The Thing Remastered was provided by Nightdive Studios for review. Thank you!
I feel like I say this in almost every review I write for Nightdive Studios, but I really love Nightdive Studios. They are the kings when it comes to remastering retro games with modern features and visual improvements without changing them too much to be unrecognizable from their original releases. Now, we have The Thing Remastered, an upgrade over a release over 2 decades old that desperately needs the Nightdive treatment.
The Thing was originally released in 2002 on PC, PlayStation 2, and Xbox, and it received some generally positive reviews. In this remaster, we have upscale and improved textures, higher framerate support, overhauled lighting and anti-aliasing, achievements, and new quality-of-life improvements to make playing much easier than it used to be. There have been some great improvements and touchups in a lot of areas that needed to be done, and while you can still feel the flaws, it's the best way to experience this classic.
The Thing Remastered follows the movie's events, acting as a sequel. You play as Captain Blake, who is sent in to investigate the Outpost 31 research facility in Antarctica. The mission takes a drastic turn as they come across horrifically mutilated bodies and end up facing aliens that can morph into the appearance of the people they kill. Even if Blake is a bit one-dimensional, I didn't find myself straying from the story, and I wanted to know what would happen next.
If there's one thing The Thing Remastered does well, it creates the same atmosphere you would find in the movie. It plays into the fear, paranoia, and trust issues that permeate throughout. This game was very ahead of the curve when it was originally released in 2002 and tried a lot of new ideas that I think are still heavily used today. However, these ideas have been improved, and their elementary implementations here can cause some problems.
In regards to story and progression, the biggest problem is the randomness. You are facing off against a shape-shifting alien, and because of it, you are constantly on edge and trying to keep trust between you and your teammates. But by the end of the game, and even at the end of each level, your teammates will either disappear or become infected, making it hard to connect with them. It felt like it was only a matter of time before everyone on my team would either turn on me or just disappear, so I was less concerned with my own survival rather than us all making it out.
With the idea that anyone can be an alien, this randomness can impede the story, too. To get through the buildings, you will need to use an engineer on your team to modify junction boxes. While this may not be a huge issue on its own, the randomness that could cause your engineer to become an alien or die at any time could halt your progress since those junction boxes are too advanced for you to use.
The Thing Remastered is a third-person shooter, and while it can play very nicely, it also has some control issues. Moving around and giving orders to your squad isn't the most intuitive, and there are a lot of small enemies that would be hard to shoot in general. There is a nice auto-aim that is enabled, which is quite generous and makes fighting the small fry much easier. There are some great changes from the original as well, like more generous ammo drops, stopping the original's issue of having to reload a save because you couldn't find enough ammunition for your guns.
I was genuinely surprised by how useful my squad mates were in a fight, too. I accidentally gave my weapon to a teammate in the first level, not knowing they would then disappear, and I had to give my only other weapon to an engineer to get through an electrified doorway. So, I gave them the gun, and they were able to adequately defend both of us from aliens. I am so used to your AI team being useless, so this was a welcome surprise. That engineer unfortunately turned into an alien not too long after this, but it was nice while it lasted.
Then we have the trust system, which I can see was revolutionary. You will grow or lose trust with your teammates based on your actions. Losing trust can stop them from listening to you, abandoning the mission, killing themselves, or even going crazy and shooting at everyone. This trust bar can be affected in positive ways, like giving them a weapon or ammo, or negative ones, like them seeing a corpse or you not helping in a fight. While I have seen better ways of innovating on this mechanic, I do like the implementation here. It makes the squad feel more alive, and what you do and see affects them.
Nightdive did a fantastic job updating the visuals, which also look wonderful. The Thing Remastered's atmosphere is great, and the variety of levels keeps it going splendidly. The character and environment models all had a touch-up, and the lighting and shadows bring out the cold beauty of this dark tale. I could see this being a game made today influenced by the PS2 era, and I liked it.
While it has its ups and downs, The Thing Remastered is also a joy to play on the Steam Deck.
Nightdive Studios is generally fantastic when optimizing their games for the Steam Deck, but The Thing Remastered is a bit difficult at times. Throughout the game, it seems like it should hit 60 FPS without a doubt. It sticks to around 9W battery drain and doesn't jump around much. However, I did notice that the game can sometimes slow down and even cut the framerate in half. Since the battery drain sticks to 9W the entire time, I believe it's a direct problem with the engine.
This doesn't happen often, but it happens enough to be noticeable. There are small pockets of areas that drop the framerate in half, which happens more often when trying to play at 90 FPS, so I recommend setting the device to 60 FPS/Hz. To minimize these pockets, I do recommend turning off Anti-Aliasing and setting Ambient Occlusion to Low. It doesn't change the game's overall look too much, but it does eliminate a lot of the slowdowns.
Outside of this, I didn't find any issues when playing. It sticks to 60 FPS way more often than it drops, feels great to play with a controller, and looks gorgeous on the screen. I appreciate the low battery drain as well, and even though I would have liked to see a more stable experience, it's still very playable:
Like most Nightdive Studio games, we have a solid amount of options to change. We can change the difficulty and auto aiming, toggle walking and aiming (with an option for old school aiming), glowing pickups, zoom speed for snipers and CCTV, turn on/off different parts of the HUD, change keybindings, and choose a different language with subtitles.
There are 16:10 resolutions, so there are no black bars, and there is both controller and cloud save support.
The Thing Remastered is a great, competent remaster that keeps the original game's great qualities and flaws. The atmosphere and visuals are on point, and it's a competent shooter with a great trust system that makes the squad feel more alive. The story is solid, and while there are some issues with the randomness and how it can affect progression, but it feels like the best way to enjoy this classic title.
Even with the minor issues, it runs well on the Steam Deck. It doesn't drain much battery, can stick to 60 FPS almost the entire time, and feels great with the controller. I would say this is a great game to enjoy on the go and the best way to play this 2002 classic.
Our review is based on the PC version of this game.
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The Thing Remastered is a great remaster of the 2002 classic, but some of the original's issues still remain. However, it is very playable on the Steam Deck.
