It also celebrated the sales of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Rita’s Rewind, which managed to hit the number three spot in the Nintendo eShop’s best-sellers list. RollerCoaster Tycoon Classic also broke into the top 15.

The Thing: Remastered was released on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S back in December. It’s a remaster of the cult-classic shooter from 2002, which in turn was based on the classic horror movie from 1982.

The title features the same classic gameplay as the original, albeit with more modern features, including better controls, improved lighting and higher-resolution textures. The studio itself has stated that there were more than 1,500 changes made to the original’s code to ensure that it worked well on current hardware.

The Thing: Remastered also recently received one of its first updates, which brought a host of bug fixes and optimisation to the game. The update also ensured that it would run better on the Steam Deck by fixing an issue related to the Vulkan renderer.

For more details about The Thing: Remastered, check out our review.

Among the fixes to the game is one for the Steam Deck, where the frame rate was locked to half of the system’s screen refresh rate when played with the Vulkan renderer outside of the Steam client. Other fixes include one for weapon firing rates not being respected, the direction Blake faces in the ending cutscene for the weather station level, and the addition of a “Most Recent” button in the load game menu.

The Thing: Remastered is, as you might have presumed from the title, a remastered release of the classic 2002 shooter The Thing. Much like the classic movie, The Thing: Remastered features plenty of body horror alongside Fear/Trust mechanics to keep players on edge.

For more details on The Thing: Remastered, check out our review. In the meantime, you can find the patch notes for the latest update below.

The Thing: Remastered Patch 1.1 Notes:

General:

• Fixed the Conspiracy Theorist achievement. Old saved games are retroactively fixed!
• Updated Colins Fate achievement description.
• Fixed a soft lock where Stolls would stop running to the black tech lab door.
• Fixed a crash after detonating the C4 on the airstrip level.
• Fixed a rare intermittent crash when fighting Thing beasts.
• Added a “Most Recent” button to the load game menu, so it’s easier to load your latest save.
• Autosaves now contain the name of the level they were saved on, instead of just “Autosave”.
• Fixed a bug where characters would sometimes become unable to step up onto higher surfaces after falling off of the curbs in the roadway tunnel.
• Fixed a crash when quitting the game.
• Fixed a bug where bindings would be missing from the input options on first launch.
• Fixed a crash in Strata Medibay when Fisk died before telling you the code.
• Fixed Blake’s hand clipping with his sleeve in the first cutscene with Faraday.
• Fixed a bug where the second camera angle would fail to activate during the weather station cutscene, allowing you to interrupt it and recruit yourself.
• Improved performance when querying dynamic game options.
• Moved the game version information to the options menu, off of the interstitial screen.
• Decreased the visibility of the game version information so it is less intrusive.
• Reimplemented the pan upwards when the game over screen is visible.
• Added support for autoexec.cfg, allowing users to customize console variables not usually marked as saved to kexEngine.cfg.

Gameplay:

• Fixed an oversight where weapon firing rates were not properly respected when mashing the fire button. Excluding the pistol.
• Ammo and health dispensers now dispense fewer clips and medipacks depending on the difficulty. This can be changed at any time during gameplay.
• Marked some grenades as “volatile” so that they explode when damaged, like the original game, to fix a quirk where grenades placed for cinematic purposes would not explode.
• Changed the direction Blake faces after ending the cutscene at the weather station level.

Levels:

• Fixed an oversight where an explosive barrel would explode when passing through the tripwire of an already exploded trip-mine charge in the penultimate level.
• Hid the out-of-bounds “Back Door Key” item that looked like a document in the submersible level.
• Fixed inaccurate collision in the first level, where characters would appear to sink into the snow.
• Fixed collision in the watchtower on the third level where you could get stuck in the handrail.
• Renamed Carter in the Strata Medibay level to Hawk, to utilize a set of unused voice lines.
• Added the missing green light to a save terminal in the third level.
• Fixed two computers in the weather station level that did not have an ID set for the Conspiracy Theorist achievement (given automatically to old saves).
• Shimmied a medipack dispenser down in the level following Strata Medibay that was WAY too high up.
• Fixed bad collision on the external stairs in the weather station.
• Flipped a few ammo boxes which were facing the wrong direction.
• Fixed several collision bugs in the Norwegian outpost where you could fall off of the world and walk underneath the building.
• Fixed sounds across several levels that would duplicate forever, causing the game to eventually fall silent.

