The Dark Duo – Directive 8020 – Part 1-1
Though it’ll be another half a year until the spooky season returns, Supermassive Games has deigned to grace us with the next installment of The Dark Pictures anthology with Directive 8020.
Thus, it is time for Acharky and myself to resurrect the unseasonable Dark Duo.
EPILEPSY WARNING! FLASHING LIGHTS!
Streamed on my Twitch channel.
Acharky can also be found on Twitch.
I checked after the broadcast, and verified that Tony Pankhurst, who was the face and mo-cap actor for The Curator, passed away on June 2024. Pip Torrens, who does the voice, is still with us at the age of 66 (as of May 2026). Still, without the face of The Dark Pictures brand, I would probably have chosen to pivot in the same way that Supermassive has.
At least, I assume that’s probably a contributing factor. I otherwise find that it odd that Supermassive has chosen to abandon The Dark Pictures brand for marketing purposes, but still make Directive 8020 an official entry in the anthology. I always assumed these games did well enough to justify putting them out under the same label, but perhaps there are multiple factors at play I’m unaware of.
I must admit that I am disappointed that Acharky and I can’t play the game in co-op the same way we did for House of Ashes and The Devil in Me. On one hand, I respect couch co-op, but all of my friends are online so that’s simply impractical for me. I don’t mind if they don’t do asynchronous play as they’ve done before in previous entries, but I would still like to play pass the control digitally. I’m not asking for much.
(Also, for the record, that last time The Dark Duo got together before this was The Casting of Frank Stone back in October 2024, a game I had completely forgotten about. Before that, the last proper Dark Pictures game was The Devil in Me back in 2022. Directive 8020 has been over three years in the making, so I’m excited to see where we go from here.)
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