The Thing: Remastered review: Just the way you remember... or is it?

The Thing video game was an ambitious effort by Computer Artworks in 2002. It didn’t just throw bullets and fire at a Thing creature all willy nilly. It attempted to incorporate the most important aspect of The Thing - paranoia - into the game’s foundation. In many ways it succeeded, which made it a beloved game to those who played. However, there were some issues that were never solved that kept this pretty good game from sticking the landing perfectly. Flash forward to 2024. Nightdive Studios has tackled this 2002 classic as its latest effort in games restoration and preservation, but more than that, the team actually fixed issues that held this game back when it was first released, making it arguably one of the most fascinating Nightdive remasters yet.

Picking up where Carpenter left off

The Thing video game was established as a sequel to John Carpenter’s 1982 film of the same name. Players take on the role of Captain J.F. Blake, who takes a team of American soldiers to investigate their national science research camp at Outpost 31. Being right after the original film means that everything is in devastated disarray. Blake and his fellow soldiers investigate, but it isn’t long before they realize they might be in over their heads. Signs of the iconic alien creature that mutates and assimilates to look like anything it has come in contact with are everywhere.

It isn’t long before Blake takes his search over to the nearby Norwegian camp where survivors have called for help via radio. As he investigates and fends off various alien horrors, the greater threat becomes obvious: Not every friendly soldier you meet can be trusted. Some have already been assimilated and are just Things in disguise. Anyone you haven’t seen in a moment or haven’t given a blood test to could be a monster waiting to attack.

That was always the core principle of The Thing video game. Every single NPC you come in contact with could be infected and turn into a creature at any time. Or at least that should have been the case. Back in 2002, this was literally impossible as the story called for certain parts where a character or two would transform, so while some transformations were random, some of the mystery was taken out of the game simply by the way the story had to play out. Nightdive did something unique to try to fix this dilemma. Now, the scripted transformation sequences have been adjusted by certain characters cracking up (that is, succumbing to the fear system in the game so badly that they can’t operate). I wouldn’t call it a perfect fix, but I would say it adds a bit of mystery back to the game in a way we didn’t have before about who will turn and when.

That improvement is a cherry on top of the usual quality work that Nightdive has applied to all aspects of the game. It runs crisp as silk with near-zero load times, and is generally cleaner and easier to control across the board. The sound and music has been cleaned up as well and, for a 2002 game, it looks about as clean and polished as can be without a full-on remake. The dialogue might be the only place that really stands out as a sore spot. Cleaned up or not, most of the voice lines are pretty awkward, if not downright stereotypical action-hero fodder.

Keep a flamethrower in reach at all times

Gameplay in The Thing: Remastered is almost exactly as the original was (with the exception discussed above). You go through the game investigating the situation at the Antarctic outposts where the Thing was discovered. The game has a level system and in each level, you’re given a handful of soldiers who will help or hinder you as the situation goes on. You need their help to an extent as they are broken into classes that assist in various aspects of the game. Soldiers simply fight off enemies and keep the team safe, medics can heal injuries and keep people’s stress leveled out, and engineers can repair various machinery to open doors and restore power to key objectives.

As you go through each level, already mutated things will attack you. The small ones can simply be gunned down, but the bigger creatures require a one-two punch of bullets and fire. It makes resources even more stressful because that means if you don’t have a flamethrower or some fire grenades, you’re at a real disadvantage.

Of course, the other side of that is that any character that gets attacked or is out of your sight for even a moment could become a Thing. The game literally allows a chance of it happening to any soldier at any given time once you start engaging the monsters. There’s also a fear system in the game. Even if they aren’t Things, soldiers will become increasingly erratic under a variety of conditions, including seeing corpses and gore or encountering creatures, even if they survive. You can alleviate fear by giving them weapons and ammo, but the only surefire way to get their trust is to convince them you’re not a Thing.

Blood test kits are like gold nuggets in the game in that way. They’re the only way to test with certainty if a person is a Thing. You can use them on an ally you’re uncertain about to be sure, or you can use it on yourself to convince your squad that you’re clean. As you might expect, there are very few of these items in the game and sometimes you’re just going to have to trust or run a stretch with allies that fear you and might attack if pushed over the edge.

Nightdive didn’t break this formula in the slightest and, in fact, improved it. The only issue with that is that I wish The Thing had more weight to it. Everything moves too fast and has very little impact to it. Now, that’s just a limitation of the original game. Nightdive Studios can only do so much on that front, and I guess in a certain way, this makes me pine for either a full-on remake or a sequel that might fully take these foundations and expand on them further. However, for improvements to an otherwise interesting title, the work here is splendid.

A Thing of beauty

The Thing, by its very concepts and mechanics, is well worth the price of admission for historians and enthusiasts. There really isn’t much quite like it, and perhaps that’s because it would be difficult to pull off well. For what it’s worth, The Thing was never perfect. It has some weird speed in its overall gameplay and cringy dialogue that detract from its scarier elements, but those elements are still fun, and with the improvements that address a sore spot in its strength, The Thing: Remastered makes an interesting outlier of the horror genre that much more valuable.

This review is based on an early PC copy provided by the publisher. The Thing: Remastered comes out on PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PC, and Nintendo Switch on December 5, 2024.

TJ Denzer

Senior News Editor

TJ Denzer is a player and writer with a passion for games that has dominated a lifetime. He found his way to the Shacknews roster in late 2019 and has worked his way to Senior News Editor since. Between news coverage, he also aides notably in livestream projects like the indie game-focused Indie-licious, the Shacknews Stimulus Games, and the Shacknews Dump. You can reach him at tj.denzer@shacknews.com and also find him on BlueSky @JohnnyChugs.