Review cbdiabla 3/5 · Aug 16, 2020
A creative but overly ambitious survival horror game
The Thing is one of my favorite horror movies. When I heard that this game was a sequel of sorts (approved by John Carpenter), I felt compelled to play it. My initial impressions were good. The game does a good job at setting up a desolate atmosphere of uncertainty and escalated encounters with Things.
I was also excited for the …
The Thing is one of my favorite horror movies. When I heard that this game was a sequel of sorts (approved by John Carpenter), I felt compelled to play it. My initial impressions were good. The game does a good job at setting up a desolate atmosphere of uncertainty and escalated encounters with Things.
I was also excited for the variety of game mechanics offered. When wandering in the cold, you have a frostbite gauge that forces you to act quick and find shelter, adding to the tension. You are also accompanied by a squad, which may or may not trust you unless you provide them ammo and healing. You are also supposed to not trust them entirely, as they might be Things themselves.
However, the execution of these squad management ideas falls flat. If you don't provide ammo to your team, they won't do much to turn against you. Their sanity states that worsen after witnessing horrors suddenly reset to good states for no reason. And worst of all, most of the times your teammates turn to Things are scripted, meaning that your interactions with them don't really matter.
You can play through the game completely ignoring most of these mechanics and your experience won't be affected in the slightest. It was disappointing after the high expectations set at the beginning. Besides the technical flaws, it seems that the design of several components of the game are at odds with each other, causing a conflict between story driven and organic approaches.
In terms of combat, the game is serviceable and entertaining, but a bit outdated thanks to the janky auto-aim. Using the flamethrower to torch the big Things that chase you is always fun as you might corner yourself in a skirmish due to the fire. But the game's over reliance in confrontations with scuttlers (small, headcrab looking things) makes combat turn from a tense affair into a repetitive cleanup process for a fair share of the game.
Even with all my complaints, I am glad I gave The Thing a try. Even though the execution was very flawed, the ideas were very original and invited me to imagine a different horror game with emergent gameplay coming from organic interactions. If these ideas were put into practice properly today, we could have in our hands a truly unique survival horror experience.
