Supermassive Games' Dan McDonald on what to expect from Directive 8020

• Interviews by Laura Cress
• Published:

At gamescom 2025 there were several big beasts of the survival horror genre on display, from Resident Evil's upcoming Requiem to Silent Hill's mysterious-sounding "f". But alongside the giants of Capcom and Konami, Until Dawn and The Quarry creators Supermassive Games also had something exciting to show in the business section. I got a chance to not only play part of their new game Directive 8020, but also have a sit down with their executive producer Dan McDonald to find out more about it. No stranger to the company’s previous choice-driven games, I was eager to find out how this one would fit into their Dark Pictures Anthology. 

The setting here takes a very sci-fi turn, with our group of hapless characters all aboard a colony ship that has crash landed on a planet twelve light years from home. Dan said the team's main inspiration for this game was John Carpenter's classic horror film The Thing, and after playing the demo, I can see why. With an alien organism on board that can mimic its prey, it was hard to know if my companion was human or not – until it's too late – so I had to use stealth to sneak away from them. That's another new element for the series: the action won't just be confined to cinematic Quick Time Events anymore. Instead you'll have moments when you need to evade deadly alien threats whilst walking about the spaceship, too.

Perhaps the biggest change is the Turning Points system. Now if players make a choice they don't like the result of, they can simply rewind to make a different one. Dan explains more about why they chose this approach in my video interview with him below, but it'll be interesting to see how the purists take to the removal of permanent consequences. (Though there will be an option to turn this feature off and take your chances as they come as well, so you can play however you like.) 

Whilst the recent announcement of job cuts to Supermassive and a subsequent delay of the game (it won't be out until the first half of 2026) was no doubt a big blow to the team, Dan was hopeful that the extra time they're taking to work on it will really pay off. It definitely feels like more than just the same old anthology but in a new setting, with gameplay tweaks that will hopefully make the experience feel even more tense rather than simply unnecessary add-ons to an already winning formula. 

For fans of the series, the many choices and narrative pathways will still be there, so in Directive 8020's space, not only can no one hear you scream, they also can't hear you anguish over how to scream, either.