Directive 8020 Guide

The fifth entry in The Dark Pictures Anthology — a sci-fi horror from the creators of Until Dawn. The colony ship Cassiopeia has crashed on Tau Ceti f, and something on board can mimic anyone.

Released 2026-05-12 · All 8 episodes 8 endings · 30+ trophies · 50 secrets PC / PS5 / Xbox Series
The Cassiopeia colony ship in Directive 8020
The colony ship Cassiopeia, 12 light-years from Earth at Tau Ceti f — where the crew discovers they are far from alone. — Source: Supermassive Games / Steam

🏁Start Here

🫀
Beginner's Guide

How Directive 8020 works: the mimic threat, Turning Points rewind system, QTE survival and what carries between playthroughs.

Getting Started
🛟
Save Everyone Route

Plan a survival-focused playthrough and track the decisions in your actual save.

Save Everyone
🔚
All Endings

Every ending from the True Ending to Game Over — conditions, survivors and how to reach each one.

Endings

🎮Walkthrough & Progress

📖
Full Walkthrough

All 8 episodes (Little Star → Come True): key decisions, lethal QTEs, stealth sections and missable triggers.

Walkthrough
🏆
Trophy & Achievement Guide

The official Steam achievement index, with visible and hidden conditions clearly distinguished.

Trophies
📦
Collectibles & Secrets

The Curator unlock prerequisite, collectible tracking and edition-specific content.

Collectibles

👥Crew & Lore

🧬
Characters & Destinies

All five playable crew, their Destiny paths and how personality choices gate the endings.

Characters
FAQ & Quick Answers

How long is it? Is there co-op? Turning Points explained, platform differences and common questions.

FAQ
📌 Spoiler warning

Directive 8020 is a choice-driven story. Pages marked with "spoiler-graded" keep key reveals hidden until you scroll; the Save Everyone and Endings pages contain full spoilers by design. Play through once blind, then use the guides for cleanup.

How to use this guide

This guide is organized the way the game is actually played. Start with the Beginner's Guide if you have not touched an anthology title before — it covers the dialogue-choice rhythm, QTE types and how the trust system quietly steers everything. The Full Walkthrough is the episode-by-episode spine. From there, the site splits into three task-oriented tracks: Endings for steering the finale, Trophies for the cabinet, and Characters for the Destiny bars. Every leaf page carries the same editorial block: sources, the launch build it applies to (May 12, 2026) and a correction mailbox.

Two structural notes save real time. First, Directive 8020 spans eight episodes, and its most valuable checkpoint is not a save file but knowledge — knowing which scenes hide branches matters more than any single choice. Second, chapter select only helps after an episode is cleared, so a deliberate first run beats three corrective replays.

How the anthology structure shapes a run

Directive 8020 plays in eight episodes as five crew members aboard the Cassiopeia, and its systems layer on top of that spine: Turning Points let you rewind pivotal moments, trust scores carry between episodes, and the finale's fork reads the whole run's history. A single blind playthrough lands wherever your instincts take you — the guide's route pages exist for the second pass, when you are aiming at a specific ending or trophy.

FAQ

Is a blind first run wasted?

Choose a first playthrough style that suits you, then use the supported replay options for specific outcomes. No fixed number of runs is guaranteed.

FAQ

Is Directive 8020 connected to the other Dark Pictures games?

It is the fifth entry in The Dark Pictures Anthology, and it keeps the series' framing device — the Curator and his repository of stories — while standing alone as a self-contained sci-fi horror story. No prior-game knowledge is required: the colony ship Cassiopeia's crash on Tau Ceti f and the mimic threat are introduced from zero in Episode 1.