John Carpenter’s The Thing is a classic and gory sci-fi horror film from 1982 that had an ambiguous ending. Twenty years after its release, Computer Artworks released a third-person shooter, also called The Thing, that served as a canon sequel. Nightdive Studios announced earlier this year that it was working on a remaster, and a new gameplay trailer dropped Thursday, showing off how you and your squad will take down hordes of aliens at your Antarctic outpost.
Nightdive says The Thing Remastered will be coming to PC and consoles, including PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and Nintendo Switch, “later this year.” October is already almost over, so it’s safe to say that the release is mere weeks away.
Nightdive has a reputation for faithful, but improved remasters of classic, but sometimes forgotten retro titles. Just in the past year alone, it’s released a Star Wars: Dark Forces remaster, Killing Time: Resurrected, and a Doom + Doom 2 bundle on PC. These are typically recreations of the original games, but with modern improvements such as 4K resolution, higher frame rates, character model improvements, more detailed textures, and more in its KEX engine.
The Thing Remastered has received this slate of changes, along with some specifically for the game. It has a fear and trust system where NPCs can gain fear and lose trust in you if you don’t make the right moves. As in the film, you need to convince the other characters that you’re not secretly an alien by helping them during combat, healing them, and other actions. Nightdive said it worked with the original development team from Computer Artworks on the improvements.
As with other Nightdive remasters, The Thing Remastered looks like the perfect blend between old and new. It doesn’t pad out the emptier levels with more detail or remake characters from the ground up. It just makes what was already there better. You can get a better idea in the trailer above.
