Highlights

  • Directive 8020 represents a bold new chapter for Supermassive Games, shifting from Hollywood-inspired horror to cosmic horror with a sci-fi twist.
  • By drawing inspiration from gaming horror hits like Dead Space, Directive 8020 has the potential to attract a wider audience and set a new standard.
  • With a focus on psychological tension and dread, Directive 8020 could be Supermassive's most terrifying and impressive title yet, offering a unique experience in the horror genre.

Over the past decade, Supermassive Games has earned praise for creating some of the most spine-tingling horror games in recent memory and has amassed an army of fans as a result. It’s thanks to this well-earned reputation for delivering some of the most thrilling experiences available in the genre that its upcoming game, Directive 8020, already has horror fans buzzing despite relatively little being revealed about the title. The latest entry in Supermassive’s The Dark Pictures Anthology series, the sci-fi horror of Directive 8020 represents a massive and exciting tonal shift for the developer.

Directive 8020 looks to be cut from the same cloth as previous entries in The Dark Pictures Anthology, with the debut trailer establishing an appropriately ominous tone for the game, but its spaceborne setting is a radical departure from its predecessors. The shift to a sci-fi setting should allow for some unique twists on the series’ cinematic storytelling, but also leaves Supermassive with a problem. While The Dark Pictures Anthology games primarily take their cues from film, this could prove to be more difficult with Directive 8020. This is why, rather than Hollywood, Supermassive should look to gaming’s most horrifying hits for inspiration.

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Supermassive Needs to Set Its Sights Beyond Hollywood

Initially teased in a mid-credits scene in The Devil In Me, Supermassive has remained relatively tight-lipped about its spooky sci-fi title following the reveal trailer for The Dark Pictures Anthology: Directive 8020 in late 2022. The teaser showed off the same sort of cinematic styling that has made The Dark Pictures Anthology games so well-loved along with some serious cosmic horror undertones. This opens the door to some frightening new gameplay possibilities, but also means Supermassive may have to move away from the Hollywood-inspired stories of previous games in The Dark Pictures Anthology.

Supermassive Games has never shied away from acknowledging The Dark Pictures Anthology’s big-screen influences. The series’ second entry, Little Hope, curbed from films including The Blair Witch Project and Season of the Witch, while 2022’s The Devil In Me turned to Saw, The Shining, and other horror classics for inspiration. When it comes to Directive 8020’s cosmic horror, though, films offer little guidance. Apart from rare exceptions like 1997’s Event Horizon, the cosmic horror genre is wildly underutilized in Hollywood. In order to make the most of its sci-fi setting, Directive 8020 would be better served turning to gaming horror hits like Dead Space for inspiration.

Horror Hits Like Dead Space Provide a Template for Directive 8020

Hollywood may have difficulty bringing cosmic horror to the big screen, but game developers have been doing spectacularly spooky work within the genre for years. This means that Supermassive can look to its contemporaries for inspiration rather than relying on movies. From the ominous undersea settings of Soma and the indie Iron Lung to the admittedly more cartoonish Carrion, gaming is awash with high-quality cosmic horror.

While other titles have offered their own take on the genre, when it comes to cosmic horror with a sci-fi spin few games can compare to Dead Space and Returnal. With their ominously oppressive environments and strong focus on building psychological tension and dread, the pair provide a template that Directive 8020 should follow. While Supermassive is unlikely to make Directive 8020 a straight-up action game, this duo of horror hits shows that cosmic horror can have mass-market appeal. Taking cues from games like Dead Space could help The Dark Pictures Anthology, which has sometimes struggled to attract a wide audience, find a whole new fanbase with Directive 8020.

Directive 8020 marks a new chapter for The Dark Pictures Anthology, and its sci-fi setting means Supermassive Games can’t just follow its familiar formula. By turning to the world of gaming for inspiration rather than relying on Hollywood as it’s done so often before, Supermassive has the opportunity to make Directive 8020 its most impressive and terrifying title yet.