Nightdive Studios’ The Thing: Remastered is now available on consoles and PC. The enhanced version of the 2002 game serves as a sequel to the legendary John Carpenter film. To learn more about how it was lovingly touched up, ComingSoon spoke to Nightdive’s Director of Business Development Larry Kuperman and Art Director Joel Welsh.
“The 2002 third-person survival horror shooter that serves as a sequel to the genre-defining 1982 film is back, remastered by Nightdive Studios to bring this innovative blend of fast paced squad action meets survival horror to the modern era. Including Antialiasing, Per Pixel Lighting, 4K Resolution and up to 144 FPS,” says the official description.
What was it about The Thing (2002) that made Nightdive Studios want to give it such a loving remaster?
Larry Kuperman: The game actually sold well when it was first released in 2002, selling over a million copies. It was praised for being innovative and yet never reached its full potential due at least in part to the technical limitations of the time. Which makes it an ideal title for a remaster. When we were able to get in contact with members of the original development team, Ron Ashtiani and Mark Atkinson, and they were willing to help us, the project was a go.
The fear-trust system in The Thing: Remastered so unique and captures the theme of the film really well. What can new players expect from that in the gameplay?
Joel Welsh: New players can expect improved squad AI and easier navigation through the squad menu. Ron also redrew the overhead icons so they’re easier to understand and Mark fixed the broken blood screening test. That was a major complaint of the original. Character classes are the same – soldier, medic and engineer. So, in this regard, the remaster is like the original, only much more exciting. You can basically do whatever you want to a smarter NPC team, but just remember: no one survives alone.
The Thing: Remastered looks phenomenal. A lot of improvements were handcrafted by Nightdive, such as textures, character model tweaks, and animations. How is it finding that balance of staying true to the original game’s look and feel while also updating it?
Welsh: We had about a year of planning, so it wasn’t too difficult. I got an invite from Stephen to join Nightdive after wrapping two features: Hawkins and Mullin’s Reefer Beast and Salisbury’s Resident Evil Romero doc. That’s when the prep work for art began – midway through Turok 3. I think Kaiser jumped on code around the same time.
We started by tracking down assets that Artworks used and recovered around 70%. After that, Stephen, Joe and Larry invited Ron and Mark to join, and they supplied the rest. That put us over the finish line. So, visually it’s mostly the same game, only higher resolution. On average, every surface is stretched 400-800% without relying heavily on upscalers. In a few instances, like the hangar door at the weather station, the texture quality was too low, so we had to remake it. It was case-by-case, very respectful.
For 3D edits, Ron wrote a detailed guide filled with incredible art and advised the team the whole way through. Same for Mark. They both had a direct hand in development, and doubled for QC. For models, Jon Poljo, the studio’s art director, came up with a plan to subdivide faces and increase the character’s polygon count to make them look more natural. Albert Mairin-Garau handled those and worked closely with me on environments. We also had access to higher poly enemy models and skins. A few people tackled animations.
The Thing has only grown in popularity in the past 20+ years. Is it exciting getting to show this story, which serves as the sequel we never got in the film world, to a new audience and in the best possible way with the remaster?
Welsh: Absolutely. We’re all fans at Nightdive and Atari, so it was very exciting to partner with Universal Products & Experiences and share this remaster with the world. If new players experience a fraction of the nostalgia we felt 20 years ago after watching Carpenter’s masterpiece and playing the original, then we’ve done our job.
The lighting and 3D rendering has seen a huge overhaul in The Thing: Remastered. What was the biggest challenge in improving upon the atmosphere of the original?
Welsh: All rendering was done internally by Kaiser and KEX team in KEX engine. Lighting and grading went through several iterations with Ron Ashtini at the helm. We also added normal and spec maps. Brendan McKinney did the initial pass with Ron, then Jon did a final pass when I left for Digital Eclipse to work on Tetris. As an aside, Kasier and I came up with the idea to add film grain to emulate ’51, ’82 and ’11, which is a selectable option in the menu and my preferred way of playing. That system was borrowed from Shadowman.
The Thing: Remastered is now available on PC and consoles