Display:

• Fixed the depth of field effect sometimes creating bright flickering pixels.
• Fixed the glass on the doors in the submersible being opaque.
• Improved normal maps on many posters and boards.
• Gave Whitley new trousers.
• Changed the on-screen watermark in the editor build, so it doesn’t confuse people.
• Performance improvements when using the D3D11 renderer.

Sound:

• Fixed a bug where speech audio would sometimes not follow the speaker.

Steam Deck:

• Fixed the framerate being locked to half the screen refresh rate while using the Vulkan renderer, when launched outside of the Steam client.

John Carpenter’s seminal horror film, The Thing, greatly influenced video games and horror as a whole after its 1982 debut. It’s no surprise that a video game adaption would happen, but nobody could have predicted it would turn out as superbly as Black Label Studios’ 2002 effort. For one, it wasn’t a lazy 1-to-1 retread of the film, but a genuine sequel. The Thing also featured some revolutionary mechanics at the time, with its single-player squad gameplay demonstrating intelligent AI. Seeing squadmates randomly transform in front of you was just as terrifying and cool as it is today, and thankfully the remaster preserves that feeling with added polish.

At the forefront of that polish is the enhanced graphics. Textures are razor sharp, as expected from the newly implemented 4K resolution. And the quirky characters all get a makeover with rebuilt facial textures and animations. Thankfully, players can actually see characters’ faces a majority of the time due to the volumetric lighting and brighter rooms in place of the original’s pitch-black areas. This effort by Nightdive Studios pretty much comprehensively renovates all the visuals of the game, and it runs at a consistently solid 144 frames per second too.

"One example of asset flipping I quite like is replacing the generic infected corpse at the beginning of the game with Nauls from the original film."

I particularly appreciate how Nightdive has added cut content from the original game along with all-new assets in certain areas. One example of asset flipping I quite like is replacing the generic infected corpse at the beginning with Nauls from the original film. If you look at side-by-sides, the original body is more exposed and gruesome, but the choice to pack some continuity from the film in place of that is an inspired and appreciated one. That said, there’s no shortage of gruesome moments in The Thing Remastered.

Transformations are still as grotesque as ever, and certain characters take desperate measures, sacrificing themselves to avoid a dreaded transformation. None of the swearing or dialogue is altered or censored, and the overall vibe and tone doesn’t feel neutered or softened up at all from the 2002 classic. The only area where I can see some players complaining about a loss of grittiness is the brightened lighting and elimination of that ubiquitous PS2-era fog. I see the improved lighting as a win, considering how difficult it could be to see in many of the original’s pitch-black hallways. One may argue the remastered version’s new arctic-flavored color filter is closer to the film than the original game, making the slightly brightened visuals even more of a win-win. That said, The Thing Remastered is still plenty dark.

"Nightdive has graced us with much-needed autosaves throughout the experience in addition to better positioning of save recorders."

Visuals aren’t the only enhancement that’s been added to The Thing though, Nightdive has graced us with much-needed autosaves throughout the experience in addition to better positioning of save recorders. Oh, and since the original was known for its severe and often unfair difficulty, four different difficulty settings were added to give players a more forgiving experience.

Helping ease that sense of unfairness is the elimination of one of the biggest flaws of the original game: squadmate infections. As a single-player squad-based shooter, The Thing emphasizes teamwork to get through the harrowing Antarctic facility. Part of the genius of the original cult classic game was the intelligent way your NPC partners reacted to encounters and served their specific role. The Thing has a unique class-based system that makes each role useful. Locked doors and terminals require an engineer, while situations in need of healing rely upon a medic. And in cases where ammo is super low, you can depend on the smart AI of the soldier to shoot enemies. But back to the original’s flaw: AI was a double-edged knife.

