Supermassive has worked across horror for years, but Directive 8020 feels like a bigger shift into sci-fi survival horror. How much did that genre change the team’s storytelling and design processes?

The Dark Pictures were always intended to develop new gameplay with each new entry in the series. With Directive 8020, we took a little bit longer than usual to iterate on our gameplay mechanics and raise the quality bar for the ongoing series. As part of this, we wanted to broaden our audience by including more “on the sticks” gameplay while preserving the narrative, branching drama that we’re so well known for. The game has a very interesting pace – you have these spikes of “lean forward” action where your survival is dependent on your own controls, with dips of “lean back” interactive drama where you can catch a breath. It’s important for us that we keep our games as accessible as possible, so gamers can always tailor their experience to their liking using difficulty settings. If you find that the “lean forward” sections are too hard, it’s even possible to make your character invulnerable for those moments.

"The Dark Pictures were always intended to develop new gameplay with each new entry in the series."

The sci-fi setting opens up different kinds of fear than your previous games. What unique opportunities did space, isolation, and the mimic-style alien threat create for horror?

Each Dark Picture game explores a different subgenre of horror, but this is the first time we’ve delved into sci-fi horror. Our story draws on many beloved sci-fi sources, but perhaps most of all, we were inspired by John Carpenter’s “The Thing.” We wanted to create a shape-shifting alien which could pose as a human and infiltrate your ship’s crew, causing you to question who among them you could really trust.

I think space is truly terrifying as you’re effectively locked in a tin can, surrounded by death! Everything beyond the walls of your bubble is hostile to human life. This makes it a perfect setting for a horror story.

Setting the game in space gives us so many opportunities to create feelings of dread (and wonder!). While it’s so vast, it is also intimate, as you’re cooped up together in a vessel. Claustrophobia and isolation are key feelings too.

Scifi was interesting for us, as in the past, we’ve often centred our stories around teen horror. For this one, we wanted to tell a story about scientists using their heads to solve their problems. It’s a very different tone.

As the fifth Dark Pictures game, how standalone is Directive 8020 for newcomers, and what connective tissue still matters for longtime fans of the anthology?

Directive 8020 is a stand-alone title in that you don’t need to have played our previous games to enjoy it, but it’s set in the same shared world as our other titles and is very much a Dark Pictures game. There are plenty of Easter Eggs and connective tissue in the game that reinforce this. I can’t say much more without spoiling!

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.

We had feedback that many newcomers thought that they had to play through our games sequentially – partially due to terms like “Season.” So, we wanted to ensure that our messaging is clear for our audiences.

"There are plenty of Easter Eggs and connective tissue in the game that reinforce this."

Turning Points is one of the game’s biggest new ideas. What problem were you trying to solve with that feature, and how did you make sure it adds flexibility without undercutting tension?

Our main goal with Turning Points was to show players how much branching there is in the game and let them easily jump back to decision points to make the experience of exploring the story as graceful as possible. In essence, it is a visual map of the story that shows your path through the story – by selecting turning points, you can “rewind” your story to redo your choices. We know people often give our games multiple playthroughs to find out all the different branches. So, it’s just really showing players that there’s an easier way to access these different points.

Choices are really important in our games – the magic of our game structure is that the story keeps rolling even if characters die when you make the wrong decision. But we also know that some players will stop playing when their beloved character dies. With rewinds, we’re giving them the opportunity to explore the story freely.

Many of our players love that classic “no second chances” style: if they want to play the original way, where every choice is irreversible, we have a Survivor mode playstyle mode that lets them see the decision tree but turns off rewinds.

Survivor Mode seems aimed at players who want the classic no-safety-net Dark Pictures experience. How important was it to preserve that old-school pressure alongside Turning Points?

It’s really important to us that players can play Directive 8020 how they like. We want to be respectful of their time. Some players will really appreciate the ability to rewind or explore different branches in the story – and they will really like Turning Points. Our testing with the system has really surprised us with how popular it is, even on first playthroughs.

However, we also know that many players will want the classic experience. This decision pressure is something that resonates with many of our players. Survivor mode is for them, and we expect this will be a popular mode too, especially on first playthrough.

"It’s really important to us that players can play Directive 8020 how they like."

Directive 8020 appears to push more into real-time danger, stealth, and direct threat management than earlier anthology entries. How far were you willing to evolve the formula without losing the studio’s core identity?

