Directive 8020
Review
An inspired sci-fi horror story that gives you control over the level of tragedy
by Jordan Helsley
reviewed on PC
Subtle Implications
Though the story setup will blow no one's mind, Directive 8020 presents an interesting world early on. The mission has a travel time of roughly four years, implying these Earthlings have achieved near-light-speed travel, which informs a lot of what comes next from a technological advancement standpoint. Two "sleep scientists" have endured the journey naturally and are scheduled to wake up crew members as they approach the planet. Before they can do that, though, they have to deal with a pesky hull breach caused by a sudden meteorite somewhere on the ship. That the crew members showed a relative lack of concern further explains the advancement of civilization. The ship will patch itself, and if (when) it doesn't, they'll just do a quick spacewalk and manually start the process; no biggie. The organic growth that lives on the ship now, though, is another story.
The writing and voice acting (or possibly the direction) in Directive 8020 is far from perfect. There are moments where characters react oddly to what's happening, either withholding key information from crewmembers or otherwise appearing to be severely unobservant, and occasionally appear to be "reading from the script" when emotion is clearly necessary. Sometimes that comes up to let the player make a mistake, like when I risked a character's life to reset a system on the ship I had forgotten I had deactivated entirely. Other times it feels more discordant and proof of the pitfalls of this type of storytelling. That said, it does a good job of giving you a cast of likeable characters, even if they all won't hit with everyone. They've got motivations, histories, specialities, and overall each earn their place on this crew and in this game. It was those characters that kept me going through the ups and downs. There was exactly one character (out of 10) that I really didn't care about the fate of, or actively hoped for something horrible, but that's also by design in his case.
Layers of Communication
The characters feel real, and with that comes something that feels like relative autonomy. Sometimes you end up in their shoes and aren't explicitly told what they were doing; you're just given a goal that they have in mind and you've got to go do it. Or the situation changes quickly, and those goals update in real-time with their decision-making, without an overt explanation of why you're doing that thing. But we can't learn everything about everyone. When you learn more about one person, you have less time for others, and this most obviously appears with our two sleep technicians, Simms and Carter. Given that they both were awake for the entire four-year journey, it would be reasonable to think they would see the most backstory, particularly with video game stuff like journal entries and audio logs, but the lion's share of that goes to Simms. In fact, throughout the ship, one of the primary collectibles is video screens that randomly show one of several video messages from Simms, and Carter ends up in the background. As anachronistic as it may feel, even if you chalk it up to a damaged ship malfunctioning, it's nice to get glimpses of what those four-years in paired isolation might have felt like.
Other collectibles offer insights into the broader range of characters, but there's also an in-game text message system to complement those and the story proper. These offer a lot, from conversations about the story-at-large to exploratory character building, but end up feeling disconnected from the narrative awkwardly. In one section, I was playing as Mission Officer Eisele, trying to find out why a character was acting sketchy. In the messages, she tricked the other character into saying they were working on upgrades that didn't exist, proving that they were lying about their location and activities. Instead of informing the story, opening up other options for Eisele in attempts to convince other crewmembers, it just ends with a "there were no upgrades" message, and that's the end. The player is much more clued into the reasons, but that Eisele pays it no more mind can be frustrating.
More than other games in the series, the game clues the player in on plenty of the mystery from the outset, so while including that messenger conversation at all reveals the disconnect in the layers of information in the game, it serves the purpose of driving the player to find how what actions they can take to make that connection. Ultimately, Directive 8020 focuses more on the flow of information to the player, and it is better for it, particularly later in the story when it sprinkles in information that the characters know, and the player doesn't. If it were less efficient in how it dealt out information, the flaws would be more critical.
A Custom Experience
Flashbacks, flash-forwards, and otherwise informative cinematography all work to give the players questions, but also answers they can't convey to the characters, just as they can't automatically pass information between characters. It may be a limitation of storytelling and putting that into one that has dozens of branches and variables, but it effectively works itself into the gameplay experience. You're trying to find and talk your way into revealing truths with every character, not just along for the ride. Coincidentally, if you're especially interested in the ride that has seen an upgrade as well. The new "turning point" mechanic allows the player to rewind to any scene in the game, even immediately after, and replay it, retry a failed Quick Time Event, or make different choices and continue with that new set of consequences.