"Squadmates don’t randomly turn, but each has their own levels of immunity to infections and, more importantly, only become infected when in direct contact with a Thing beast (which happens a lot, as you might expect)."

You see, a major part of this game’s schtick is your squadmates getting infected and mutating into grotesque ‘Thing’ monsters in real-time. This remaster finally realizes that ingenious concept and ditches the antiquated and flawed 100% infection rate the original seemed to have. Administering a blood test amounted to nothing in the original thanks to random ‘outburst’ infections that can happen at any time. That often meant a squadmate turning on you mere minutes after having them come up negative on a blood test.

Well, that’s been mostly fixed with this remaster; squadmates don’t randomly turn, but each has their own levels of immunity to infections and, more importantly, only become infected when in direct contact with a Thing beast (which happens a lot, as you might expect). The elimination of random infection outbursts helps the concept come closer to realizing its original intent, though there’s still an issue I have with the gameplay mechanic. Don’t get me wrong, the anxiety of never quite knowing when an ally finally turns on you is fascinating, but at the end of the day your companions always whittle down to the panicked cowering state since they inevitably come into contact with infected Things sooner or later. In short, the trust/fear system is better implemented than the original, but still doesn’t quite hit its full stride.

"You can command squadmates to follow, stop, and head to a set direction using a traditional four-way wheel."

The rest of the squad controls work wonderfully. Up to three squad members join you intermittently throughout the campaign, fulfilling the mechanic, medic, and soldier roles as they follow commands and banter among themselves. The personalities these NPC squadmates exhibit are fun to witness in action, thanks to great voice acting and the somewhat campy tone the game brilliantly adapts from the film. You can command squadmates to follow, stop, and head to a set direction using a traditional four-way wheel. The wheel shows you the squadmates’ facial expressions too, so it’s easy to see what state they’re in at-a-glance.

You also have a wheel for utility items and weapons, of which the game does a good job varying up. I appreciate how this game makes you actually use most utility items; after all, not every survival horror game makes your repertoire of items useful. I had fun collecting and conveniently placing flares in dark corners and blind spots, for example, and equally enjoyed divvying up medpacks between squadmates.

The range of guns here are balanced nicely so that each monster type is weak to something distinct; you’ll be using the shotgun and msg in equal measure. Unlike Resident Evil or Silent Hill, ammo isn’t so scarce; however, a lot of it gets dispersed between your squadmates so careful conservation is still advised. Shooting is improved from the janky original thanks to the auto-aim assist and enhanced sensitivity settings, but targeting Things still lacks the accuracy of other third-person shooters, feeling every bit like the early 2000s title it is. The flamethrower weapons are improved as well, with hitboxes that more accurately represent where you’re pointing the weapon.

"The flamethrower weapons are improved as well, with hitboxes that more accurately represent where you’re pointing the weapon."

Despite all the improvements to weapon controls, the gunplay still ends up feeling outdated and arcady, though it can hardly be considered bad or terrible. One aspect of gameplay that I still struggled with this time around was occasionally getting stuck on terrain, but again, it’s nowhere near as bad as it was in the original. The bevy of bug fixes and little quality of life improvements on the gameplay front are very welcome, but can only lift up the game’s age to a certain degree.

That brings me to one of the game’s greatest strengths: level design. There’s actually quite a lot of variety in levels despite the limitations inherent in the solitary Antarctic environment. Lesser film-based games of the 2000s would’ve been content merely recycling doodads and rearranging the dark rooms of the outpost, but The Thing successfully manages to surprise with unique environments around every corner. And the remaster ups the ante with some newly added objects to give the locations even more flavor. For example, some corpses now resemble side characters from the film instead of generic bodies, and some creature design assets were redone to look more detailed. The unique layouts in tandem with how distinct each location’s lighting are make Outpost 31 feel all the more memorable and enticing to explore. You’re not just running from room to room; the game has you walking atop vent systems, exploring small cavern outcroppings, or more commonly, battling the cold outside.

