Earlier this month, Nightdive Studios revealed The Thing: Remastered, a new take on the beloved horror game. At the time of that announcement, we learned about some of the visual upgrades coming to the game, but new information has now been revealed thanks to a new Deep Dive video from the publisher. In the video, original technical director Mark Atkinson discussed the new release for The Thing, and some of the improvements players can expect to see. Notably, changes are being made to aiming, reloading, and the amount of ammo available.
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“We’re gonna try and fix some quality of life issues which we weren’t happy about but kind of ran out of time on. There’s still a question of whether we have a classic mode switch that goes exactly the way it was for the hardcore fans. But I think there’s a lot of stuff in how the weapon aiming works, how the reloading works… if you hold the grenade too long it blows up in your hand, which I always hated. There’s a couple of areas where there’s really not enough ammo and you get kind of stuck without ammo and there’s nothing you can do,” said Atkinson.
Atkinson went on to say that the goal is to make the game a little more accessible than it was before. Basically, standards have evolved quite a bit over the last two decades, and players aren’t going to want to restart a game over from scratch because they didn’t conserve enough ammo early on. Clearly, a decision hasn’t been made about whether to include a classic mode, but that seems like the kind of inclusion that would make a lot of purists happy.
When it comes to remastering a game, one of the biggest challenges is figuring out how much to change while keeping the spirit of the original game intact. Threading that needle can mean a huge difference in how a game is received, and it’s clear that there’s a lot of thought being put into how best to bring back The Thing. Hopefully the end result will please both fans of the original game, as well as those that haven’t gotten a chance to play it.
Are you excited for The Thing: Remastered? How do you feel about these changes? Share your thoughts with me directly on Twitter at @Marcdachamp, on Bluesky at @Marcdachamp, or on Instagram at @Dachampgaming!
