Directive 8020 Review – Strong Sci-Fi Horror Dragged Down by Weak Stealth

Directive 8020 does some things very well and others with less grace, delivering a thought-provoking interactive story game that struggles with pacing. Though the characters are worth following, the atmosphere can be pleasantly creepy, and it’s easy to rewind to try new routes, the plethora of bloated stealth sections makes replaying the game a bit less appealing.

Though it dropped The Dark Pictures from the title, Directive 8020 is indeed part of the horror anthology game series that started way back in 2019 with Man of Medan. I actually haven’t played one of these since Little Hope back in 2020, so I was curious to see what had changed in this sort of game in the last six years. I definitely could see a lot of growth in Directive 8020 compared to the couple of games I played, but these changes also seem to have come with some new issues.

As it’s an adventure game, the narrative plays a major part in the appeal of Directive 8020. Though the pacing is a bit all over the place, with flash-forwards that don’t do much to validate the timeline jumping, the main story itself is quite intriguing. Some pretty heavy questions about what it means to be human and the role morality and ethics play in scientific progress are addressed in interesting ways, and there’s a good deal of tense atmospheric horror that seasons these expansive themes. The alien creature that serves as the game’s main antagonist has a gnarly design that goes exceptionally hard into body horror, and I found myself really digging its look.

The characters are mostly likable, and the majority of choices you can make feel in line with the personalities they’re introduced with. The philosophical Josef stood out as my personal favorite, but I found the entire cast pleasant enough, aside from the billionaire character, who I imagine is pretty intentionally tailor-made to be disliked anyway. I truly did want to keep most of the crew alive and felt bad when I lost a couple of them throughout the game, especially with how brutal the deaths could be.

There are an impressive number of routes for you to explore all throughout Directive 8020, and it’s incredibly easy to do so. At any time, you can open up a timeline chart of the story and rewind back to pretty much any moment that you’ve already experienced. This makes playing through different routes, or even just redoing a couple of pivotal choices that especially interest you, quicker and simpler than ever, which is certainly appreciated. Given the sheer number of different paths there are, I’m glad the rewinding process is so streamlined, as I’m a lot more likely to explore the different endings thanks to that.

Most of the title’s gameplay involves quick-time events, making story choices using the analog stick, and, this time around, freely walking around a pretty large ship. Though there’s plenty more freedom to wander around as you please in Directive 8020, there’s not much reason to do so. Every now and then, you can find small extras like video logs and objects that build upon the setting and character backstories, but there’s just not enough of it. You’re given a lot of opportunities to explore paths outside of the ones that lead to story progression, but it never feels like there’s all that much to find that makes such exploration worthwhile.

My main concern with Directive 8020 is its peculiar abundance of stealth sections that never really feel all that enjoyable. Time and time again, you have to sneak by dangerous aliens in dark ship corridors and halls, but your options are extremely limited. Outside of the occasional distraction you can trigger, your only option is to avoid the monsters that sort of just pace around. You can even just dash by them a lot of the time, which trivializes many of the sections. They end up feeling more like dull filler than especially eerie and intense parts of the game, which is a bit of a shame.