Directive 8020: release date, trailers, gameplay, and more

The team at Supermassive Games made a name for themselves with one of the best horror games Until Dawn. Since then, the team has produced new narrative horror games almost every year, with their next upcoming video game revealed to be Directive 8020. Between Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet and Saros, there are a lot of upcoming PS5 games set in space to look forward to. However, none promise to blend horror with a narrative driven by player choice like this. Supermassive Games haven’t approached sci-fi horror in their games yet, so let’s make all the right choices to learn everything about Directive 8020 and hopefully survive.

A ton of games have been announced this year, so keep up to date with our lists of upcoming Xbox Series X games, upcoming Switch games, and upcoming PC games.

Release date

Despite just being revealed this year, Directive 8020 will launch on October 2, 2025. Supermassive Games usually tries to line its games up with the Halloween season, so this should be a great game to pick up at that time of year.

Please enable Javascript to view this content

Platforms

Directive 8020 is coming to PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC. There is a chance it could come to the Switch 2, but no other Supermassive Games titles have hit that platform so we wouldn’t bet on it.

Trailers

The story trailer for Directive 8020 debuted during the February State of Play event. This was the first look at the game, but also gave us the release date.

The game will take place on a ship called the Cassiopeia on a mission to survey and scout a new planet before the Earth becomes uninhabitable. The craft is meant to serve as a colony but only staffed with essential crew for this test mission. Of course, this test doesn’t go smoothly. Our cast of characters will wake up four years into the journey when a hull breach is detected. That’s only the start of the trouble, as a murder and unexpected crash landing throws everything into chaos. Despite all that, the trailer also teases an alien threat that, much like The Thing, has the ability to appear and act like any member of the crew.

The only named characters we know of is Brianna Young and Commander Staford who are played by Lashana Lynch and Danny Sapani respectively.

Gameplay

The gameplay in Directive 8020 isn’t wildly different from previous Supermassive Games. It is still a third-person narrative adventure game where you will control several characters, in this case 5, and explore environments, talk to others, and make critical decisions that can have dire consequences. Making decisions has always been the meat of these games, and this entry promises to have some of the most difficult yet.

Beyond walking around and interacting with things, Directive 8020 will include some new mechanics. Characters will be equipped with a utility strap that controls a flashlight that is great for exploring the dark but also exposes your position. Stealth will be a bigger focus here, which is helped by a new scanner that you can use to remotely interact with various electronics to use as distractions or communicate with other crew members.

The last new tool we know of is called a “wedge tool” which mainly lets you pry open doors, but can also be used to attack the alien. It can only stun it, however, so don’t expect to kill it with brute force. At best, it will give you a chance to escape.

Preorder

In a strange twist, Directive 8020 is not available to preorder yet, despite having a set release date. As soon as we get more information on when and how you can preorder, we will update this article.