The key reason is we wanted to keep upping the fear. There’s nothing scarier than when you are being hunted by a creature in real time. However, a lot of hide-and-seek games can feel pretty relentless – for us, we wanted to sprinkle these moments through the game to create a unique tempo. They’re intentionally quite simple. It’s really not a hardcore stealth game.

Directive 8020 is more hands-on than our previous titles, but it still features impossible dilemmas, intense cinematic drama, secrets, and everything else you love from our previous Dark Pictures games.

Movie Night returns with up to five-player couch co-op, and online multiplayer is planned as a free update after launch. How did you approach the social side of horror this time around?

Couch co-op is our classic “Movie Night” experience, where up to five players take turns controlling the cast and play the game together to survive the story. In couch co-op, you only need one controller, which is passed around the room as different turns come into play. This has always been our most popular multiplayer mode, so we wanted to bring it online for the first time and allow players to get together with friends wherever they are. This online mode is looking really good but we just need a little longer to finish it.

So, Directive 8020 will launch with offline couch co-op play, with the online version following as a free update soon after. One of the cool things that online couch co-op play supports is multiple users on the same connection – for example, you could have two people playing on one machine, connected to three people playing on another. We call this “bringing living rooms together” and we expect it to be quite popular!

"Directive 8020 is more hands-on than our previous titles"

Were there any lessons from The Quarry or earlier Dark Pictures titles that directly shaped how you approached pacing, character control, or replayability here?

We are always learning and improving the art of telling branching narrative stories. Each story has a different narrative shape, and each learns in some ways from those that came before. We’ve experimented with extremely branching stories – Man of Medan is an example of this – and we’ve tried more focused stories like Little Hope. It’s important that each story is shaped differently to avoid predictability.

In Directive 8020, the end of the story has one of the most unpredictable setups we’ve ever made. For the final episode, practically any combination of characters is possible – it’s even possible to have just one survivor for the entire episode. It’s also possible to end the story half-way through the game in a calamitous event we call the “death spiral.”

For pacing, we were mindful that a good game story needs regular spikes of action. In Directive 8020, this was one of the reasons for us including “flash forward” scenes to up the tempo in the earlier stages of the story.

Replayability was the reason for including Turning Points. We trialled a similar system in the Casting of Frank Stone, but Directive 8020 has really honed it into something special.

The “trust no one” premise seems central to the story. How do you build paranoia into both the writing and the player’s decision-making without making outcomes feel random?

It was important to make the mimics in our story very good imitators – we didn’t want them to speak or act in a distinct way that would make them too easy to identity. There are certain “tells” that the player can pick up on (which I’m not going to spoil here!) but on the whole, they are good at their job!

The shape-shifting aspect of our creatures is a really fun part of the story, but it’s not the whole story – the organism goes through various stages across the game, with some forms much more monstrous. We really leaned into body horror for some of these moments!

"There are certain “tells” that the player can pick up on (which I’m not going to spoil here!) but on the whole, they are good at their job!"

What were the biggest creative influences behind the setting and story? Were you looking more to classic sci-fi horror, modern survival horror, or something else entirely?

John Carpenter’s “The Thing” was probably the big inspiration, but the story also draws on movies like Aliens, Sunshine, Life – and books, including H.P. Lovecraft’s “Mountains of Madness.” Our games are very cinematic, so we’re always asking ourselves “how would this happen in a movie?”. It’s a good guiding light.

The PS5 Pro version has already been detailed publicly with PSSR, ray tracing, and other enhancements. How much do those visual gains matter specifically for horror, where mood and legibility are both so important?

It’s hugely important – lighting matters in horror much more than in other genres. Quality of visuals is also very important for creating a sense of believability. That suspension of disbelief is vital for creating meaningful fear.

Replayability has always mattered in your games, but Directive 8020 feels especially built around revisiting branches and outcomes. How many substantially different playthroughs do you think players can realistically get out of it?

We have a range of choices, some small, some large, that impact the outcome of your story throughout. Some of our outcomes are based on “compound choices” i.e. the sum of multiple choices. Each character, for example, has two different “destiny” moments that are unlocked through traits that can only be changed by conversations with other crew members. At the end of the game, we also have some fairly major ending outcomes. There is also a “hidden link” to one of our previous games that only unlocks if a certain character survives…

As a colony ship, they crash on Tau Ceti f during a survey operation. As if things couldn’t get any worse, a mysterious alien life-form pursues the crew. You would think its ability to tear them limb from limb is bad enough, but it can also shapeshift and assume their appearances, throwing off the rest and sowing distrust.

