All Choices And Outcomes In Episode 8 Of Directive 8020

It all comes down to this – you’re moving into the last episode of The Dark Pictures Anthology: Directive 8020, and with 44 potential character deaths throughout the game, it’s no surprise that your final stretch toward the end is rife with more than half of those opportunities around almost every corner.

You’ve learned the secrets of the Cetus Mission and found out your true identities already, and now it’s time to figure out what you intend to do with that information. It’s time to get off Tau Ceti F once and for all in the last episode of Directive 8020.

Why You Started – Refueled

Though the eighth and final episode of Directive 8020 seems to be a long one at first glance on the Turning Points tree, it’s strikingly short, since most of it sees all your decisions so far coming into play to decide which of the endings you’ll see.

The character destiny you’ve earned for Briana Young through your decisions so far will decide which path you’ll take here.

Next, you’ll see a scene called Explanations, where the surviving crew members question the Oracle. This is where you’ll decide Cernan’s destiny, with Cernan: The Philosopher unlocking if you’ve progressed his Philosophical trait and Cernan: The Focused if you made him more Focused instead. Naturally, Cernan must be alive for his destinies to be solidified here.

You’ll see a different cutscene next depending on what kind of message you chose to send, or how you had Young: The Loyalist choose to approach what comes first. If you sent a warning or went for Survival First, you’ll see The Ring next, while it’ll be different if you sent an SOS or chose Humanity First.

Before leaving, Williams objects to the plan to do so, and you’ll need to decide how to handle him. You can force him to join you to unlock the Take Williams node here, or you can instead opt out of fighting with him and decide to Leave Williams behind. Either way, you’ll proceed to the final scenes of the game, where the remaining crew members try to refuel the SEV so they can leave the doomed ship and try for some kind of life in orbit.

You’ll now be in the scene titled Redirect, where you’ll need to escape the Eisele mimic is nearby. Again, you’ll need to navigate the area with your waypoints to power the door through the area to escape. You need to get the power cell in the area before you can open the door, which you can find by going through the door to the right if you’re looking at the locked and unlocked doors from the center.

Leave safely, and you’ll see the Escaped Eisele node unlock. Get captured, and you’ll instead see Killed by Eisele, one of several character deaths in episode eight of Directive 8020.

Next up is the Atrium once you’ve climbed the stairs and successfully escaped, finding another escape scene that changes whether or not you flee the entity here. You can try to go to the door and pass the shadow in the center of the room, but it’ll awaken either way, and you’ll still need to sneak through and progressively get through the waypoints in the large, infested area here.

Survive, and you’ll unlock the Escaped Atrium node on this Turning Point. Fail to escape in time, and it’ll be Killed in Atrium. Either way, you’ll make it back to the Mess Hall again, where there are a few secrets to be found.

When you get out safely, you’ll see the Escaped Mess Hall node unlock, but it’s the Killed in Mess Hall node if you don’t. What happens from here will depend on who’s alive at this point. You’ll see Purged if at least one of the characters in Redirect is still alive, and another scene if not. Once you’ve successfully gotten fuel redirected to the SEV, you’ll see the Refueled scene to prepare to leave Tau Ceti F once and for all.

The Way Back – Meltdown/Overwhelmed

Once you begin The Way Back, you’ll find quite a few things before you fight your way into the reactor of the Cassiopeia in an attempt to blow up the ship, and they’re right beside one another in a way that’s hard to miss. These are:

• The last Simms Recording of the game, offering a resolution that she’s not going to be looking further into her findings.
• A silver obol coin that should look familiar to any returning Dark Pictures Anthology fan.

Once you try to leave to make it to the reactor, though, you’ll find yourself in a scene called Shoggoth, a Lovecraftian horror monster chasing your crew members as they flee. You’ll see a scene called Into the Reactor if you make it in time, but No Escape if the monster catches up to you.

Either way, you’ll move then into a scene called Reactor, and while it might look like plenty of branches lie ahead, this is the final major turning point for the game. The crew that remains alive at this point will need to complete several QTEs ahead.

From Reactor, you’ll go into a short scene called Tentacle Flail that will branch based on if you land the QTE, giving Tentacle Dodged if you do (and Tentacle Stab if you do fail the QTE). Next will be Creeper, with a tentacle coming from the stairs, and you’ll need to land the QTE again to see Near Miss (and the death scene Stabbed if you don’t).

Ahead, though, you’ll have a critical choice to make during Snap Decision if you made it here, with your crew member here needing to save their companion if you’d like everyone to live. That said, prepare for a QTE as soon as you decide, which you’ll need to pass to succeed.

Either way it shakes out, there’s a branch here that changes what you see going forward. Meltdown occurs if you successfully overloaded the reactor and the crew member who tried to do so survived, seguing into Home Straight from there.

Knock Knock

Next will come a scene called Knock Knock, if either your Mitchell is alive, and/or you saw Eisele or Cernan die back in episode six. The ending you’ll see going into the final branch of the eighth episode of Directive 8020 will entirely depend on who’s still alive at the end of the episode, with an entirely separate branch here if Mitchell survived to see episode eight.

No matter what, the scene will reconvene with the main story here.

Return Of The Beast – The End

With the monster in the Hangar now as the crew is trying to make a break for it to escape Tau Ceti F, in Return of the Beast, you’ve got quite a branching series of paths here – Dark Pictures games love giving you last-second ways to kill your survivors, after all. Plenty of choices here can be deadly, so be careful!

The monster is actively attacking your crew mates as they try to leave, and almost everyone will have at least one QTE to evade it. You’ll see Evaded as you dodge it for the first time, which segues to Uncontained when a large shipping container begins to move about. Pass two QTEs to see Contained, and then watch as the monsters rips down a ceiling beam in Teardown.

Finally, you’ve got a pretty fast-paced escape scene here as you and the remaining crew attempt to fly away after overloading the ship’s reactor. It begins with Fueled Up, with Pipe Detached being the pathway that sees the removal of the fuel pipe and Devoured being the one that does not. From there, you move into Seal the Exits, which opens a branching path forward.

Failing to seal the door leads to the Grabbed path, and you’ll lose a team member. If you seal the door, though, you’ll then get to the Grappled scene that sees said team member lob a canister of O2 into the monster’s mouth with the intent to detonate it. Doing so unlocks the Open Wide path that swings you right to Into Space (unless you’ve got branching paths to unlock for extra scenes).

Failing to detonate the O2 leads to one of two paths depending on what else has happened:

• If you reached Cavern and Trust Exercise in the previous episode, or you chose Trust in Knock Knock with Cernan or Eisele present, then you might just be saved.
• If nobody is an impostor, or they were all revealed to be impostors already, then you’ll see Explosion, which kills the whole crew aboard the SEV.

Into Space – The End

What happens from the Into Space scene in chapter eight of Directive 8020 will depend on your decisions so far, with plenty of room for variation along the way.

You’ll segue into the scene called Cycle from here, with two different variations of the conversation:

• Your crew is still alive, and you either chose Survival First as Loyalist Young at the beginning of the episode, or you sent an SOS in episode seven.
• Forever and Ever: Your crew is still alive, and you either chose Humanity First as Loyalist Young, or you sent a Warning in episode seven.

Either way, you’ll see the credits roll to offer a look at interviews with the original crew members that are still alive in your game talking about their hopes for the future, and you’ll end with locking in a destiny for Eisele, either Eisele: The Humanitarian if you spent the game boosting her Sympathetic stat, or Eisele: The Rational if you instead put more into her Rational trait.