"Supermassive Outlines Reasons Behind Including a Decision Flowchart in Its Horror Game, Directive 8020"
The cosmos, the final frontier, now a new playground for Supermassive Games with Directive 8020. This latest installment in their chilling anthology, The Dark Pictures, takes the studio to the stars. But amidst the shape-shifting alien horrors and the daunting doom of the endless void, Supermassive is experimenting with fresh ways to scare.
Supermassive Games, known for nail-biting choices in games like Until Dawn and The Quarry, strive to create Hollywood-style narratives. In Directive 8020, however, they aim for a broader range of terrors. The tale is centered on a team of brave astronauts, sailing on the colony ship Cassiopeia to the promising planet Tau Ceti f, a last beacon of hope for a dying human race, a distant 12 light years from home. Full of hope, the crew embarks, only to be ensnared in an even more dangerous situation: an adaptive, extraterrestrial organism.
No, I'm not talking about a flowchart; although that's a vital element of Directive 8020's innovative approach to branching narratives. The actual danger is an elusive, alien entity, biological and fungal in nature, capable of assuming forms and even replicating crew members.
A brief taste of the story unveiled during a play demo jumps forward to a scene where two crew members were probing the ship for the source of the grotesque growths. This boiled over into a hair-raising confrontation with their twisted doppelgangers, which morphed into towering, nightmarish monstrosities.
"We can't employ the same materials we've used before, like trees, planks of wood, and metal constructions, because this is an entirely different setting," said Executive Producer Dan McDonald. "So our artists must rediscover their skills."
McDonald revealed that the team has studied numerous horror classics, including the Alien films and Dead Space, to unearth fresh strands of terror and dream up bizarre cosmic creatures; both by means of the impostor, and in the eerie reaches of space itself. McDonald pointed to the unique fears only the void can trigger.
"The sensation of floating, untethered... imagine drifting off into nothingness, witnessing your comrade floating off…"
Inside the vessel, the story revolves around the shape-shifting impostor alien. In one scene, I had to outrun my own doppelganger as it transformed into a hulking monster and hunted me. These moments present a more action-oriented vibe than usual for Supermassive games. Escaping required quick footwork and cautious timing. In another playthrough I observed, the problem-solver tried to electrify the monster with massive taser-rods.
Despite my escape, my pursuer remained at large, potentially seeding chaos, confusion, and gruesome carnage throughout the ship. In my final gameplay encounter, I faced a quandary: pull the trigger on a fellow crew member or believe in them long enough for the scanner to finish its job. I hesitated, declining to shoot. The consequences of different choices cascade throughout the story and generate various permutations.
This plot twist isn't novel for Supermassive's choice-driven stories. But with Directive 8020, they're testing out some new ground: rewinding.
After making a key decision, players are granted a fleeting opportunity to rewind and alter their choice. Played out across the entire game, this feature allows for a more fluid exploration of the overall story, creating multiple paths and outcomes for the player to revel in or ponder.
McDonald demonstrated the game's flowchart, with interconnected decision points and potential variations, in the menus of Directive 8020. It's reminiscent of games like Zero Escape or Detroit: Become Human, where players can trace the paths they've taken through the narrative and the potential branching points from choices. With Directive 8020, Supermassive gives players the freedom to roll back the tape and see other outcomes, either immediately or to uncover all the intricacies the story has to offer.
Supermassive keeps the big consequences in place, and for those preferring a traditional playthrough, the option to make their choices and face the consequences remains. When players decide to rewind, however, they are given another chance to change their decisions without losing options or falling into predictable patterns. This feature could mark a significant shift for Supermassive as they innovate in the realm of Dark Pictures games, potentially unlocking new possibilities for their style of storytelling beyond the horror genre. For now, however, the shape-shifting impostors and the forbidding mystery of the cosmic unknown make Directive 8020 a suspenseful, thrilling adventure, even with that handy rewind button.
Eric Van AllenWhether I'm hanging out at the Limsa aetheryte or mastering combos in a fighting game, you can find me writing about games and anime. From lengthy RPGs to intriguing indies, I'm drawn to a wide range of titles, always ready for my next adventure.
- Having drawn inspiration from horror classics like the Alien films and Dead Space, Supermassive Games' new title, Directive 8020, experiments with fresh strands of terror in the realm of space-and-astronomy.
- In Directive 8020, Supermassive Games introduces a new mechanism for its choice-driven narratives: the ability to rewind and alter choices, creating multiple paths and outcomes for players to explore.
- The threat in Directive 8020 is not just the adaptive, extraterrestrial organism, but also the possibility of being betrayed by gadgets or technology aboard the colony ship Cassiopeia, as the organism can replicate crew members.
- Technology enthusiasts will appreciate the extensive use of futuristic gadgets in Directive 8020, such as massive taser-rods, which could potentially be used to combat the shape-shifting alien impostor.
- As the crew of the Cassiopeia races towards the promising planet Tau Ceti f, the game presents a unique blend of science (space-and-astronomy) and gameplay (fight, win, choose, bet), offering a thrilling season of entertainment that will keep players on the edge of their seats.