Directive 8020 is friendly to the player and has a bunch of variables to tweak and customize the gameplay. Turning Points, unlimited time on QTEs, and even easier "hacking" mini-games are just some of the accessibility-minded choices. For people who may have bounced off in the past, or who may have limited time but want to see as much of the story as they can, it's great to get the full experience in a fraction of the time by rewinding the story and choosing when you want to fail high-stakes QTEs. Obviously, the "pure" experience is the challenging route, where consequences for mistakes are real, and that exists, but it makes just about every effort to ensure anyone can experience the story, with one exception.
Errors and Corrections
Stealth segments are the latest attempt to improve the engagement of the in-between moments, and they will be contentious. Segments that would have been cutscenes in the past are now interactive, with plenty of sneaking around and waiting for "patrol routes" to happen. In a vacuum, the developers executed these moments well. They effectively create tension and are reasonably challenging without being oppressive by simply requiring a bit of patience. They are, however, unavoidable. There's no setting to toggle-away these sections, and they add up as you near the fifth or sixth one. It's a bit of a step backwards for the series, stripping even more "survival horror" elements away in favour of a simplified experience, but I instead wanted to explore more, find more tidbits of story, soak up more of the environmental storytelling, or otherwise just get to the next cutscene. Light puzzle-solving and the occasional broken glass on the floor do little to shake up that formula meaningfully. In my second playthrough, I stress-tested these a bit, and the results were mixed. Often, simply running through the area resulted in getting caught, executing a QTE with no consequence, and hiding again during the recovery time. Other times, however, I'd get caught in this loop, where I'd "get away" only to have the foe immediately run in my direction and catch me again. This happened about six times before I gave up, and that's a frustrating way to incentivize stealth, where even an instant failure might have been better.
Near the end of the story, the gameplay settles back into familiar territory a bit. The last stretch has more of those interactive cutscenes with frantic QTEs, which ended up being a comedy of errors on my hardest playthrough because my timing was terrible. I enjoyed that, even preferred it by then. It put an expectation of skill back in my hands when it had been so sporadic throughout, and it matched the story on screen perfectly.
Full Circle
By the end, Directive 8020 achieved a nice pace and did it all with effective visuals. For every moment where characters' faces felt like caricatures of human emotions, there were those of cool organic horror design. It also told an effective story that I didn't quite see coming, filled with characters I genuinely wanted to save, all while exposing my mistakes in thoughtful ways. A later moment exemplified this, where I greeted two characters at a locked door, one of whom I thought would be a problem based on an earlier mistake of mine, and one whom I really wanted to save. The game gave me a choice: let them both in or let neither of them in. I opened that door knowing full well that I'd probably regret it. When things wrapped up, I enjoyed the story I created, mistakes and all. It didn't beat me over the head with those faults, even that final one; it simply confirmed it and let me sit with the potential impact as it finished the story it wanted to tell.
Directive 8020 does most of the important stuff well. Player choice is at the forefront, and it's centered in an effective story that is light on jump scares and more focused on organic horror than something cheap. Inconsistencies in the voice acting and a lack of brevity in stealth gameplay are frustrations, but neither negatively affects the overall package too much. I'm more disappointed that co-op is limited to local, pass-the-controller style storytelling and curious about the curator and overall "Dark Pictures" nature of the game taking a backseat than I am concerned about the execution of the existing content. The "new season" of The Dark Pictures is off to a promising start.
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7.8
fun score
Pros
An overall engaging story that's more than it appears, great organic horror design, impactful choices that can bring hours-old choices back to haunt you. All play styles are appealed to well, in both initial and subsequent playthroughs.
Cons
Stealth segments are a bit over-utilized, the story and characters feel a little too disconnected from the player’s level of information at times, voice acting doesn't always match the emotion and urgency of the situation.
