Ever since 2015's Until Dawn, I've been a massive fan of Supermassive Games. From wincing as Rami Malek meets a grizzly end at the hands of a buzzsaw to fleeing an undead monstrosity in Man of Medan years later, the Guildford-based team has always excelled at delivering cinematic scares. It is because of this track record that I arrived at my preview session with high hopes for Directive 8020. Yet, after finally going hands-on with the studio's first foray into sci-fi, my bizarrely brief demo left me feeling more underwhelmed than terrified.

Interstellar Intrigue in Directive 8020

As part of Supermassive's ongoing The Dark Pictures anthology series, the studio is swapping teen slasher tales for eerie interstellar intrigue. The narrative follows the crew of the Cassiopeia, a ship sent to survey the mysterious planet Tau Ceti as part of a routine resettlement mission. However, a mysterious disaster occurs mid-orbit, causing the ship to violently crash on the planet's surface.

Stranded and with no way to contact Earth, the situation goes from bad to worse. The crew quickly discovers they are not alone on the planet. They must contend with unsettling alien lifeforms that possess the terrifying ability to mimic the appearance of their prey, leaving the researchers unsure of who—or what—they can trust.

A Love Letter to Sci-Fi Horror

The atmosphere of Directive 8020 feels like a deliberate homage to the masters of the genre. The game incorporates elements from several iconic titles:

  • Alien
  • The Thing
  • Event Horizon

Searching for Terror in Deep Space

During the demo, I joined the crew of the Cassiopeia roughly two hours after the crash. At this point, the crew had awoken from hypersleep, but the true, Kurt Russell-worthy paranoia had not yet fully taken hold.

The developers kept several key details tightly under wraps, including the specifics of the initial crash and the team's first encounter with the local lifeforms. While the potential for dread is clearly there, this brief glimpse into Directive 8020 failed to deliver the visceral fright I was anticipating.