Directive 8020 Achievement Guide: Complete 100% 

Directive 8020 sends the cloned crew of Cycle 13 crash-landing on Tau Ceti f, and its 30 achievements track a genuinely branching structure: 44 possible crew deaths, multiple endings, and a Character Destiny system tied to dialogue choices across all 8 episodes. Since most outcome-based achievements are mutually exclusive within a single playthrough, this guide lays out a clean survival route first, then how to branch into the darker outcomes using Turning Points or replays.

Quick Stats

• Total Achievements: 30
• Estimated Completion Time: 25-35 hours across multiple routes
• Difficulty: 5/10
• Online Required: No (co-op supports up to 5 players, but every achievement is achievable solo)
• Missable Achievements: Many outcome, choice, and character-state achievements are mutually exclusive within one playthrough; Turning Points in Explorer Playstyle let you rewind and branch, but one achievement specifically requires a full clear on Survivor Playstyle, which removes that rewind safety net

Achievement List by Category

Episode Progression

• Wake-Up Crew
• Cycle Complete
• Live with the Consequences

Character Destinies

• Personality Manifest
• All Possible Futures

Crew Survival Outcomes

• Humanitarian
• This Steak’s Raw
• Human After All
• Home Free
• Paint The Walls
• Total Party Kill
• We Have Reserves

Key Choices & Consequences

• Not Today, Boss
• Lost and Found
• Thumb on the Last Page
• Always Wear a Seatbelt
• Is This Decaf?
• Stealth 100
• Organic Waste Disposal
• Social Butterfly
• Right to Bear Arms
• Suspect Acquitted
• Password1
• NDA Breaker
• Cat’s Out the Bag

Endings & Final Messages

• Message in a Bottle
• This is Not a Place of Honor

Collectibles

• Dear Mum…
• O Death
• No Stone Left Unturned

Achievements by Category (Detailed)

Episode Progression

Wake-Up Crew

Unlock Rate: 83.0% (Common)

Requirement: Complete Episode 1

How to Unlock: Complete Episode 1 of the story, waking up the sleep technicians and beginning Cycle 13’s mission.

Tips: This unlocks through normal story progression and is unmissable on any playthrough.

Cycle Complete

Unlock Rate: 45.0% (Uncommon)

Requirement: Complete all 8 episodes

How to Unlock: Complete the full story from Episode 1 through Episode 8, reaching any ending.

Tips: This unlocks regardless of which specific ending or crew survival state you reach, so it’s guaranteed on any finished playthrough.

Live with the Consequences

Unlock Rate: 20.1% (Rare)

Requirement: Complete the story on Survivor Playstyle

How to Unlock: Play through the full 8 episodes on Survivor Playstyle, which removes the Turning Points rewind mechanic and locks in your choices permanently, similar to a traditional Dark Pictures playthrough.

Tips: Consider doing this as your final playthrough, once you already know the choices you want to make, since Survivor Playstyle won’t let you correct mistakes the way Explorer Playstyle does.

Character Destinies

Personality Manifest

Unlock Rate: 85.8% (Common)

Requirement: Unlock a Character Destiny

How to Unlock: Make enough consistent dialogue choices to unlock your first Character Destiny, typically triggered for Carter during the Episode 1 spacewalk sequence.

Tips: This is practically unmissable, since every major decision slightly shifts a character’s personality progression toward one of their two Destiny paths.

All Possible Futures

Unlock Rate: 1.4% (Ultra Rare)

Requirement: Unlock all Character Destinies

How to Unlock: Unlock both Destiny paths for every major crew member (Brianna Young, Nolan Stafford, Laura Eisele, Samantha Cooper, and Josef Cernan) by making opposing dialogue choices across multiple playthroughs.

Tips: Opposing traits conflict with one another within a single route, so this realistically requires several partial replays. Monitor each character’s progression bars in the Crew menu to track which Destiny path you’re currently leaning toward.

Crew Survival Outcomes

Humanitarian

Unlock Rate: 10.7% (Very Rare)

Requirement: Save the whole crew

How to Unlock: Keep every crew member alive through the entire story, including the non-playable characters Anders, Mitchell, and Williams, not just the 5 playable characters (Stafford, Young, Eisele, Cernan, Cooper). Carter and Simms are scripted to die regardless of your choices. Key steps include choosing Trust when Mitchell asks Stafford about Anders in Episode 2, disabling the Landing Computer (not Fire Control) in Episode 2’s Power Games, reactivating Fire Control as Eisele without being caught, helping Anders sedate Williams in Episode 5 (requires Cooper’s Playful trait high enough for her Rogue Destiny), saving Anders during the Ice and Fire scene, and rescuing the correct (real) Anders on the planet surface in Episode 7.