Your decisions on who to trust could end up deciding the fate of the remaining colonists on board. Of course, failure states are far less binary this time, determined instead by bonds between the crew. And if things happen to go very wrong, you can use the new Turning Points system to revisit previous important decisions and choose another path.

Directive 8020 is available for Xbox Series X/S, PS5, and PC. Check out our feature for everything you should know about it, including how its gameplay differs from Supermassive’s traditional narrative titles.

Featuring five different playable characters that you’ll switch between throughout, Directive 8020 is about a colony ship called the Cassiopeia. It ends up crashing on Tau Ceti f, where the awakened crew encounters a shape-shifting organism that actively hunts them. With the ability to mimic any member of the crew, players will need to discern who’s real and make decisions that could affect the well-being of the others in cryo-sleep.

While offering more action and stealth mechanics than its predecessors, Directive 8020 also features new narrative mechanics like Turning Points. These allow for going back to pivotal decisions and taking a different route – perfect for whenever your favorite character dies (and if you play your cards wrong, they will die).

For more details on Directive 8020, check out our feature. You can also learn more about its PS5 Pro enhancements and how ray tracing makes the experience that much more terrifying.

Most Ambitious Dark Pictures Game Yet

Each entry in The Dark Pictures Anthology is built on cinematic, b-movie immersion, and morally grey, choice-led gameplay, and, generally, the series’ reputation is strong. That said, occasionally stunted dialogue, repetitive QTEs, and an over-reliance on predictable horror tropes leave room for improvement. With Directive 8020, Supermassive Games are set to deliver the most ambitious Dark Pictures game yet by pivoting to real-time survival horror. Supported by enhanced visual fidelity, Directive 8020 is bringing tension and nuance beyond anything the series has produced before.

High-Stakes Narrative

In a future where Earth is dying, a team of astronauts are sent on a scouting mission to a possibly habitable planet twelve light-years away. With humanity’s survival in their hands, the stakes are already high long before things take a turn for the worse. Directive 8020’s story is set up to deliver an emotional gut punch, where not only the fate of individuals rests on your actions but the whole of mankind.

A Crew With Purpose

Unlike previous Dark Pictures entries centred on loosely connected individuals, Directive 8020 puts you in command of a team of highly trained astronauts. For this mission of immense importance, each member has been carefully selected, with their professionalism shaping both their behaviour and the decisions you’ll make for them. However, years of training and expertise are soon out the door once their ship crashlands, and their reality spirals into something truly harrowing. Each has their own personal reason for joining the ship’s crew too. It’ll be interesting to see how they reconcile their individual motivations once colleagues start dying.

More Than Colleagues

Actually, on that note, the crewmates of Directive 8020 aren’t just co-workers thrown together. These relationships run deeper, with familial ties, shared trauma, and long-standing friendships influencing how they interact. You’ll likely wonder how deep their allegiances go during gameplay too, whether they have any hidden agendas, or if they’ll betray their ally to protect themselves. This adds emotional weight, meaning every decision has an impact. Plus, there could be some explosive moments throughout the game once the crew’s trust begins to fracture.

Lashana Lynch Leads the Cast

The central character, Brianna Young, is played by Lashana Lynch, who brings a strong presence to Directive 8020’s story. Coming from a lineage of celebrated spacefarers, Young grapples with her own identity, struggling to identify the type of person she is against the expectations set by her family history. Young, however, isn’t alone in providing an introspection; numerous characters, from Commander Stafford’s prestige spirit, to Science Officer Anders’ relatively unknown origin, suggest unseen and unexpected directions the game’s branching narrative can follow.

A Shapeshifting Threat

Drawing clear inspiration from John Carpenter’s The Thing, the danger lurking on the crew’s marooned planet isn’t just deadly, but deceptive. This alien force can mimic human forms, its most illusory guise a near-identical replica of its subject. In fact, you’ll find yourself face-to-face with unknown copies throughout with only subtle identifiers in your arsenal if you’ve paid attention; studying turns of phrase, mannerisms, and more, will make the difference between survival and disaster.

