When it comes to video games based off of movies very few have been able to deliver the same level of quality as their film counterparts. While games like X-Men Origins Wolverine provide a better experience than the film itself and the Lego games provide a fun parodied experience there are still more games that haven’t been able to capture that level of fun experience or quality as the others. One movie to have been given a video game experience that some would say was on par with its theatrical counterpart was a game that adapts John Carpenter’s The Thing which is widely considered to be a cult classic sci-fi horror that combined extensive practical effects with intense body horror imagery which was released back in 1982. However, is this game really as good as the cult classic film that this game claims to be a true sequel too let’s explore the remains of the arctic base and find out together.  

Developed by Computer Artworks and published by Black Label Games and Konami, the story of The Thing Remastered takes place right after the events of the original film where a US special forces team arrives at the aftermath of the research outpost from the movie where they discover everything from the space ship The Thing was attempting to build, an audio log recorded by R.J MacReady the protagonist of the film, and the remains of the research team. Afterwards Blake is ordered to destroy the facility using C4 explosives and then decides to rendezvous with the other team at the Norwegian outpost. However this rescue attempt devolves into a game of imposter as all the player knows any NPC they discover and recruit onto their team could possibly be The Thing itself. The base is also swarming with different types of creatures that have been born out of The Thing. Now Blake must do everything he can to stop the creature from spreading across the world while also making sure that the people who help him aren’t the very creature he’s trying to stop. 

The gameplay of The Thing is nothing to really brag about, it’s pretty much just point shoot and manage your inventory, but wasting resources isn’t a problem as there are plenty of medkits and ammo throughout the game. The difficulties are pretty much just how much auto aiming the player wants, the harder the difficulty the smaller the auto aiming cone becomes. What makes the game standout are some of its unique gameplay mechanics that are surprisingly not featured in other games, specifically the squad system with the players’ fellow survivors/soldiers. There are three types of troops the soldier who wears a bulletproof helmet, an engineer who wears a baseball cap, and a medic who wears a red cross each soldier has different attributes that are exclusive to them while it’s hard to say what the soldiers unique attribute, but the engineer has the ability to repair junction boxes that Blake can’t repair and the medic has the ability to heal others using med kits. Special attributes aren’t what make the NPC’s interesting though it’s the trust system between the player and the soldiers that make it interesting. Throughout the game Blake will encounter survivors in the Norwegian research outpost each NPC is capable of thinking for themselves meaning that after a while they can and will become increasingly more paranoid about their circumstances. The more paranoid they become the more likely they will no longer want to take orders from Blake and even possibly turn against him. The best way to try and repair their trust is by giving them weapons/ammo, restoring their health and more importantly making sure none of them are The Thing because that’s another high possibility. 

On a fundamental level, the squad system makes for an interesting gameplay mechanic where the player can either go through the entire game with one party of NPC soldiers and do their best to make sure they get out safe or they can continuously keep losing soldiers due to different types of nonscripted circumstances like one soldier could survive the entire journey while the others died to either the creatures or by Succumbing to paranoia and being replaced with other survivors. This would make for a fun gameplay mechanic that could bring more replayability to the game. During the first playthrough however, it seemed like the NPCs could only go so far before ultimately succumbing to a scripted event that prevented them from proceeding any further. One example of this happens when Blake discovers an Engineer within a warehouse named Collins after recruiting him and having him fix a broken junction box Blake and Collins proceed into the lower levels where a boss fight takes place. However, before entering the room with the boss Collins gets attacked by some creatures and gets turned into a creature himself. After being killed and respawning outside the door of the boss  I was able to protect Collins from the other creatures ultimately bringing him with Blake into the boss fight. After defeating the boss Blake proceeded to fix a junction box .That would take the lead to the next area, but Collins unpromptedly attempted to fix the very same junction box which for some reason killed him with electricity. This wasn’t the only time where an NPC was forced into either becoming a creature or dying because they weren’t allowed to proceed further. 

Overall When it comes to The Thing Remastered it may have been considered a cult classic when it first released, and while the difficulty of certain sections and gameplay controls have been reworked to work for modern consoles and players the fact that its squad mechanic system which could have provided fun unscripted replayability ended up being a scripted mess that killed a majority of the momentum.

Overall Score: 6 out of 10

Reviewed On PlayStation 5