The Thing: Remastered Review - MacReady to Rumble

I love checking out Nightdive titles, so I needed to do research on their next game, the then upcoming remaster of 2002's The Thing. The bare minimum I could do is watch the movie, so I finally girded my loins and dove headfirst into this film on a slow Saturday evening.

This was over a month ago now, and I'm still thinking about this damn movie. To hear that the film was received poorly on release seemed inconceivable. The narrative absolutely gripped me, and don't get me started on the cliffhanger ending. Needless to say, I was very excited to see how a sequel could be made out of The Thing.

The result is a pretty fun third-person shooter with ambitious gameplay design that it couldn't quite nail, likely due to the technological restrictions of the time. The story, on the other hand, well... With the movie fresh on my mind, the video game version of The Thing somewhat ruins the intrigue and mystery of the movie.

The Thing: Remastered is a Quality Port from Nightdive

First thing first, though: What makes this worthy of being called The Thing: Remastered? It's safe to say Nightdive never fails to disappoint. This studio makes sure its remasters are accessible and configured to play on different control formats and consoles from the modern day, all the while keeping the game authentic, faithful, and altered only where it needs to be, well, altered.

We're met with a visually exceptional remaster, with greater visual clarity, support for higher frame rates, and much more. Shadows play a big part in The Thing: Remastered, and the lighting looks exceptional. Seeing a dark room brighten from the flamethrower scorching some enemy, it's pretty neat.

I can't say for certain if this is the case for all of Nightdive's remasters and ports, but I know they like to remake assets by hand. Since I didn't play The Thing back in the day, I can at least say textures, models, and everything else comprising its graphics looks authentic to the area but have a wonderfully polished look.

The end result is a mostly bulletproof port, with a few exceptions. It's very likely that these will be addressed by the time The Thing: Remastered is in players' hands, but I did encounter a few visual bugs that didn't impact the gameplay. My head, for example, disappeared when I got gooped by a Thing parasite.

Other than that, there were some issues with the d-pad that led to cycling to certain weapons when it shouldn't have. Speaking of control schemes, I used both mouse and keyboard, as well as an Xbox controller. Both work well, whatever you decide to use.

Aiming with a controller or mouse makes the reticle lock onto enemies, sort of like GoldenEye 007, so it's basically impossible to miss. I would, however, suggest the controller since it seemed like a more seamless experience.

It's Among Us in The Thing: Remastered

From a gameplay perspective, The Thing is a squad-based third-person shooter. AI companions play a huge part in The Thing: Remastered. What is The Thing without mistrust and the constant fear of the parasite being "among us?"

Managing the stress and trust of your squad is an important component here. Equip them with weapons and their trust goes up, but that doesn't stop them from freaking out at the sign of gore and just going batshit insane. That can amplify the stakes of the whole situation.

Squaddies are as useful as they are annoying. They're great at blasting away aliens and can do it better than the player, really, but they're an awkward bunch. Other than having to deal with their stress, getting them to follow you is sometimes finicky.

There are ways to deal with their stress, like giving them an adrenaline injection or having them move away from scenes of carnage, but it didn't feel all that necessary most of the time since it happens off and on so frequently. I have to commend the original developers for creating such a system, as it was surely ambitious back in the day. Nowadays, it's fun to engage with for a bit but perhaps outstays its welcome.

Squad members are also very disposable. The Thing: Remastered will transition to a new level and just have them inexplicably gone, like they didn't even matter. And that's true for the most part -- squad members have different roles, but the only ones that are important are engineers. They can repair control panels to open doors, which serve as a way to block progress.

Either way, most squad members can and will die. Heck, some might turn into a Thing and attack. As far as I could tell, when they inevitably turn, those are scripted events. Sometimes during combat, if squad members are attacked, they can turn earlier than their scripted time, which adds just a bit of tension. Ultimately, since allies are ditched so fast, it's hard to see the full potential of the fear/trust system

A squad member turning isn't all that big of a deal, since The Thing: Remastered pumps you with ammo and weapons. Firing a bunch of bullets into one of the monsters will soften it up, then you set it on fire with a flame-based weapon and they're done for. It's a fun little encounter when bigger monsters show up, since who doesn't love using a flamethrower?

Add a few boss battles in there for variation, and there you have it. Exploring all the environments, managing your squad, and using that flamethrower make The Thing: Remastered entertaining. It's short enough that it doesn't outstay its welcome, and that's just about all you could ask for in a licensed game such as this. Now if only the story was up to snuff.

The Thing: Remastered Bungles the Story

Oh boy, here we go: The Thing: Remastered's narrative. Apparently, this game is a canonical sequel to the 1982 movie. It was around the halfway point of the story I made a mental note telling myself this is not canonical. This game absolutely ruins the mystery of The Thing. It resolves the movie's ending cliffhanger in the first hour, so that's already a bummer when it concluded in such a strong way.

The narrative morphs this unknowable cosmic horror into something much more tangible, resembling any other typical alien parasite from media. We're also led to see there are sprawling research stations in Antarctica experimenting on the Thing.

Were these institutions here all along, or did they crop up after the mishap at U.S. Outpost 31? I could be wrong, but I was led to believe the Norwegians uncovered the alien parasite, and from there it eliminated their research station and made its way to R.J. MacReady and the crew.

The story doesn't give much clarity on this, nor does it give itself time to flesh out the plot. Cutscenes are really brief, and barely give any exposition to help players along. I really don't think it's a matter of The Thing being an old game. It just comes across as The Thing fan fiction.

You're eventually fighting against other soldiers and it turns into some sort of generic action shooter, at least from a narrative perspective. It's just downright silly, yet I can't get too mad at it because the game's dialogue is so cheesy. You can tell from this dialogue that it really is a product of its time, and so I do feel some nostalgia and entertainment from that.

The Thing: Remastered Review | Final Thoughts

It's worth reiterating that Nightdive made another outstanding port. The improvements to visuals, controls, and overall feel are sure to satisfy those who played The Thing over two decades ago. If it's your first time, and you're a fan of The Thing, it's also going to be a fun experience, even if the story doesn't serve as a good follow-up to the 1982 movie. Shooting a Thing in the face, though? Now that's some good stuff.

The Thing: Remastered was reviewed on PC using a code provided by the developer over the course of 6 hours of gameplay - all screenshots were taken during the process of review.