Your Choices Shape the Wider Story

As with all Dark Pictures games so far, the decisions you make throughout Directive 8020’s story will determine who lives and who dies. However, this time around, there appears to be more nuance in the repercussions of your choices. These won’t be simple, binary outcomes, but your choices will influence character arcs over time. A decision you make in one moment could have drastic consequences for someone else later.

Turning Points System

What’s more, if you want to relive a particular dilemma, now you can: Turning Points is an all-new feature, allowing you to rewind time to revisit pivotal moments via a visual, branching story tree. You can experience sections that you missed, change your decisions, or suffer a fresh set of consequences, especially if you’re trying to keep your favourite character alive.

Expanded Lore, Collectibles, and Conspiracies

Exploration remains a core pillar of Directive 8020’s gameplay, but this time Supermassive has embedded a host of thematically significant collectibles which flesh out environmental storytelling and series backstory. More specifically, there is centuries of Dark Pictures lore to discover – the circumstances leading to Earth’s downfall since the chronologically most-recent game in the anthology, for instance – plus a special, “conspiracy” category of collectible which unfurl some nefarious motives behind the corporation who’ve invested heavily in the mission.

Movie Night and Multiplayer Options

If you prefer not to play alone, Supermassive has you covered. Movie Night mode returns in Directive 8020, where up to five of you can pass the controller between yourselves and share the burden of decision making together. As for online multiplayer, the developer has confirmed that this is planned as a free post-launch update.

Release Date, Platforms, and Price

Directive 8020 is scheduled for release on May 12th, and will be available on PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC via Steam. The Digital Edition is priced at £39.99 / $49.99, with physical editions retailing slightly higher, depending on outlet. Also, at present (although subject to change), Digital Deluxe upgrades are currently being bundled into every pre-order.

Digital Deluxe Edition

Directive 8020’s Digital Deluxe Edition arrives with a handful of welcome bonuses: outfit packs, comprising cosmetics inspired by earlier Dark Pictures titles; filter packs to adjust the game’s cinematic aesthetic; a bonus mission, digital artbook, and officially licensed soundtrack.

Built in Unreal Engine 5

Given its track record for patchy performance, Directive 8020 being built in Unreal Engine 5 might not instil you with confidence. However, undeniable is the atmospheric detail the game engine facilitates: skin textures, hair rendering, and facial animation, in particular, all support the game’s bubbling tension, whilst lighting – together with sound arguably most integral to conjuring fear – bathes sterile, suffocating spaces with clinical fluorescence. Let’s just hope Supermassive has had ample opportunity to optimise in the engine.

Advanced PC and PS5 Pro Features

If you’re playing on PC, and if your hardware is up to it, you can take advantage of DLSS 4.5, including support for 6x Multi-Frame Generation, alongside path tracing. On the console side, PS5 Pro brings Sony’s PSSR upscaling tech, advanced ray tracing, and dynamic shadows. These features will deepen the game’s emotional impact through detail and clarity.

PC Requirements

To run Directive 8020 on your PC, at a minimum you’ll need an Intel Core i5-8500 or AMD Ryzen 5 3500 CPU, and a GeForce RTX 2060 or AMD Radeon RX 5700 GPU. To experience the game at its absolute pinnacle, recommended PC specs detail an Intel Core i5-12400F or AMD Ryzen 5 5600X CPU and GeForce RTX 3070 Ti or AMD Radeon RX 6800 GPU. Whatever your setup, you’ll also need 16GB RAM and 40GB storage space.

And in a landscape where many games compete on the number of marketing bullet points, that sense of clarity could end up being its biggest strength. Directive 8020 doesn’t immediately present itself as the biggest game of 2026, or even a notable release – but the more you examine what it’s trying to achieve, the clearer it becomes that it has the potential to dominate conversation in a completely different way.

A lot of that potential starts from its narrative foundation, which appears to be built around themes of isolation, uncertainty, and human fragility under pressure. Set in a high-stakes sci-fi scenario, Directive 8020 places players in a situation where survival is never guaranteed, and where the biggest threat isn’t always obvious. What makes this setup especially compelling is how much emphasis it places on player choice. It’s not surprising for anyone familiar with Supermassive games, but this is a story that adapts and reacts, allowing decisions to shape the trajectory of events in meaningful ways.