"The Thing successfully manages to surprise with unique environments around every corner."

I simply ate up the survival elements in this game, light though they are. You’ll be forced to journey out in the cold with your squadmates in tow throughout the experience, each second draining the characters’ temperature meter. When the meter reaches zero for you or your teammates, it’s paramount to get inside a building unless you want to be a Thing’s frozen desert. The game’s great level design accommodates these harsh outdoor conditions with well-placed indoor zones that replenish the temperature meter just enough to scrape past the harsh outdoor jaunts. My only complaint is that squadmates occasionally get hung up on geometry or lag behind you after closing a door, potentially keeping them out to freeze.

Overall, I really enjoyed my return back to this cult classic and feel that this remaster finally meets the lofty potential the original set up. The super dark areas of the original are lit up to see better, controls are improved, and the flawed random infections have been gutted to make the fear/trust system really work. The tone perfectly captures the original film, with a gritty and isolating atmosphere that simply begs to be explored. The Thing Remastered is absolutely worth the survival horror fan’s time, and if you like the original game or games from the era, it’s a clear must-have.

This game was reviewed on the PC.

Based on Computer Artworks’ 2002 classic, The Thing: Remastered retains the same squad-based gameplay, Fear/Trust mechanics, and body horror. It features improved character models, textures, atmospherics, and dynamic lighting alongside 4K and 144 FPS support on current-gen consoles and PC.

Nightdive touted over 1,500 code changes and the removal of scripted infectious outbursts for NPCs, thus adding more tension to the gameplay (which is also more forgiving with its difficulty). Certain cutscenes have also been revamped, and everything ties in better with John Carpenter’s original film.

The Thing: Remastered retails for $29.99 across all platforms. Check out some more gameplay here or read our feature to learn more about the original and what the remaster is changing.

The remaster doesn’t have a release date yet, but it’s out sometime this year, potentially in December, for Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PC, PS4, PS5, and Nintendo Switch. Here are 15 things you should know about The Thing: Remastered, from what made the original so endearing to everything new being brought to the table.

“Faithful Restoration”

Nightdive has promised a “faithful restoration” of the 2002 survival horror, which offers third-person movement and a first-person mode, but what exactly is The Thing? Based on John Carpenter’s movie of the same name, it actually serves as a sequel with Captain J. F. Blake as the protagonist. Players are charged with investigating what happened at Outpost 31 in Antarctica. Unfortunately, they soon find themselves hunted by the same entity which wreaked havoc in the film.

Multiple Characters

While you’ll control Blake throughout the game, it’s also possible to give orders to other NPCs. Each has a unique role with Medics healing allies, Engineers opening locked doors, and Soldiers piling on the damage while being more skilled in combat than the other two roles. As a result, their cooperation is essential to survival.

The Thing(s)

The entity from the film is an alien, one that presents in all manner of grotesque ways. It consists of Scuttlers, smaller creatures that are easily dispatched; Walkers, which are larger and only defeated with the help of a flamethrower; and Bosses, who have their own mechanics but are also weak to fire. You’ll want to kill them for obvious reasons (read: living), but their grotesque structures aren’t the real danger. It’s the shape-shifting you need to worry about.

Impostors and Infection

And yes, that means killing any NPCs that you may come across and assuming their form. The challenge is that you won’t know who has been replaced, and thus, who to trust, which goes both ways, as they won’t know whether to trust Blake. Interestingly, if NPCs happen to be attacked by any of the Things, there’s a chance they could become infected and transform faster, which is far from ideal.

