GameSpot has published a short form review for Directive 8020, the next title in The Dark Pictures Anthology. The review, posted on the outlet’s official Steam curator page, confirms the game’s connection to the anthology series and its lineage to Until Dawn, the 2015 horror hit from Supermassive Games.

That is almost everything the source material says. The headline reads “Directive 8020 Short Form Review,” and the supporting text on the curator page includes only the hashtags #directive8020, #darkpictures, and #untildawn, along with a link to GameSpot’s full Steam curator collection. No release date, no platform list, no gameplay details, no score. But a short form review, especially from a major outlet like GameSpot, still tells us something.

What is a short form review?

Short form reviews are exactly what they sound like: condensed, spoiler-free verdicts that skip the deep analysis and get straight to a rating or a recommendation. Steam’s curator system encourages brevity — each review appears as a short paragraph or bullet list under a game’s store page. For a title like Directive 8020, a short form review from GameSpot suggests the outlet has played the game (or at least an early build) and wants to direct Steam users toward or away from it quickly. It is a signal to the platform’s audience: this is worth your time, or it is not.

The Dark Pictures Anthology connection

The hashtag #darkpictures confirms Directive 8020 belongs to The Dark Pictures Anthology, Supermassive’s ongoing series of standalone horror games that began with Man of Medan in 2019. Each entry in the anthology features a new cast, setting, and supernatural threat, but shares a gameplay framework: branching narratives, quick-time events, and a focus on player choice that determines who lives and who dies. The series has covered a ghost ship, a witch trial, a cursed town, and a vampire-infested cavern. Directive 8020 appears to be the next chapter.

The #untildawn hashtag reinforces the developer connection. Until Dawn is the game that put Supermassive on the map, a teen slasher drama set on a snowbound mountain. Its success directly led to The Dark Pictures series, which is often described as a spiritual successor that trades Until Dawn’s AAA budget for a more episodic, co-op-friendly format. The inclusion of the Until Dawn tag in the curator page suggests that GameSpot is framing Directive 8020 within the context of that legacy — and that fans of the earlier game should pay attention.

What can we infer from the review’s existence?

Because the source material contains no review text, we cannot know whether GameSpot gave a positive or negative verdict. But the very fact of a short form review — rather than a full-length feature or a silent skip — indicates that Directive 8020 is far enough along to have been hands-on reviewed by a major outlet. The timing also hints at an imminent announcement or release. Publishers often send review copies to curators and press in the weeks before launch, and the presence of a Steam curator review typically coincides with a game’s public availability or a press embargo lift.

This pattern matches Supermassive’s recent release strategy. The Dark Pictures Anthology’s fourth entry, The Devil in Me, launched in November 2022. The fifth game, Directive 8020, was first teased in a post-credits scene for that game, suggesting a two-year development cycle. If that holds, a 2024 or early 2025 release is plausible — and a short form review appearing now (September 2024) would fit a pre-release preview window.

Until Dawn’s shadow

Until Dawn remains the high-water mark for interactive horror, and every Dark Pictures game has been measured against it. The hashtag in GameSpot’s curator entry is unlikely to be accidental: it positions Directive 8020 as part of the same creative universe, even if the anthology’s games are story-wise disconnected. For readers, the tag functions as a shorthand: “if you liked Until Dawn, you’ll want to know about this.”

What remains unclear is whether Directive 8020 will break the anthology’s pattern of smaller-scale storytelling and return to the wider scope of Until Dawn, or whether it will continue the series’ established formula. The game’s title suggests a sci-fi or military theme — “Directive 8020” sounds like a classified order — which would be a departure from the historical and folk-horror settings of earlier entries. That alone could make it the most ambitious Dark Pictures game yet, but we have no confirmation of plot or setting.

What comes next

Without the actual review text, the most concrete takeaway is this: Directive 8020 exists, it has been played by GameSpot, and the outlet chose to write a short form review about it on Steam. That is more than a rumor but less than a full reveal. Readers should expect an official announcement or trailer soon, followed by a release date. Supermassive has not yet publicly commented on when Directive 8020 will ship, but the curator review suggests the wait may not be long.

For now, the short form review is a sign that the game is real, playable, and close to launch. The rest — story details, gameplay changes, performance on current consoles — will have to wait until the review itself becomes readable or until Supermassive speaks. But the combination of three simple hashtags and a Steam link is already telling fans exactly what they need to know: the next Dark Pictures game is almost here.