Characters aren’t just part of the narrative – but they are variables within it. Relationships can evolve, fracture, or collapse entirely depending on how situations are handled, and that level of reactivity transforms the story into something deeply personal.

That personal nature is what gives Directive 8020 an edge. In many narrative-driven games, the element of choice exists – but it often feels limited to small variations that ultimately lead to the same outcome. But with this game, the scope is much broader since the decisions carry weight, not just in terms of immediate consequences – but also how they ripple across the entire experience.

A moment of hesitation, a risky call, or even a seemingly minor interaction could have long-term effects that reshape the story in unexpected ways. That unpredictability is crucial, because it ensures that players remain engaged on a deeper level. You’re not just progressing through a story – but you’re actively responsible for shaping it while playing the game.

The game’s approach to mechanics reinforces that philosophy, and that’s not something that most developers would dare to do in today’s day and age. Directive 8020 doesn’t appear to rely heavily on traditional combat systems or power fantasies. Instead, it seems to prioritize decision-making under pressure. Moments of danger aren’t simply about reacting quickly or executing precise inputs – but those constraints force you to mak judgments.

What do you do in a crisis? Who do you trust? What risks are worth taking, and which ones could cost you everything? Even if there are action-oriented sequences, they seem designed to support the overall tension rather than define it. There’s no fail state; one wrong decision and you have to stay and bear the consequences. That shift in focus makes a significant difference because it ensures that every moment feels meaningful.

The gameplay isn’t just something you perform; it’s something you think through, constantly weighing options and consequences.This design philosophy opens the door for a kind of emergent storytelling that few games can fully capitalize on. Rather than relying on scripted sequences to create memorable moments, Directive 8020 appears to generate them organically through its systems. The most powerful experiences in a game like this don’t come from pre-written set pieces – but they come from situations where everything could have gone drastically differently. A last-second decision that saves one character at the expense of another, a misjudgment that leads to an irreversible outcome, or a risky move that pays off in unexpected ways – these are the moments that players remember and talk about. They’re also the moments that give the game an element of longevity, because they encourage replayability and discussion.

That element of replayability is most likely going to be one of Directive 8020’s biggest strengths. When a game is built around branching outcomes and player-driven narratives, it naturally invites multiple playthroughs. But more importantly, it creates a shared space for discussion. Players don’t just talk about the game, but they talk about their version of the game.

They compare choices, debate outcomes, and explore alternative paths. That kind of engagement extends far beyond the initial release window, keeping the game relevant long after the credits roll. In an industry where attention moves quickly, that ability to sustain conversation can help make the game a lot more popular in a really organic fashion.

The setting of Directive 8020 is not just cosmetic, but it holds a lot of weight in terms of accenutating the element of tension and unpredictability. A confined, high-stakes sci-fi environment is the perfect backdrop for such high-stakes moment, and Directive 8020 seems to be using that to its advantage. You see, isolation amplifies every decision, making even small actions feel significant. There’s a constant sense of vulnerability, a feeling that things could go wrong at any moment.

The environment isn’t just a backdrop – it’s the most crucial character that helps in shaping how players perceive risk and safety. That sense of place is essential for immersion, and it’s something the game appears to be prioritizing heavily.

Supermassive Games has always been known for standout visual quality, and Directive 8020 is no different. The environments appear detailed and carefully constructed, with a focus on lighting, atmosphere, and spatial design to create a sense of realism. Directive 8020 doesn’t try to overwhelm the player with visual spectacle, but focuses on crafting spaces that feel believable and immersive. Environmental storytelling plays a big role here, with small details spread throughout levels and well-placed props hinting at larger narratives. This approach aligns well with the game’s overall design philosophy, reinforcing the idea that every element should contribute to the experience rather than distract from it.

Another factor that could contribute to its success is its pacing. Many modern games struggle with maintaining a consistent rhythm, often leaning too heavily on constant action or, conversely, dragging out quieter moments. Directive 8020 appears to be aiming for a more balanced approach, allowing tension to build naturally before releasing it in carefully timed bursts, and we know that Supermassive is great at creating that infectious rhythm. Of course, that kind of pacing is essential for horror and suspense-driven experiences because it ensures that moments of intensity feel earned rather than forced.

Of course, the success of any game, including this one, ultimately depends on execution. The systems that enable player choice need to feel meaningful and not superficial. The narrative needs to remain coherent even as it branches in multiple directions. The tension needs to be sustained without becoming repetitive. These are significant challenges even for a veteran developer, but if Directive 8020 manages to overcome them, the payoff could be substantial.