Trust

Further throwing a wrench into all of this is the Fear/Trust System. To gain the assistance of other NPCs, Blake must have their trust, which is challenging if they suspect him of being the Thing). Trust falls into red (complete distrust and attacking him on sight), amber (unsure), green (trusted), and 100 percent. While you can gain trust by protecting NPCs or giving them supplies, it can be depleted if you shoot them (accidentally or otherwise), among other things. If an ally is 100 percent on your side, they’ll continue following you regardless of how trigger-happy you get with friends.

Fear

Of course, you also have to account for fear, which occurs if you discover any gory sights or get attacked. If an NPC becomes too scared and enters Crack-up Mode, they can behave erratically, attacking you or even harming themselves. Certain decisions like giving them adrenaline, or killing Things will help alleviate the fear, but beware – once an NPC cracks up, you must find a way to help them before it’s too late.

Weapons and Tools

The Thing offers a decent selection of weaponry for Blake and the team to leverage. Aside from flamethrowers, you have assault rifles, submachine guns, grenade launchers, shotguns, and even heavy machine guns for fighting back against the Things. However, some of your most important tools will be adrenaline, ammo and health packs (since giving them to allies will gain their trust and help keep fear down), and the ever-essential blood test kits, which can prove that Blake isn’t infected. How you distribute these weapons and items is the real issue.

Total Levels and Playtime

A lot is going on in The Thing with its gameplay mechanics and potential outcomes, but it’s not as long as you’d think. There are 20 levels in total, but it’s set entirely in Outpost 31, the total playtime is around seven hours for the main story and about nine and a half hours on average for completionists. Nightdive hasn’t indicated whether it’s adding any extra content, but we’ll need to wait for more details.

Up to 4K and 144 FPS on Current-Gen Platforms

What you can look forward to in the remaster is 4K resolution support and up to 144 frames per second performance on PC, Xbox Series X/S, and PS5. Based on the gameplay thus far, The Thing: Remastered looks extremely crisp on higher resolutions and should perform even better, thanks to Nightdive’s KEX Engine.

Improved Lighting and Atmospheric Effects

On top of higher frame rates and resolutions, there are also improvements to the lighting and atmospheric effects, adding to the overall tension. Whether you’re wandering outside the outpost and taking in the frigid cold as snow rains down or appreciating the sweet fire and the shadows it casts, it’s a significant step up.

Improved Textures and Characters

Character models, textures and animations are also better, with the latter being hand-crafted by Nightdive and offering a more realistic feel. While that means the cast looks more endearing, it also means that all those Things running around (especially the Scuttlers) look even creepier and more disgusting.

Quality of Life Features

Nightdive is known for its quality of life features in its remasters, and you can expect as much from The Thing: Remastered. However, aside from Achievements on PlayStation, Xbox, and Steam, they’re yet to be fully detailed. Mark Atkinson, who directed the original, did promise some fixes for areas where players could find themselves without ammo, so there is that at least. Unfortunately, those hoping for different difficulty options are out of luck.

Scalable Difficulties

In Nightdive’s Deep Dive series, Atkinson confirmed that The Thing: Remastered won’t have a “Story Mode” difficulty. Instead, there will be scalable difficulties, which could mean the game becomes more challenging depending on how well you’re doing. Either way, don’t expect it to be a walk in the park.

Plays As Well or Better Than the Original

Atkinson also promised that the remaster would play as well or better than the original. Given that The Thing faced criticism for its control scheme, perhaps there will be alternate options available. On the other hand, maybe it feels more responsive for those who stick with the classic layout. As always, we’ll need to wait and see.

PC Requirements

The Thing: Remastered is thankfully very undemanding for PC players, requiring a whopping five GB of installation space. The minimum requirements include an Intel Core i5-3570 3.4GHz or AMD Ryzen 3 1300X 3.5GHz, 2 GB of RAM and either an Nvidia GeForce GTX 650 TI (2GB) or an AMD Radeon HD 7750 (1GB). Recommended requirements include a Core i5-6600k 3.5 GHz or an AMD Ryzen 5 1600 3.2 GHz, 4 GB RAM and either a GeForce GTX 1070 (8GB) or AMD Radeon RX Vega 56 (8GB). The requirements for 4K haven’t been explicitly detailed, but unless you’re stuck on the wrong side of 2016 in terms of hardware, they shouldn’t be particularly challenging to hit.

