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Title: Directive 8020ΓÇÖs rewind feature makes play-your-own-survival-horror
easier for completionists

Date: Mon, 09 Jun 2025 17:00:49 +0000
Link: https://www.engadget.com/gaming/directive-802...

SupermassiveΓÇÖs well-regarded interactive survival horror series, the Dark
Pictures Anthology, is ready for its second season. Directive 8020 will be
its first entry and was available to play in demo form at SGF 2025, even if
it was heavily weighted with cutscenes and context-setting preamble.

The demo kicked off with a meeting between Young and Stafford, marking the
anniversary of YoungΓÇÖs father's death, who was also a long-time friend of
Stafford's ΓÇô the commander of the space mission that Young is also bound
for.

The plot then leaps four years forward, placing us aboard the spaceship
Cassiopeia. Oh and itΓÇÖs somehow overrun by some fungal, sentient alien
goop. Worse still, but also a horror staple, the goop is coalescing into
almost-perfect copies of the human crew. Trust no-one!

When the hydroponics bay is overrun by an alien substance, two crewmates
Cernan and Stafford, have to fight their ET doppelgangers. Finally, I got to
play (but only for a few minutes), moving stealthily around the lower deck of
the hydroponics bay while my alien copy (now fungal and angry) tried to hunt
me down. Fortunately, youΓÇÖre equipped with a scanner to mark where the
aliens were last seen, and after triggering a nearby hydroponic pod to
distract, I made my way up the ladder.

This was one of three ways to play this section, handily introducing a new
mechanic for The Dark PicturesΓÇÖ second run: Turning Points. Using this
feature, you can rewind to these decision trees, allowing you to replay
sections and explore different options or alter the outcome. This is an
interesting change for the series. In previous games, while you could rewind
to replay entire sections in macro, there was no way to change a single micro
decision.

I discussed this with my colleague Jessica Conditt, and weΓÇÖre both the kind
of players to continue with our terrible decisions in games like Directive
8020, the Dark Pictures Anthology, Until Dawn and the rest. Fortunately,
then, Directive 8020 will include a hard-boiled Survivor Mode ΓÇô with no
rewinds.

The demo shifted back to a more narrative focus and cutscenes, briefly
interrupted by the possibility that one crew member (specifically, the CEO
funding the whole operation) might be an alien. Did I pull the trigger? Nope.
IΓÇÖll have to wait til the October launch to know if that was the right
decision to make.

Directive 8020 launches on 2nd October, 2025 on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series
X, and Steam.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at
https://www.engadget.com/gaming/directive-802...
on-170049793.html?src=rss

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