Directive 8020's Narrative Quick Travel Feels Like a Gospel for Perfectionists

Super-quality games have proven themselves to be one of the most popular storytellers in interactive movie horror movies – until Dawn released a decade ago with more than six similar titles, focusing on different monsters. Directive 8020 is part of its anthology series Dark Pictures and sees developers drawing new areas in space.

Alien is a major cornerstone and the film really shows us what a horrible space, and you also serve as a crew member of the Casseopeia ship, who will wake up from Cryosleep. Given the existence of a speaking supercomputer called Oracle, I don't have enough reason to be suspicious despite playing a speaking supercomputer in the first episode. Instead, the serious threat is a meteorite that violates the hull's hull, which also brings some kind of alien fleshy substance to the ship, which can mimic the appearance of the crew. This is essentially something in space.

There is no doubt that the paranoid among the crew is when you are going to question who is human, but at this point the ship has only two surveillance crew members, Tomas Carter and The Sims, so it's no surprise that it's not right when the latter suddenly starts murder charges.

The formula for super-large interactive horror often involves making choices and reacting to Quicktime events, occasionally embarrassing moments that really control the character in the third person. But given that sometimes you'll be hunted, creative director Will Doyle explained that this means the Dicist 8020's control system can't be followed just from past Dark Pictures titles.

“The way the characters move and how the camera works (has been) rebuilt from scratch, and that's to support some of the stealth gameplay we've invested in,” he explained. “We have these real-time threats and they'll hunt you and kill you. So a full overhaul is something new to this game.”

Meanwhile, the more traditional third-person adventure format also allows for more exploration and puzzles as you can turn on the flashlight to browse the creepy dark corridors on the boat, and also have scanners for interacting with certain objects. I don't quite believe that these gameplay will be pleasant – when I play movie horror games, I feel frustrated walking around and dealing with very mundane interactions, any good movie editor will stay on the floor of the cutting room. The build I played also had some awkward moments that didn't help, and wouldn't be prompted if you stood too close to the object – the team had warned me in advance.

Still, Doyle insists that this is intentional in the game's design philosophy. “Many traditional action adventure games have these design loops, you get ammunition, and we see the story as a reward in those loops,” he explained. “We have a lot of stuff all over the world, but they’re pushing the story forward. So in our discovery section, you’re controlling your character and where you escape the threat, you can also reveal fragments of this mystery, so the story is driven.”

But the new mechanic that attracted me the most was the turning point, essentially breaking down each narrative decision into a story rhythm, where you can not only chart on the menu screen, but you can return. In past games, when a decision is made or a character dies, the story continues and there is no way to undo it. While this way of playing the game is still in Survivor mode for those who want to live and die through their decisions, I also wonder if the ability to rewind is due to the potentially more frustrating mistakes that have more direct character controls, especially for more casual viewers who don't use the controller.

Doyle recalls that when the favorite character died, the players of the studio past games actually stopped playing because they never had to try again. Although he acknowledged that turning points relieved that frustration and helped make the game more likely to worry about its skill level, he said the mechanics did enhance the game for narrative-centric players. Meanwhile, a range of accessibility settings also allow you to effectively lower enemy AI to ghost-themed train rides, where they can be horrible but never catch or kill you.

“(The turning point is) saving the system, but in each individual beat, you can go back to the characters who are alive or dead based on your decision,” he explained. “If you rewind the decision point, you can explore different paths. You can pass it through anywhere in the story. So when you see the (narrative) tree, you can explore all the time in the tree. We want people to play games, but they want to play games.”

So Max’s power in life is not like a rewind technique, but rather strangely, it’s best to think of the turning point as a fast travel system in a narrative game and a more elegant way to explore different decision paths rather than saving effects.

“You can rewind all the way, so I can jump back to any point even at the end of the game.” Think of it as being able to skip any chapter on the DVD, but it's more interactive. “For the (trophy/achievement) hunter, seeing everything is still challenging, but the turning point (allows) you to go back where these changes are needed. It's the magic of what we do.”

2026 PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X's command 8020 version.