Over on Xbox Wire, in a post highlighting some of early December’s new game releases, Microsoft has listed The Thing: Remastered, and claims that the game will release on December 5. Incidentally, the game is set to be showcased on the PC Gaming Show on the same date, which means Microsoft may have accidentally spilled the beans on a shadow-drop for the game at the event.

Nightdive Studios has tweaked several things behind the scenes with The Thing: Remastered, which, according to the developer, touts over 1,500 changes, more forgiving difficulty, and a number of visual improvements to art, lighting, character models, and more. Read more on that through here.

Whenever it launches, The Thing: Remastered will be available on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC.

The remaster also features more than 1,500 code changes and 2,000 improvements to the art and levels. While we’ve seen the revamped lighting, character models, atmospheric effects, shadows, and more, there’s a lot of quality of life. Additional health and ammo are also available, with Atkinson noting the desire to fix areas where players found themselves low on the latter.

The HP system is also “more forgiving”, and boss fights are now “skill-based.” It’s unknown if the previously mentioned scalable difficulties will play some part, but we may learn more since the title is set to appear during the PC Gaming Show: Most Wanted on December 5th.

The Thing: Remastered is coming to PS4, PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, PC, and Nintendo Switch.

In The Thing, NPCs could be infected, leading to them “bursting out” and becoming monstrous creatures. However, even if you protected them during battles, they would still burst out in infection as part of scripted sequences.

“Scripted burst-outs of previously uninfected NPCs were one of the biggest complaints in the original games. In The Thing: Remastered, we removed them entirely and instead make some NPCs more prone to infection, and if they still survive, they are so traumatized they cower and ‘crack up’.” “Crack up” in this context refers to the victims entering an unstable state, which could lead to suicide, heart attacks, or attacking other NPCs.

Nightdive’s software engineer Josh Dowell added, “The infection system was implemented and available in the original game, but there were a few places where squadmates would become infected and burst out for no reason, which players really disliked. We removed those, so squad mates may only become infected by direct contact with a Thing beast.”

This is good news for the remaster and could significantly alter the course of the story. There’s still no release date outside of “this year”, but we could get a shadow drop on December 5th. Stay tuned until then.

The Thing: Remastered is coming to Xbox Series X/S, PS5, PC, PS4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch. Check out the first gameplay trailer here.

Airing on December 5th at noon PST, it features the publication outlining its 25 most anticipated PC titles. However, you can also expect several announcements, trailers, and behind-the-scenes videos, with titles like Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector, Killing Floor 3 and The Thing: Remastered appearing. With the first two out in 2025 and Nightdive’s remaster due this year, perhaps we’ll see some release dates (or a potential delay).

On top of all this, Strange Scaffold of El Paso, Elsewhere, and I Am Your Beast will present “something special.” With over 75 titles at the show, the possibility of even more surprises is fairly high. Stay tuned for updates and live coverage next month.

DRAGON AGE: THE VEILGUARD

Let’s start things off with what’s probably the most obvious pick. Of the games still due out in the remainder of 2024, it’s fair to say that Dragon Age: The Veilguard is easily among the biggest ones, if not flat out the biggest, period. The wait for a follow up to Dragon Age: Inquisition has stretched on for over a decade, but based on everything that we’ve seen of it so far, it’s looking like The Veilguard may actually end up being worth that weight. In particular, the game’s cast of companion characters and its new combat system – which blends traditional Dragon Age tactics with more aggressive real-time action – have looked promising, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg in terms of why exactly The Veilguard has caught our eye in the lead up to its release. Hopefully, this will be the return to form that BioWare fans have been hoping to see from the studio for so long.