Directive 8020’s new Turning Points system transforms it from a simple sci-fi survival horror into a compelling, gory puzzle

Directive 8020 starts aboard the spaceship Cassiopeia, where you join a group of scientists venturing to the exoplanet Tau Ceti f. Tasked with setting up the next intergalactic colony, all these scientists are meant to do is take a look at the new planet and figure out how safe it is for the colonists following their ship. I’ll save you the suspense: it’s not very safe.

Before you can even get situated, an alien lifeform finds its way inside the ship, and from then on you’re tasked with keeping the scientists on board away from harm, aka the shapeshifting alien lifeform that seems to have an infinite amount of teeth, eyes, and flesh.

It’s a tough task, but one made infinitely easier thanks to Supermassive Games’ new system, Turning Points. This mechanic treads new ground, taking a sledgehammer to the kind of tension you’d find in previous Supermassive Games like Until Dawn or House of Ashes—it shouldn’t work, but it does.

I spoke highly of this system in my Directive 8020 review, as it allows players to rewind mistakes no matter how far along you are in the story. I don’t love it for how it sanitises my poor decisions, no, Turning Points is quite literally a game changer; transforming Directive 8020 from a survival horror into a gory puzzle.

Before I dive into the glories of using Turning Points, here’s a quick PSA: play Directive 8020 on Survivor mode first. This effectively turns Turning Points off, offering up a classic horrifying Supermassive Game. I did this for my first run and didn’t regret it. It kept events suspenseful from start to finish as I typically had no clue how my actions would manifest in reactions, which made my blood pressure rise with every QTE.

It wasn’t until my second and third runs that I switched Turning Points on, and my playthrough was better for it. It meant that I got all the nostalgic scares and stressors of previous Dark Pictures Anthology games, but with the new and improved horror puzzle aspects you get with Turning Points.

I say horror puzzle because, in the best way possible, that’s what Turning Points turns Directive 8020 into. My second run through saw me trying to keep everyone on the Cassiopeia alive, through redoing botched QTE’s, or retracing my steps to a decision that would have huge consequences down the line.

Then, in my third run, the puzzle kicked in as I set about trying to unlock every single scene in the game. I had great fun trying to line up sequences of events and decisions to unlock future outcomes.

I got good endings, not so good endings, emotionally confusing endings, and very bad endings, all of which had different requirements. But the most fun I had with Turning Points was finding all the interim scenes scattered throughout the game, whether that’s seeing how a certain person would react if I argued with them instead of agreeing, or if I messed up a sequence which would lead to a horrific death.

This brings me onto another excellent feature of Directive 8020: its body horror. John Carpenter’s The Thing is one of my all-time favourite movies (and honestly, I didn’t hate Nightdrive’s The Thing Remastered either), while Alien: Isolation is another one of my greats. Directive 8020 delivers on the same grotesque shapeshifter body horror and the dread of being stalked by a sci-fi monstrosity.

There are a colossal 44 death scenes in Directive 8020, with some being so graphic I had to cover the screen with my hands or just close my eyes, which in hindsight was rather more effective. That doesn’t happen often, though, so I welcome it when it does.

The alien, otherwise known as The Entity, definitely makes my shortlist for best videogame monster. Its bulbous flesh engulfs the ship by Episode 5, leaving trails of eyes, teeth, bones, and any kind of biological matter really, meaning you have to constantly wade through all of its wretched biomass. But I don’t just love it because it’s disgusting, it’s also pretty smart.

Like any shapeshifting alien worth its two cents, The Entity knows how to infiltrate a group. It’s hinted pretty early on that this thing has been reading up on the scientists aboard the Cassiopeia, learning more about their personalities, plus professional and personal history, allowing it to seamlessly slip into the group undetected. I don’t think I’d be able to pick it out from a line up—unless it had five eyes popping out the side of its head. I’d probably be able to spot it then.

So, if you enjoy watching grotesque space horrors bolt straight towards you, contemplating just how insignificant we all are in the face of neverending nothingness, or just enjoy sci-fi horror, you can check out Directive 8020 on Steam.