Five months after launch, Directive 8020 finally does what a lot of Supermassive Games fans assumed it would do on day one: let you play it with friends who aren't sitting on your sofa. The studio's free online multiplayer update is out now, turning the sci-fi horror game's local Movie Night mode into an online session for up to five players, each in their own home if they like. It arrives with two ways to share control, a voting system for the game's big decisions, and the return of a Dark Pictures staple, the Premonitions.
Movie Night goes online
Directive 8020 launched on May 12 with Movie Night as an offline, local-only mode. Up to five people could share one screen, with the controller passed around as different characters took the lead. Supermassive promised an online version as a free post-launch update, and that update went live today, October 19. In its announcement on Steam, the studio says it took the offline couch co-op mode and built a new online version on top of it.
The setup is flexible. Any group of up to five can split across locations however it wants: five players in five different homes, or two on one couch and three on another, connected in the same session. That's the detail likely to matter most to anyone who stopped playing because they couldn't get the whole group in one room.
There are two catches. Online play is not cross-play, so everyone in a session has to be on the same platform. And every player needs to own their own copy of the game. The host can't bring in friends who don't own it.
Custom mode and Round Robin
The update adds two online modes, and they handle the controller in different ways.
Custom mode is the closest match to the original couch experience. Each player picks a character from the crew at the start, and whenever that character is the one on screen, that player takes control. If your character dies, so does your part in the story, which makes the usual Supermassive question of who survives to the credits a lot more personal.
Round Robin mode drops character allocation. Control rotates between players after a set amount of time, whoever is currently on screen. This mode suits groups that don't want anyone stuck watching for long stretches, and it means nobody owns any one character's fate. A decision that dooms a crew member could be made by whoever happens to be holding the controller at that moment.
Choice Voting lets the group weigh in, or not
The biggest addition for groups is Choice Voting. When the game hits a decision, on-screen prompts show how each person has voted and which way they're leaning. The active player isn't bound by the result: they can follow the majority, or ignore everyone and pick the other option.
That fits Directive 8020's premise. The game is set aboard the colony ship Cassiopeia, where the crew faces an alien organism that can imitate the people around them, so trust is the core tension of the plot. Being able to see your friends vote one way and then deliberately choose the other is a natural fit for a story about not knowing whom to trust. Supermassive says the other players can now "help or hinder" whoever is in control, and voting is the main way to do it.
Premonitions return, plus a retro wardrobe
The update isn't only about multiplayer. It brings Premonitions to Directive 8020 for the first time. These collectibles were a fixture of The Dark Pictures Anthology, short glimpses of a possible future that hint at how a choice might play out. Thirteen of them are now scattered through the game, so returning solo players also have a reason to revisit the Cassiopeia.
A new cosmetic wardrobe also arrives with the update: retro silver spacesuits for the cast, a nod to classic science fiction. Supermassive lists it as a customization DLC included alongside the multiplayer release.
Why it matters now
Shared play has always been the point of Supermassive's horror games. These are interactive films built to be argued over, and until today Directive 8020 only offered that to people in the same room. Online play closes that gap, and the timing puts it right in the Halloween window, when group horror nights are at their most popular.
The online multiplayer update is free for all owners of Directive 8020 on PS5, Xbox Series X|S and PC. Download it, gather up to four friends who own the game on the same platform, and the Cassiopeia is ready to fly again.
