<\/p>\nChoices always matter<\/h2>\n Of course, this being a Supermassive game, you can rewind, try again and experiment. So I did. Not just to fix mistakes, but to poke at the system a bit. Roll back far enough, and I\u2019m playing as Laura earlier on, deciding whether it\u2019s wise to hand over a loaded gun. Turns out, yes, it probably is, because without it, Brianna\u2019s later encounter goes very badly, very quickly, and her eye, well, that’s gone, again.<\/p>\n
What\u2019s interesting is where the game draws the line. No matter how much I fiddled with the decisions, the overall outcome of the sequence remained the same: Brianna finds the missing crew member, now mutated by something alien, and escapes, with one less eye or not. The path to the story beat\u2019s outcome shifts, but with optional injuries, tension, and small variations in how it plays out, the destination holds firm, and Brianna\u2019s alive to make more bad decisions.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s always been the tightrope for these games. How much freedom can you give the player before the whole thing unravels? From this slice, Directive 8020 feels like it\u2019s letting you fray the edges rather than tear the script apart. The bigger decisions, the ones that\u2019ll shape the crew and whatever\u2019s left of humanity, feel like they’re being saved for later. And being able to open the story path, see the moments where big divergences can occur, and rewind and replay is a nice way to play, though it can also show a little too much behind the curtain.<\/p>\n\n\n
\n
Supermassive doesn’t pull its punches when it comes to the horror. <\/span>(Image credit: Supermassive Games)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\nWhere it really clicks, though, is in the performances. This is easily the closest Supermassive has come to fully selling the \u2018interactive movie\u2019 idea, and it already feels like a technical and artistic step above past games (though whether it can match the immaculate Until Dawn remains to be seen). The digital actors don\u2019t just look good, though they do, sharply lit and convincingly physical, they emote in ways that feel reactive, intuitive. There\u2019s nuance in how characters hesitate, how they read each other, how suspicion creeps in, even making some tonally stilted moments feel engaging.<\/p>\n
It makes the whole thing easier to buy into and harder to treat as a toy box of bad decisions (even if that\u2019s still half the fun). I started caring about outcomes, and not just outcomes I could try and break. I\u2019ve only played a small slice of Directive 8020, obviously, but after an hour or so onboard the Cassiopeia, this feels like Supermassive back in its lane with a confident, focused approach that\u2019s a bit mean in the best way possible, as it\u2019s very good at making you regret pressing a button about half a second after you\u2019ve done it.<\/p>\n
Directive 8020 releases 12 May on PS5, Xbox<\/a> Series X\/S, PC. <\/em> Visit the Supermassive Games website<\/em><\/a> for more details. <\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.creativebloq.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Content warning: this article discusses graphic violence, disturbing imagery, and mature themes in an 18+ game. In space, no one can hear you make bad decisions, which is probably for the best because I made a few absolute shockers during my hands-on with Directive 8020 and paid for them almost immediately. After a run of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2391334,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2391333","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Directive-8020-hands-on-I-made-a-mistake-and-lost-an.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2391333","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2391333"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2391333\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2391335,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2391333\/revisions\/2391335"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2391334"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2391333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2391333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2391333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}