Tips: Build Cooper’s Playful trait as early as possible, since it needs to be dominant well before Episode 5 for her to agree to help sedate Williams.

This Steak’s Raw

Unlock Rate: 34.9% (Uncommon)

Requirement: Keep Mitchell and Anders unharmed through the experiment

How to Unlock: Keep Fire Control active in Episode 2 (rather than disabling it), then reactivate it as Eisele when following Simms without being caught. Later, as Young during the Ice and Fire scene in Episode 5, choose to save Anders; Mitchell will be automatically saved because Fire Control stayed on.

Tips: This is one specific path to saving both characters in that scene, distinct from disabling the Landing Computer instead, so be clear on which system you cut in Episode 2 before this scene arrives.

Human After All

Unlock Rate: 18.2% (Rare)

Requirement: Get all crew members safely through the scanner

How to Unlock: Keep all your crew members alive up through Episode 6, then correctly identify the mimic among the doubles at the Bridge Ops scanner so no real crew member is mistakenly shot or scanned as an intruder.

Tips: Use Test rather than Shoot whenever the game offers a verification option at the scanner, since guessing wrong here can kill a real crew member.

Home Free

Unlock Rate: 11.5% (Very Rare)

Requirement: Chart a course for Earth without any intruders on board

How to Unlock: Reach the Escape ending path with no imposters aboard the S.E.V., meaning you correctly identified and dealt with every mimic threat rather than allowing an intruder to escape with the crew.

Tips: This ties closely to Human After All and the scanner sequence in Episode 6, so a clean scanner outcome sets you up for this achievement too.

Paint The Walls

Unlock Rate: 7.5% (Very Rare)

Requirement: Kill the whole crew

How to Unlock: Deliberately get every crew member killed throughout the game, or concentrate the deaths in Episode 8: leave Williams behind in Second Chances, get caught as Stafford in Redirect, get caught as Eisele in Atrium, get caught as Young in Shoggoth, fail QTEs as Cooper in Tentacle Flail, and abandon Mitchell in Knock Knock.

Tips: The easiest way to get this is to first complete a full “save everyone” playthrough, then use a save file from just before Episode 8 (Second Chances) and replay only that episode, deliberately failing the choices above to kill everyone quickly.

Total Party Kill

Unlock Rate: 3.2% (Ultra Rare)

Requirement: Turn the standoff at the scanner into a death spiral

How to Unlock: Have fewer than 3 crew members alive by the time you reach the Bridge Ops scanner in Episode 6, then fail to correctly identify the mimic among the doubles present.

Tips: This requires a specifically weakened crew state going into Episode 6, so if you’re targeting this achievement, let some earlier deaths happen deliberately rather than pursuing a clean survival route.

We Have Reserves

Unlock Rate: 3.6% (Ultra Rare)

Requirement: Send a second team down to redirect the fuel

How to Unlock: In Episode 8, get both crew members attempting to purge the elevators and redirect the fuel killed (typically starting as Stafford and Eisele) during their stealth or QTE sequence, triggering a backup team of Cooper and Young to be sent down instead.

Tips: This requires the first team to fail or die, so deliberately missing QTEs or getting caught during that specific Episode 8 sequence is the fastest way to trigger it.

Key Choices & Consequences

Not Today, Boss

Unlock Rate: 62.2% (Common)

Requirement: Escape Williams as Cernan without being caught

How to Unlock: In Episode 3, successfully sneak Cernan past Williams to reach the Control Room without being caught.

Tips: This is a stealth sequence, so move only when Williams isn’t looking rather than trying to rush past him.

Lost and Found

Unlock Rate: 50.2% (Uncommon)

Requirement: Find Carter’s Utility Strap

How to Unlock: In Episode 3 (Search), toward the end after the second battery door, listen for the beeping of Carter’s Utility Strap. Follow the beeping through a narrow squeeze passage to find it. Whether Carter was caught or escaped in Episode 1 doesn’t affect this achievement.

Tips: Do not progress through the locked Elevators door before finding the strap, since doing so causes you to miss it for that playthrough.

Thumb on the Last Page

Unlock Rate: 49.7% (Uncommon)

Requirement: Use a Turning Point to change your path

How to Unlock: With Turning Points enabled (Explorer Playstyle), open the pause menu, go to the Turning Points tab, select a previous choice, and reload from that point to change your path.

