Nearly 25 Years Later, The Thing’s Underrated Sequel Is Still Incredible

Movie tie-ins have been a part of gaming for a long time, with plenty of arcade classics like Star Wars hoping to make additional money off their association with larger media franchises. However, while there are plenty of bad-faith attempts to get some extra eyes on a game just by the sheer nature of having them be tied to established IP, some movie tie-in games actually did more than just paint their standard game design with a specific coat of paint. They added their own spin on the material while still giving players the feeling of stepping into those worlds.

Take 2002’s The Thing, which serves as a sequel to the 1982 cult classic horror film of the same name. The game does a great job of zeroing in on the tension and terror that made the movie so memorable, while still finding ways to use it as a launchpad for its own exploration of humanity. The result is a game that still stands out as a far better sequel to The Thing than anything else we’ve ever gotten out of the franchise.

The Thing’s Game Sequel Was Better Than The Other Movies

Debuting August 20, 2002, The Thing was a third-person shooter that did a better job of carrying on the spirit of the cult classic horror film than any of the other movies in the series. The game takes place a few months after the original film, with a small team of US Special Forces sent into the ruins of Outpost 31 to investigate the loss of contact with the base. That’s only where things begin with The Thing, which quickly uses the setup to expand upon the movie themes about paranoia and self-preservation to focus on efforts by government officials and private companies to weaponize the Thing.

Similar to how Alien incorporated more action with its sequel, Aliens, 2002’s The Thing introduced a lot of bombastic sequences where players confront hordes of crawling appendages or monstrous entities. The trick is that the game still manages to retain the panicky sense of chaos baked into the premise. Gunfights are frantic, less beautifully choreographed duels and more chaotic races for survival. Moving through the game sees the player recruit other NPC soldiers, engineers, and medics to their squad. However, a “Fear/Trust” system built into the game design allowed the developers to incorporate the sense of paranoia directly into the game.

Based on in-game actions like sharing ammo or accidentally hitting allies with gunfire, the NPCs would grow to either trust the main character or fear that he’s become corrupted, even openly turning on him if that trust ranking gets too low. Beyond that, almost any NPC could be infected due to interactions with the entity, meaning any one of the player’s newfound allies could suddenly transform at any moment. It was a great way to replicate the vibes of the film while still pushing the narrative forward, avoiding repetition by shifting focus. Unlike the cinematic prequel that came out in 2011, this was a game that understood why fans liked the original movie but was still interested in doing something new with the premise.

This Is The Kind Of Movie Tie-In We Need More Of

Movie tie-in games used to be a lot more common, with the early 2000s in particular being a strong period for ones that actually felt like expansions of their IP. While older adaptations had been content to replicate some elements of their source material in the digital space, the best ones were the ones that felt additive to their franchise. For all their flaws, games like Captain America: Super Soldier, Enter the Matrix, and Peter Jackson’s King Kong brought new layers to the characters and even played with expectations by offering unique perspectives on the canon or showcasing alternate timelines for the story. Titles like The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay found the right balance between reflecting the movie lore and evolving it in their own way, giving players the sense of embarking on these adventures.

That’s what made The Thing so memorable. It not only had the John Carpenter seal of approval; the legendary director actually appears in the game in a minor but vital role. The game does resolve the cliffhanger from the end of the original movie, but in such a way that it doesn’t detract from the subtle horror of that sequence. The story carries on the plot with enough familiar elements to still feel like The Thing, but without failing to push the story forward. It’s the kind of movie tie-in game players simply don’t get anymore. Whether it’s because of how the media landscape has evolved to the point where crossovers are usually more surface-level tie-ins or how game development has grown so large that it would be hard to get games released at the same time as films, there just aren’t as many of these types of experiences anymore. It’s what made the Kill Bill Lost Chapter in Fortnite so much fun, with The Thing still one of the best-ever examples of how this kind of cross-media synergy can work out for everyone.