The Thing: Remastered Reviews
Deck: The Thing: Remastered reintroduces a flawed but fascinating game, with overhauled visuals and a number of crucial quality-of-life improvements
Nightdive have done a great job preserving and uplifting The Thing into a crisp and playable modern offering. It's still a fascinating game, but maybe not quite interesting enough to be worth revisiting.
The Thing: Remastered is another splendid remaster from Nightdive. There's absolutely no issue with the enhancements, control tweaks, and other work that's been done here; it's the game itself, unfortunately, that for well over half of its running time leaves much to be desired. A good start, one that digs into the paranoia and fear of the classic movie with a handful of unique mechanics, is all too soon wasted as tension gives way to sloppy gunfights that aren't fun, no matter how smooth they now play or nice they look. It's certainly still a curiosity, and fans of the movie or returning players will enjoy the nostalgia. But beyond that, it doesn't warrant a hearty recommendation.
The Thing: Remastered is a weird nostalgia trip that is fairly dated, but remains compelling enough to see through to credits.
The Thing, by its very concepts and mechanics, is well worth the price of admission for historians and enthusiasts. There really isn’t much quite like it, and perhaps that’s because it would be difficult to pull off well. For what it’s worth, The Thing was never perfect. It has some weird speed in its overall gameplay and cringy dialogue that detract from its scarier elements, but those elements are still fun, and with the improvements that address a sore spot in its strength, The Thing: Remastered makes an interesting outlier of the horror genre that much more valuable.
The Thing Remastered is a solid operation that brings attention to a game that, already upon its release, had truly cutting-edge mechanics and solutions. Great to play again today.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Nightdive has greatly improved on a lost gem from the turn of the century, with a massive visual overhaul that further enhances on an impeccable atmosphere, even if aiming still underwhelms.
I loved this game when it was released back in the day, and I still love it today. I do wish it stuck to its initial concept throughout the entire experience, but what is here is still tense and well executed here. Pair that with the excellent updates that Nightdive is known for, and this is a game I can wholeheartedly recommend. I really appreciate the mantra of Nightdive as they continue to remaster classics from a different time, and not just the well-known ones. The Thing is an encapsulation of gaming during the PS2 era, and I am all here for it.
We don't have much more left in the hat of this The Thing Remastered, but it is a real personal pleasure to be able to try it again as I did back in 2002 and treasure it again in my memory, now rightly so, as a survival horror of high quality and that deserves more recognition than it had, Both because of its place in the saga, acting as a sequel to the film, and because of the title itself, which has an agile, fun, dynamic gameplay that never tires.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
Ported by Nightdive, The Thing: Remastered looks fantastic and has all the bells and whistles you'd want from a remaster. As a follow-up to the cult 1982 movie, the story didn't quite do it for me, and the gameplay, mostly with its AI companions, can be a bit annoying.
If you're reading this and thinking 'Gee, that sure doesn't sound like a particularly great game', well, you're right, it's kind of not. The Thing: Remastered so gloriously channels the vibe of something you'd rent from the video store on a Friday night and binge across the weekend that I can't help but love it anyway. Level layouts are often uninspiring, what few puzzles there are tend to be mildly annoying in their design, companion and enemy A.I. alike are completely wretched, and from start to finish it filled me with childlike delight in a way that no new game has in years. I've always had a soft spot for earnest B games, and The Thing: Remastered is the most earnest B one I've played in a long time.
The Thing Remastered is everything one could ask for in a remaster. With graphical improvements that don't sacrifice the original's gritty tone and convenience features smoothing out rough gameplay, this is a must-play for survival horror fans.
A solid remaster of a slightly frosty survival horror shooter
Nightdive has made an exceptional remaster of a very mediocre game. The Thing does not deserve this kind of attention. There are better games out there that could have gotten this treatment, but hopefully, it inspires someone else to take another shot at adapting John Carpenter’s immortal classic. Its premise is still fertile and novel and maybe one day, someone will get it right.
And like I said in my Shadow Man review, I'm glad Night Dive didn't "fix" the game. It was a great game in 2002, and, like so many games of that era, was a product of its time. And that's how it should be experienced.
The Thing: Remastered brings back to life the unjustly forgotten survival horror game that, while never achieving the cult status of its cinematic predecessor, still offers an interesting gameplay experience with mechanics that still feel fresh and new today. Unfortunately, the game also suffers from some of the original's shortcomings, such as very weak AI and a drop in pacing and atmosphere towards the end.
Review in Slovak | Read full review
It's been 22 years since The Thing's first release, and during this time the horror genre and the video game industry as a whole has seen massive changes both in terms of visuals and gameplay mechanisms. The Thing Remastered falls short when compared to modern standards and can't hold a candle to even mediocre horror games of modern times. However, if you fancy visiting the memory lane or want to see what older games have to offer, it might not be a bad idea to give The Thing a shot.
Review in Persian | Read full review
Out of time? Maybe, but The Thing: Remastered maintains excellent tension at times, and team management, though not always focused, is an added value that should be noticed in a game like this.
Review in Italian | Read full review
The Thing: Remastered isn't a bad game, nor a bad adaptation. [...] However, it'd be naive to say it's without fail or even one of the best movie adaptations in games ever. Frankly, a remake would have been better than a simple remaster, but it didn't ruin my day.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
The Thing: Remastered captures the essence of a timeless horror game and gives it a fresh coat of paint alongside some quality-of-life improvements for a modern audience.