Tips: You’ll likely earn this naturally while working toward other achievements, since revisiting Turning Points is the main tool for branching into different outcomes.

Always Wear a Seatbelt

Unlock Rate: 46.9% (Uncommon)

Requirement: Keep Stafford seated during the Episode 3 crash

How to Unlock: During the Episode 3 crash sequence, choose to force Stafford to sit down and buckle in before impact rather than letting him move around the cabin.

Tips: This choice becomes available if you disabled the Landing Computer back in Episode 2, so the two choices are connected across episodes.

Is This Decaf?

Unlock Rate: 44.7% (Uncommon)

Requirement: Sedate Williams

How to Unlock: Allow Anders to successfully sedate Mr. Williams in Episode 5. This requires entering the correct chemical sequence, having Cooper’s Playful trait dominant enough for her Rogue Destiny to agree to help, and ensuring Stafford is either dead or trusts Anders (chosen during his conversation with Mitchell in Episode 2) so he doesn’t interrupt her.

Tips: Build Cooper’s Playful trait early and choose Trust for Anders in Episode 2, since both are prerequisites that need to be locked in well before this scene.

Stealth 100

Unlock Rate: 44.0% (Uncommon)

Requirement: Return to Bridge Ops without losing any characters

How to Unlock: Successfully complete a stealth sequence (such as Eisele’s Waste Management breaker section in Episode 5, or Cernan’s stealth section in Episode 3) without being caught, keeping everyone involved alive.

Tips: Stealth sections generally require patience over speed, so wait for patrol patterns to clear before moving rather than rushing between cover points.

Organic Waste Disposal

Unlock Rate: 42.8% (Uncommon)

Requirement: Burn the Duplicate in Waste Management

How to Unlock: At the start of Episode 5’s Waste Management sequence, successfully escape as Eisele, power up the burner, and lure the Duplicate (the Stafford mimic) into the trap to incinerate it.

Tips: If the achievement doesn’t unlock immediately after this scene, don’t worry; it’s been reported to sometimes trigger later, in Episode 6, instead.

Social Butterfly

Unlock Rate: 38.3% (Uncommon)

Requirement: Message every crew member

How to Unlock: Use the in-game Messenger System to send a message as every controllable character to every other crew member across the story.

Tips: Trigger every available message interaction as you go rather than saving it for later, since some message options are only available during specific scenes and are easy to miss on a single pass.

Right to Bear Arms

Unlock Rate: 38.3% (Uncommon)

Requirement: Approve the use of the gun

How to Unlock: This achievement spans three episodes. In Episode 1, escape the alien-infected Simms as Carter. Episode 3 (Search), find Carter’s Utility Strap (see Lost and Found). In Episode 4 (Loaded Question), playing as Eisele, choose to authorize the use of the gun.

Tips: All three steps need to happen on the same playthrough in sequence, so if you miss the Utility Strap in Episode 3, you’ll need to replay from there before this achievement becomes available in Episode 4.

Suspect Acquitted

Unlock Rate: 38.1% (Uncommon)

Requirement: Identify Williams as human

How to Unlock: Sedate Williams in Episode 5 (see Is This Decaf?) so he doesn’t die, then in Episode 6, spare him at the scanner and confirm he is not a mimic.

Tips: This requires Williams to survive to Episode 5’s sedation scene first, so it’s tightly linked to your earlier choice about trusting or monitoring Anders.

Password1

Unlock Rate: 34.5% (Uncommon)

Requirement: Have Anders hack into Williams’ computer

How to Unlock: Sedate Williams in Episode 5, ensure Stafford trusts Anders (chosen during Mitchell’s conversation with Stafford in Episode 2), and keep Anders alive through the lab experiment, allowing her to later discuss hacking Williams’ computer with Cooper.

Tips: This achievement chains three separate earlier choices together, so plan your Episode 2 and Episode 5 decisions with this specific outcome in mind if you’re targeting it directly.

NDA Breaker

Unlock Rate: 28.6% (Rare)

Requirement: Expose the truth about the clone program

How to Unlock: Choose Humanity over Survival as Young at the start of Episode 8, provided her Loyal trait is high enough to have unlocked the Hero Destiny. This leads to Young being arrested for breaching confidentiality and exposing the cloning program in the post-credits scene.

Tips: Build Young’s Loyal trait consistently from Episode 2 onward, since the Hero Destiny requirement gates this specific ending branch.

Cat’s Out the Bag

Unlock Rate: 17.0% (Rare)

Requirement: Persuade Williams to reveal the truth about the mission

How to Unlock: Ensure Williams is alive and sedated from Episode 5 (which requires Anders to drug him), then in Episode 7, successfully get him to reveal the true objective behind the mission.