What makes Directive 8020 especially exciting is the possibility that it could become an organic hit. As previously mentioned, games that generate strong player-driven stories often spread organically, with players sharing their experiences and encouraging others to try it for themselves. We have seen similar things happen to titles like Breath of the Wild or Valheim, and many more games have found their way into the very fabric of pop culture. It’s not just about initial sales – but about staying relevant, about continuing to be part of the conversation weeks and months after launch, which will help Directive 8020 in the long run.

To conclude, the biggest factor that sets Directive 8020 apart is its confidence in its own identity. It knows what kind of experience it wants to deliver, and it builds everything around that core idea. In an industry where many games try to do everything at once, that kind of focus is refreshing. It allows the game to refine its strengths, to ensure that every element serves a purpose. This is precisely why Directive 8020 is shaping up to be one of the biggest games of 2026.

Not because it’s the most expansive or the most technically ambitious, but because it has the potential to leave a lasting impression. If it delivers on its promise, it won’t just be another release in a crowded year, but it will be one of the games that define the year.

Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.

It joins the announcement that preorders are now open with the horror title retailing for $49.99, and you even get a free upgrade to the Digital Deluxe edition for a limited time. The latter includes a Cinematic Filters Pack, The Dark Pictures Outfit Pack, The Dark Pictures Collectables, a digital artbook and a digital soundtrack.

For those of you who don’t know what this one’s about, it’s set on a ship with a hostile shapeshifting alien that’s out to destroy you and your fellow crew members. You can play through it all on your own, or call in a few friends to share the chills and thrills if things get too hairy.

You’re going to have to keep your wits about you as you navigate the ship, trying to identify which of your comrades is the imposter, as each choice will ripple through the rest of the story. You do get a few do-overs, though, but will they be enough to ensure your survival?

You won’t have to wait too long to find out, although you might want to steel your nerves before you dive in when Directive 8020 launches on May 12th for Xbox Series X/S, PS5, and PC.

If you haven’t had the chance to play this one on other platforms, it follows Mono, a young boy who is looking to uncover the secrets of a mysterious tower sending out signals that have seemingly warped reality in The Pale City, where he lives. He is accompanied by Six, the girl in a yellow coat from the first title, who acts as his guide throughout the adventure. That takes care of the ‘Little’ part, but what about the ‘Nightmares’? Well, the warped world you explore comes with many enemies that require a careful, methodical approach to get past.

We were very impressed with how the sequel managed to build on all of its predecessors’ strengths, taking its unique brand of environmental storytelling to new heights with unsettling visuals and a tension-filled gameplay loop. Check out our review of Little Nightmares 2 on PS4, where we gave it a nine out of ten. Despite experiencing it through backwards compatibility, a native PS5 version is also available alongside Xbox Series X/S.

That added fidelity is also apparent in the cutscenes, which should make it all the easier to distinguish between human allies and their not-so-friendly alien doppelgangers. For a game like this, where sneaking and shadows will be as important as running for your life, ray tracing is a boon, resulting in more realistic light and shadows.

“With advanced ray tracing, light behaves more realistically, bouncing naturally through corridors, reflecting off metallic surfaces, and casting shadows that feel grounded in physical space. Emergency strobes flare against bulkheads. Firelight flickers dynamically across a character’s face. Ice refracts light in a way that feels cold and unforgiving,” says Studio Technical Director Will Burdon.

Directive 8020 will also leverage the DualSense controller. You’ll hear communications from crewmates through the speaker and feel the haptic feedback when using tools. That same feedback comes into play during pivotal moments where quick thinking matters, further adding to the tension. If things go too far south, you can always rely on Turning Points to redo certain decisions.

Launching on May 12th, Directive 8020 will also be available for Xbox Series X/S and PC. You can check the prologue here for a quick glimpse at some of the more impactful decisions, or learn more about co-op here.

With up to five players able to play offline, passing your controllers to each other as you keep trying to decipher the shapeshifter’s true identity, this one’s definitely up there with some of the more nerve-wracking horror titles. Tense situations and some hard decisions await those of you brave enough to take this one on. Online multiplayer is expected to be added in a post-launch update.

