I love horror, but rather surprisingly, I’ve never watched the original 1982 classic The Thing, nor have I played its third-person shooter video game sequel, a title co-published by Konami (huh?) that graced PlayStation 2, Xbox and Windows in 2002.
I think I actually picked up a PS2 copy on clearance at Hollywood Video back in the day—a phrase only utterable by aging millennials such as myself—but never got around to booting it up. It might still be haunting my sleeved collection of loose game discs. The binder has been leaking blood recently, now that I think about it.
Bringing Back the Past
It initially excited me to hear that Washington-based Nightdive Studios (Shadow Man: Remastered, Forsaken: Remastered) was working its retro resurrection magic on The Thing: Remastered, a shiny new revamped version of the sixth-generation horror AA classic I’d managed to somehow buy and subsequently ignore over 20 years ago. It’s available now on Nintendo Switch, Steam, PlayStation, Xbox and GOG for $29.99.
Truthfully, could I have dug up that dusty PS2 copy and played it on my rotting PlayStation 2 Slim? Sure, but it wouldn’t have had all the improvements included in the remaster, like 4K resolution, 120 FPS, as well as redone lighting, shadows, environments, textures and other quality-of-life improvements. Plus, it’s old. Old stuff is gross, bro. It’s a fact. And nobody wants to play retro games over some cheap Amazon HDMI upscaler. Retrotink all the way, baby, but I don’t have the cash for that…yet.
So, I just finished my first Antarctic playthrough of the PS5 port, and I’d say it took me around seven or eight hours to complete. My console says thirteen hours, but I don’t wager that’s accurate. Something has been going on with the PS5 game clock recently and the time tracking appears glitched. Regardless, I got most of the trophies, except maybe three, and I’m seriously tempted to go back and grab the platinum at some point.
Flurries, Scurries, Worries
Is The Thing Remastered fun? I’d say yes, but with caveats. Obviously, this is a game from 2002, and it’s filled with a good deal of what a cultured man might call ‘jank’. The blazing framerate feels stupendous, and while I had no easy way of technically measuring it on PS5 (or against the original software), it played smooth enough for me to believe it was reaching and maintaining 120 FPS—very snappy, with zero slowdown. Visually, you can tell The Thing is a time capsule from another generation, but between the responsive, increased framerate and the touched-up graphics, it’s actually quite enjoyable to control and look at.
Another time capsule, unfortunately, is the game’s design, and that can’t be remastered much, of course. The twenty levels alternate between feeling too claustrophobic for their own good or so open-ended it’s hard to figure out where to go next. It doesn’t help that a lot of buildings and hallways look the same. Asset déjà vu.
There’s an objective list to reference, which helps, in addition to glowing blue lights that sort of usher you through the cold snowy bits (when you’re not dying from annoying temperature damage, that is), but you won’t find much hand-holding here. We’re not talking ‘it’s so great and emergent to explore!’ lack of direction, but rather poor clarity and communication to the player. Going back to earlier titles like this really make you appreciate modern game design, that’s for sure.
At its heart, this is a squad-centric survival horror shooter, and you’re essentially baby-sitting your team by giving them weapons, ammo, health and then shots of adrenaline when they start to go insane from, say, observing a mutilated, hanging torso inside a blood-splattered control room. Your teammates aren’t much help when it comes to taking down enemies or even medical healing for that matter, so really, you’re feeding them and telling them where to go in order to fix broken door panels to progress through the levels. That’s all. It’s basically Tamagotchi, only there’s guns, your pets aren’t cute, and they keep saying ‘We’re gonna die out here!’. Charming.
The story is…meh? It was actually pretty disjointed and hard to follow, if I’m being perfectly honest, but I don’t know if that’s because I haven’t seen the movie, or if the writing is objectively subpar. The same could be said of the voice-acting, much of which sounded like poor Duke Nukem impersonations.
Truth be told, I didn’t care about any of the characters, although there were some decent jump scares to be had, and the creature designs are quite cool. The environments, however, were rather bland. Perhaps this is a byproduct of the setting: blizzard-beaten desolate snowscape. All I know is there were a lot of dull warehouses and uneventful air ducts to traverse.
It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Glitchmas
In the end, the biggest frustration I had with The Thing Remastered wasn’t its old-school sensibilities—I rather like retro jank, for historical purposes, naturally—but rather the serious bugs I encountered, or at least what I assume to be bugs.
Several times, I crouched and couldn’t get up or move. Also, toward the end of the game, textures disappeared from my weapon and item wheels, leaving me to discern between the fire extinguisher and medical packs based solely on silhouettes. Then, all the lighting in one particular level just stopped working, and so did my flashlight, so I was wandering around in near-complete darkness for way too long, trying in vain to find the next objective. I had to reboot my PS5 for everything to return to normal. Hopefully this can be patched this out.
In terms of extras, you’ve got some basic gallery stuff, like artwork, sketches and concepts to puruse. I would have enjoyed something more in-depth to give the product historical context, like the Croc: Legend of the Gobbos remaster’s upcoming Crocumentary, wherein members of the original development team are interviewed, just so we could get a sense of how the game was made. But what’s here suffices, I suppose.
Should You Buy?
At the end of the day, The Thing Remastered is a playable B-movie, and it’s an enjoyable throwback to a time when games were shorter and didn’t need to be the current bloated AAA ordeals that often overstay their welcome. It’s corny, the narrative is forgettable, as are the paper-thin characters, and the design is predictably archaic in 2024. But the controls are solid, the framerate blistering, and it’s simply fun to take down David Lynch-esque abominations while your squad-mates piss and moan about about how scary and traumatic everything is.
Bunch of babies. We’re only at the threshold of Hell, as Clark Griswold might say.
With any luck, Nightdive will continue reviving these forgotten gems so that new generations may worship at the alter of so much glorious retro jank. And if you’re into goofy horror that plays like a dated cross between Syphon Filter and Pikmin, well, The Thing: Remastered might be up your genetically modified alley.
Disclosure: Nightdive Studios provided a review code for coverage purposes.