Tips: This achievement is only available if Williams survives to Episode 7, so it depends entirely on the sedation choice chain from earlier in the game.

Endings & Final Messages

Message in a Bottle

Unlock Rate: 29.3% (Rare)

Requirement: Have Young send an SOS to the Andromeda

How to Unlock: In Episode 6 (Directive 8020 scene), when Young reaches the Charybdis pod, choose to send a distress signal (SOS) rather than a warning.

Tips: This choice directly determines which of the two Episode 7 final-message achievements you can get, so decide in advance which one you’re after before reaching this scene.

This is Not a Place of Honor

Unlock Rate: 25.5% (Rare)

Requirement: Have Young send a warning to the Andromeda

How to Unlock: In Episode 6 (Directive 8020 scene), choose to warn the Andromeda instead of sending a distress signal.

Tips: This is mutually exclusive with Message in a Bottle within a single playthrough, so you’ll need a separate route or Turning Point rewind to get both.

Collectibles

Dear Mum…

Unlock Rate: 6.5% (Very Rare)

Requirement: Find all Simms’ recordings

How to Unlock: Locate all 10 of Simms’ video log recordings, found scattered throughout the environment as you explore and interact with items across the game.

Tips: Simms’ recordings tend to be tucked into side rooms accessible during free-roam exploration segments, so a dedicated collectible location guide speeds this up considerably.

O Death

Unlock Rate: 5.1% (Very Rare)

Requirement: Find all the Curator’s Secrets

How to Unlock: Find all of the Dark Pictures Dolls scattered through the game, then locate all of the O Death Secrets, a distinct secret category tied to this achievement.

Tips: This is a two-part collectible achievement, so make sure you’re tracking both the Dolls and the separate O Death Secrets category rather than assuming one covers the other.

No Stone Left Unturned

Unlock Rate: 3.0% (Ultra Rare)

Requirement: Find all Secrets in the game

How to Unlock: Locate every collectible Secret across all 8 episodes of the story, split across several distinct categories.

Tips: Since Secrets are spread across a branching story, use a comprehensive collectible guide organized by episode and route to make sure you’re not missing any that are only accessible on specific paths.

5-Phase 100% Completion Roadmap

Phase 1: Clean Survival Route (Explorer Playstyle) Play through all 8 episodes on Explorer Playstyle, aiming to keep every crew member alive: choose Trust for Anders in Episode 2, disable the Landing Computer, build Cooper’s Playful trait early, sedate Williams in Episode 5, save Anders during Ice and Fire, and correctly identify mimics at the scanner. This targets Humanitarian, This Steak’s Raw, Human After All, Home Free, Cat’s Out the Bag, and most of the key-choice achievements in one pass.

P2: Destiny and Ending Branch Cleanup Use Turning Points to revisit key dialogue-heavy scenes and unlock opposite Character Destinies for characters where you only secured one outcome. Also branch back to Episode 6 to get whichever of Message in a Bottle or This is Not a Place of Honor you didn’t choose the first time, and confirm your NDA Breaker or alternate Episode 8 outcome based on Young’s final Destiny.

P3: Collectible Sweep Dedicate a thorough replay, or use Chapter Select via Turning Points, to track down every Secret, Simms recording, and readable document across all 8 episodes for Dear Mum…, No Stone Left Unturned, Thumb on the Last Page, and Lost and Found.

P4: Death and Destruction Route Load a save from just before Episode 8 (ideally your completed “everyone alive” save) and replay only that episode, deliberately failing choices to trigger Paint The Walls, We Have Reserves, and Total Party Kill. Use this same replay pass to catch remaining unique death scenes for O Death.

P5: Survivor Playstyle and Final Cleanup Complete one full playthrough on Survivor Playstyle (no Turning Points rewind) for Live with the Consequences. Use this run, or any remaining replays, to mop up All Possible Futures by securing every character’s opposite Destiny, plus Social Butterfly, Right to Bear Arms, and any other key-choice achievements not yet unlocked.

Conclusion

Directive 8020’s achievement list is built around branching consequences more than any single hard mechanical challenge, aside from a handful of QTE-heavy sequences in Episode 8. The real planning work is in the Episode 2 power-routing choice, since it quietly reshapes who’s at risk during Episode 5’s Ice and Fire scene much later. Do one careful survival playthrough first using Explorer Playstyle’s Turning Points to correct mistakes, then use targeted replays for the darker outcomes, the collectibles, and finally a clean Survivor Playstyle run to close out the list.