For those of you who haven’t been keeping up with this one, Directive 8020 sees players on the colony ship Cassieopeia, which has unfortunately crashed on Tau Ceti f, a planet housing a shapeshifting alien that’s about to keep you on your toes once you begin your adventure. You play as Young, a member of this ship’s crew who must attempt to make sense of the situation, whilst not knowing if your fellow crew members are indeed the people you’ve worked with or the alien taking on their form.

You might want to keep the lights on as you check out the trailer below. Directive 8020 will be available for Xbox Series X/S, PS5, and PC at launch.

The post is a the latest iteration of the Xbox Excellence Awards, which was created last year to celebrate how players engaged with various releases on Xbox. The Store Rating category lists 2025 games with the best ratings on the Microsoft Store, with an added requirement of the title having at least 500 ratings. Player Engagements is about the average number of hours spent on a game by each player within the first six weeks of a game’s release. Daily Active Users celebrates titles, expansions or updates with the highest single-day active users throughout the year. And finally Units Sold is fairly self-explanatory.

Going down the lists, you’ll find many of the biggest releases of the year, from ARC Raiders and Battlefield 6, as well as award-winning RPG Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. Indie titles have also been well-represented, with games like Crime Scene Cleaner and Satisfactory making it into the lists. There also doesn’t seem to have been a singular genre to dominate the lists, since everything from sports games like EA Sports Madden NFL 26, to fantasy adventure life sims like Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time, and even fighting games like Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics are well represented.

Curiously, none of the games was present in all four of the categories. At most, we got to see titles like Borderlands 4 being able to make it on to three of them: Player Engagement, Daily Active Users and Units Sold. Even ARC Raiders, which has seen quite a bit of success, is only on the Units Sold and Daily Active Users lists.

Microsoft has also emphasized that the lists represent a diverse collection of games developed by studios of varying sizes. All in all, it represents 48 unique developers based out of 13 countries, with 24 publishers having had a hand in their release. 19 of the games were self-published. “Taken as a whole, it’s an encapsulation of development on Xbox – we want gaming to reach you wherever you are, and for the teams making those games to find you from wherever they are,” wrote the company.

Full list of games:

Store Rating:

• Call of Duty: Black Ops 7
• Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
• Crime Scene Cleaner
• Demon Slayer -Kimetsu no Yaiba- The Hinokami Chronicles 2
• Digimon Story: Time Stranger
• Dreamcore
• Dynasty Warriors: Origins
• Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time
• Final Fantasy XVI
• Lies of P: Overture
• Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii
• Little Nightmares III
• Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics
• Minami Lane
• Mullet MadJack
• Poppy Playtime Chapter 4
• Satisfactory
• Silent Hill 2
• Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds
• The First Berserker: Khazan

Player Engagement:

• Borderlands 4
• Digimon Story: Time Stranger
• Dynasty Warriors: Origins
• EA Sports College Football 26
• EA Sports FC 26
• Elden Ring Nightreign
• Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time
• Farm Together 2
• Final Fantasy Tactics – The Ivalice Chronicles
• Helldivers 2
• Inazuma Eleven: Victory Road
• Kingdom Come: Deliverance II
• Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii
• MLB The Show 25
• Monster Hunter Wilds
• NBA 2K26
• NHL 26
• Rust
• Satisfactory
• The First Berserker: Khazan

Daily Active Users:

• Arc Raiders
• Avowed
• Battlefield 6
• Borderlands 4
• Call of Duty: Black Ops 7
• DOOM: The Dark Ages
• Elden Ring Nightreign
• Fortnite
• Forza Horizon 5
• Grand Theft Auto V
• Grounded 2
• Helldivers 2
• Marvel Rivals
• Minecraft
• NBA 2K26
• Rematch
• Roblox
• Rocket League
• The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered
• Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege

Units Sold:

• Arc Raiders
• Assassin’s Creed Shadows
• Battlefield 6
• Borderlands 4
• Call of Duty: Black Ops 7
• EA Sports Madden NFL 26
• EA Sports College Football 26
• EA Sports FC 26
• Elden Ring Nightreign
• Grand Theft Auto V
• Helldivers 2
• Hollow Knight: Silksong
• Kingdom Come: Deliverance II
• MLB The Show 25
• Monster Hunter Wilds
• NBA 2K26
• PGA Tour 2K25
• Ready or Not
• The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered
• WWE 2K25