Interview With Directive 8020 Creative Director Will Doyle

directive 8020

I’ve never been a big fan of horror games. It’s not because I’m scared of them or anything it’s just that….well okay I’m scared of them. I generally play games to relax not get more tense. However one horror franchise that has always clicked with me is The Dark Picture games from Supermassive. Their next title, Directive 8020 has been high on my anticipated list since it was announced.

The Dark Picture games have always seemed to focus more on the narrative than the scares. Don’t get me wrong they are still scary games, and I’ve had my share of jumps and tense moments in them. But when the story and characters are so good I am happy to get over my fears and push on.

After getting a steady stream of The Dark Picture games for “season 1” Supermassive has taken a bit longer to get to the next game in the series which is Directive 8020. They’ve been busy with games like The Quarry, The Casting of Frank Stone and Little Nightmares III, so it’s not like they’ve been sitting around. Truth be told, they are one of the busiest, most consistent studios out there.

But they are back to the Dark Pictures now with Directive 8020. A few things are changing with the game. While still a Dark Pictures game they are no longer doing seasons and they are now self published. They’ve added some new features to the series as well to make players feel like they have even more choice. And for the first time, they are sending us off to Space.

With less than a month to go until Directive 8020’s May 12th release date we had the chance to speak with the games Creative Director Will Doyle to discuss all the changes, both from a business standpoint and game standpoint. We have the full interview below and we hope you enjoy!

Interview

Thanks for taking the time to join us today. After releasing the first season of the Dark Picture games back to back fairly quickly, you’ve taken a lot more time with Directive 8020. Was there any particular reason you took a lot more time with this title compared to the others?

It allowed us to assess what we were doing and how we can push the game forward and achieve the quality we wanted. One of those elements was to add new features – Turning Points and real-time threats. But more generally we used the extra time to focus on polish and create the best version of our game. Like our other games, Directive 8020 is a cinematic experience, where additional editing and polish really benefit the overall experience.

You originally wanted to push out a new title in the series every 6 months. Now with the Directive 8020 around the corner, do you hope to get back on a quicker release schedule like you did with season 1?

We’re not planning on doing 6-month releases now. With Directive 8020 we really wanted to take our time and focus on the quality we want to achieve. This time has given us a chance to focus on polish and refinement and allows us to create an even better game.

You’ve had some pretty interesting settings for each of the Dark Picture games. What made you want to go to space next?

We’ve had settings as varied as a ghost ship and a murder castle – and we always like to surprise people. So, space felt like the perfect next step. Space is terrifying on a personal level for me. You are in a tin can surrounded by death! Everything beyond the walls of your ship is hostile to human life. This makes it a perfect setting for a horror story.

John Carpenter’s The Thing was an inspiration for the game and we wanted a shapeshifting monster. We felt space was an excellent environment for this.

Probably the biggest new feature for Directive 8020 will be the turning point system which allows players to remind in the moment if they don’t like the outcome of the choice they made. What made you want to go to that system as opposed to have things used to work where players would have to replay a specific chapter?

We wanted to be more graceful with players time. Turning Points allows them to jump exactly where they wanted to go and makes it easier to see the range of choices available. This was aways a bit of a mystery before.

I should say though that this is all entirely optional. If you want to play the original way, where every choice is irreversible, we have a survivor mode that lets you see the decision tree but turns off rewinds. We know that many players like to live or die by their decisions and will use this mode. But for other players, they have the freedom to rewind whenever they want.

You’ve also introduced some live action segments where the player has to avoid being caught by the aliens. Previously everything had been done by QTE and cutscenes. How will these sections work. If you get caught will it also be a permanent death situation for that character or is it a more traditional setup where getting caught just reverts you back to a previous checkpoint?

Yes, it’s a permanent death and the story carries on as it does in all our Dark Pictures games. However, if you want to make a different choice or save a beloved character than you can. In Directive 8020 we have introduced Turning Points. The Turning Points system is a visual map of the game’s choices that is available every time you pause the game. You’ll be able to see all the beats of the story portrayed as a decision tree with your path taken through it shown. And then, at any time, you can rewind to these points.

Again, all of this is entirely optional and you can play in survivor mode if you’d rather not change anything.

Sadly one of the most beloved characters from season 1 of The Dark Pictures Anthology passed away in 2024. What can you say about working with Tony Pankhurst and without giving too much away will we see a little tribute or nod to him in Directive 8020?

We were all saddened to hear the news about Tony. Myself and the whole Dark Pictures team loved working with him. All our thoughts are with his family.

I don’t want to spoil anything other than to say the Curator is in Directive 8020 but has a more mysterious role in this game.

In the first season you had a lot of continuity when it came to the actors you used. They constantly played different roles obviously, but it was fairly common to see the same actor used in every game. Are you planning on doing something similar with the next set of games?

I can’t really talk about future plans but in the past we reused faces as it allowed us to create the same anthology feel as shows like American Horror Story.

Speaking of seasons and The Dark Pictures in general, you’ve somewhat gone away from the branding of The Dark Pictures and stopped looking at the games as seasons. Previously each game had felt like their own game just within this Dark Pictures branding. Is that why you are going away from some of that branding, because you think players will think they need to have played the last 4 games in order to understand this one?

Yes, pretty much. It’s been a few years since the last Dark Pictures game, The Devil in Me, and we wanted to ensure that our messaging is clear for our audiences. We did an extensive player research study in preparation for Directive 8020. This study revealed that many newcomers thought that they had to play through our games sequentially – partially due to terms like “Season.”

For Directive 8020, we have settled on the tagline “A Dark Pictures Game”, which tells our fans that it is part of the shared universe, without suggesting that it is an essential follow-on to other games in the series.

Directive 8020 will be the first game in the series that is self published rather than teaming with Bandai Namco for publishing. Was there any specific decision that was made to self publish and what are some of the advantages of being your own publisher?

We’re really excited to self-publish Directive 8020! It’s a big game for us that we’ve spent a lot of time polishing and refining. We can’t wait for the fans to get hold of it on May 12th.

Is there anything else you might like to add here for the viewers to get a sense of the game before it releases?

Directive 8020 brings everything you love from the previous Dark Pictures games and adds lot of cool new features like Turning Points and more real-time threat. Directive 8020 is very much a Dark Pictures game though. It is set in the same shared world as our other titles and is an intense, branching narrative game where your choices matter and you control a cast of characters where everyone can live or die.

Allowing players to play the game how they want was a big aim for the team. Directive 8020 does feature intense encounters with real-time threats, but these moments can be tailored to your liking using difficulty and accessibility settings. On the easiest difficulty setting, your character can always exploit a very forgiving parry mechanic when cornered. We also offer a custom difficulty mode where you can tailor the encounters to your own preferences – for example, playing QTEs on Hard, but setting the parries for real-time threats to Easy.

Directive 8020 has a big star too. As a studio, we pride ourselves on big, cinematic games that have star power to really emphasise this, so we were delighted to get Lashana Lynch as our star for Directive 8020. She’s in The Day of the Jackal, The Woman King, Captain Marvel and the 007 franchise. She was great in the game.