Supermassive Games has set its horror games in a variety of environments: the haunted burial grounds and cabin of Until Dawn, an abandoned town in Little Hope, and the temple ruins in House of Ashes. The settings visited thus far aren't comprehensive, but they are familiar for fans of horror movies. The studio's latest game, Directive 8020, moves the horror experience to the tried-and-true area of space, and we got a chance to check out a preview build before its full release in a few weeks.

The story is set in the future. Earth is dying, and the search for a suitable new home is underway. One of the possible candidates is a super-Earth named Tau Ceti f. An investigation has started on whether the planet is viable for human life, but the ship carrying the investigators has crash-landed, stranding the crew on the planet with no way to contact a sister ship for rescue. To make matters worse, an alien growth has appeared on the ship and begun to hunt down the crew one by one, leading them to fight to survive before help can potentially arrive.

The preview build showcases two areas of the game, and you learn that this represents the fourth chapter of the full game. The preview build begins with your character trying to reach an elevator exit while also trying to not get caught by those infected by the alien growth. For the most part, this is familiar; you'll do some crouch-walking and going through service tunnels to avoid being seen by enemies. Getting caught means that you can try to fight back through quick time button prompts, but there are moments when you can get caught and automatically die.

As in the developer's previous games, death isn't an instant game over. Most of these games feature ensemble casts, so one person's death forces you to branch off in the story with another character. The main difference in this title is that you have "turning points," which are key moments when the story diverges. In this case, you can reverse a decision by returning to any of these turning points and playing from there instead of being forced to play through after a mistake has been made. This is going to be divisive among players. On the one hand, it means that you can get your preferred run type without keeping backup saves in case something goes wrong. On the other hand, it eliminates some of the game's tension and can possibly spoil the rest of the game by giving you a glimpse into the game's many branches. The good news is that this is completely optional, so it falls to the player about whether they can refrain from using it.

The next section rewinds the game a bit to when the alien influence isn't felt throughout the ship yet. You'll watch a number of cut scenes and be given the classic scenario of choosing an option to progress the story. This isn't anything new, except for the fact that this section doesn't feature an option to stay silent by not responding. After a number of these decisions are made, you're sent to hunt down a threat that leads to another stealth segment that feels more involved. You'll try to gather a few pieces to power up a bridge before the preview build ends. This is where you'll be able to use on-board devices to give you a hint about your next major objective and detect where a potential enemy threat is located. Both are helpful, but you can't rely on these things, since their functions last only a short while.

So far, Directive 8020 lives up to what fans have come to expect from the studio's Dark Pictures line of horror titles:  creepy tension over jump-scares, choices mattering, multiplayer providing a twist on what is traditionally a single-player experience, and balance of cut scenes and interactivity to keep the story moving along. The rewind function can be slightly divisive, but it remains to be seen how much it will affect the game, especially since the preview build only showed off some basic mechanics. It's familiar enough that it can feel comforting for those who have played the previous titles in the franchise. There are only a few weeks to go before Directive 8020's full release, so it shouldn't take long to see if genre fans will enjoy the full experience.