most multinational group of protagonists having: 2 American, 1 British, 1 Dutch, and 1 Turkish.
Gallery[]
Videos[]
References[]
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