- Directive 8020 Creative Director Will Doyle has explained why the game’s coil feature will change how you play
- The team knows players being invested in grades and keeping up after a few hours if they regret their decisions
- A traditional survival mode for purists is also included to allow players to experience the game in the classic Dark pictures way
Supermassive Games has explained why the upcoming horror game, Directive 8020will allow players to rewind their decisions and why it decided to offer The Dark Pictures Anthology‘s classic way of playing as an opportunity.
In an interview with Techradar Gaming on Gamescom 2025, Creative Director Doyle spoke more about Directive 8020‘s newly added Turning Point feature, a mechanic who gives players a chance to rewind previous decisions.
Doyle said the team is aware that in previous games like Until dawnPlayers think they should stick to their decisions later will regret them and would rather end the game than start again.
“Many players think valid, but seem very passionate that our games should be like ‘you have to live with your decisions,'” Doyle said. “That’s what these, our, games do. So you have to go that way. But we know very, very well that many players are not such that many players are invested in a character and then they get three or four hours into the game and that the character dies and they turn off.
“So for all these players we say, ‘No, you can regret you can rewind.'”
However, Supermassive has also made sure to add a traditional survival mode to all the experienced players who do not mind living with their horrible choices.
“At the same time, for the other group players, we say, if you will, if you want to live and die by your choices, we will play in survival mode.
“We set the condition for you that you can’t rewind. It just removes that moves the ability and you get a performance to end the game in this state. And then at the end of this state when you get to the end of the story you can turn it on …”
The developer later affected how Directive 8020 Further, strolling away from its predecessors with the removal of timed choices, which explains that its removal will give players more time to think about big decisions, especially if they play with friends.
“In the previous games because we had this multiplayer, shared history feature, we wouldn’t want you to wait too long because we would keep the two parts in synchronization. We actually find that removing time that for most of the choices is better in the room’s play for yourself. Just give me more time to think about it,” said Doyle.
“And when, when you play, you play a lot of people our games, either in what we used to call movie night, where it’s a bit of Counter Play, or just with someone playing in a room, friends sitting around watching. And it really helps to discuss the big moments …”
Directive 8020 is the fifth post in Dark pictures Series and arrives in 2026 for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S and PC.
