Games to look forward to in 2025: Directive 8020

Supermassive’s games have always been cinematic, from the persuasive performances of slasher-horror Until Dawn to the chillier atmosphere of interactive ghost story Man of Medan. This time around, with sci-fi horror Directive 8020, the studio wears its Hollywood influences even more brazenly on its sleeve.

The Earth is dying, and humanity’s last hope is a planet called Tau Ceti F. Yet as the crew of colony ship Cassiopeia survey the promising planet, they soon discover that they aren’t alone. Stalked by a horrifying alien organism that can chillingly mimic its prey, the crew of the Cassiopeia must outwit these predators and return home, with each former friend and crewmate now a potential threat. In other words, it’s a playable blend of Alien and The Thing.

“You have a cast of varied characters, and an alien monster that can infiltrate that setup. We lean into the systems that we’ve already built [in previous games] of choices and decisions, to create that element of surprise and the feeling of not knowing who to trust,” says Will Doyle, the game’s creative director.

There’s agency over your character’s movement as well as their choices. Dropping the slow, cinematic shuffling of Until Dawn, Directive 8020 instead plays like something closer to Dead Space, allowing players to sprint, strafe, lash out and roll defensively as they flee their horrifying alien attackers. “[But] these people aren’t action heroes. We didn’t want you to be able to beat the creature easily,” says Doyle. “You can fend it off with some tools; you can distract it; but you’re never able to pull out a gun and shoot it.”

The lead role of pilot Young is played by Lashana Lynch of No Time to Die fame. Everyone on board the ship lives or dies based on her – read: your – decisions. Mercifully, you can enlist some help and play cooperatively. Up to five people can connect online and take control of different characters – something that the team implemented after seeing how many people chose to play Until Dawn by passing a controller around groups of friends.

“Every successive time you see a monster in a movie, it diminishes its fear factor a little bit,” reckons Doyle. “Without spoiling anything, we change the appearance and look and shape of our creature quite a lot … There is this constant feeling of threat – that you really aren’t safe anywhere in this game. With our previous games you can sometimes tell when you’re in danger, just by the structure, so we’ve shaken it up a lot. Now, danger and death lurks around every corner.”