PETER HOSKIN: You think the weather outside is frightful? Wait till you get to US Outpost #31, in Antarctica, where some Thing is running amok…
The Thing: Remastered (PlayStation, Xbox, Switch, PC, £24.99)
Verdict: Winter Wonderland
Are winter. A great time for you and a few good friends to settle down in a cozy location, safe from the freezing weather outside, and… descend into madness and paranoia as a parasitic monster from outer space tears through your song. Wait a minute – what?!
Oh, it’s just a remastered version of the 2002 game The Thing, which itself was based on – and was a sequel to – John Carpenter’s 1982 classic horror film of the same name. You, as the deadpan soldier Blake, have gone to Antarctica to find out exactly what happened during the course of the film. During this process you will encounter the dreaded Thing itself.
This is both a strange and brilliant choice for a remaster. Strange, because while The Thing sold well upon its original release, the world has hardly asked for anything more in recent years.
But brilliant, because there is so much here that is interesting and impressive – and deserves to thaw in 2024.
Take the team-based mechanics. Not only is Blake followed by a changing platoon of soldiers who can help in certain situations. It’s that, in the true spirit of Carpenter’s film, those soldiers start acting restless when they realize that any one of you could be The Thing.
The Thing: Remastered is coming to PC via Steam, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5
The original 2002 The Thing game is a squad-based third-person shooter survival horror video game developed by Computer Artworks and co-published by Vivendi Universal Games under the Black Label Games label and Konami.
You’ll need to manage their emotions – with kindness and gifts – if you want to get through the game’s icy, half-open levels.
And you have to manage your own affairs too. The creators of this remaster, the wonderful folks at Nightdive Studios, have decided to polish up the blockiness of the PlayStation 2-era original but not throw it overboard – which shows just how atmospheric, artistic and sometimes downright scary it was in the first place was.
So forget the warm house this winter. US Outpost #31, Antarctica, is the place to be. Basically the thing to do.