Directive 8020 is the latest chapter in Supermassive Games’ Dark Pictures spooky anthology series. Taking inspiration from sci-fi classics like The Thing and Alien, it fuses survival-horror gameplay with a branching narrative featuring multiple possible endings.

It’s been four years since the last mainline Dark Pictures game, so fans have been rubbing their hands together in anticipation of this new entry. To build on that excitement, Supermassive approached Portal to create secondary key art for the game’s pre-order and release beats. From London to New York, our creative spanned the globe as well as the internet. Let’s talk you through the project.

With the creative direction approved, our team received assets from Supermassive and began building the final artwork. Using in-game screenshots and remastered character renders, we painstakingly constructed scenes that were detailed and evoked Directive 8020’s terrifying atmosphere.

In line with our creative plan, we produced two pieces of key art. The first was a face-on composition showing the five crew members in a creepy spaceship environment with Tau Ceti f acting as the light source. The second was a side-on face-off version that placed the real crew against their mimic doppelgangers.

Key art, tick. Phase two of the project would see us switch focus from spaceships to something much more grounded.

London buses were just the beginning of Directive 8020’s out-of-home adventure. Elsewhere in the capital, we adapted our key art to produce 4-sheet posters and huge cross-track 48-sheets for use in underground stations.

Meanwhile, our character key art took over the streets of New York thanks to a comprehensive wild posting campaign. The same designs also made their way in localised form to Copenhagen, home of Nordisk Film, Supermassive’s parent company.

Finally, in a nice touch, we produced bespoke D6 ads for use in Guildford, Surrey. The special “Made in Guildford” tagline a neat homage to Supermassive’s hometown.