Key Takeaways
- The Thing: Remastered is going above and beyond a fresh coat of paint.
- As reported by SyFy, the often frustrating and broken infected system will be overhauled entirely in the release.
- The end result is no more random burst-outs and infected teammates, to go along with several other changes, including unseen content.
Whenever The Thing: Remastered does launch, one of the original game’s most frustrating and glaring issues will not be present. As a result of an entire overhaul of the infection system, NPC squad members will no longer randomly experience burst-outs, despite having a negative blood test.
Information about the changes comes by way of an exclusive from SyFy Wire, where Mark Atkinson discussed the forthcoming changes. In an interview, the director and programmer on the original game, who advised on the Nightdive remaster, relayed player frustrations, saying, “Scripted burst-outs of previously uninfected NPCs were one of the biggest complaints in the original games.”
“In The Thing: Remastered, we removed them entirely and instead made some NPCs more prone to infection, and if they still survive, they are so traumatized they cower down and ‘crack up’” he explained of the changes.
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The Infected System Was Unique, But Broken
As part of the system, members of your squad could, in theory, become infected and mutate. However, that would require a blood test. It was a neat system that kept players on their toes, as they constantly had to wonder if their teammates were really still there. However, in practice, it rarely worked as intended.
Chalk it up to the era, bad programming or some combo, but the system often had non-positive teammates turning. The instances were random and would occur seemingly for no reason. That’s all going away. “We removed those, so now squad mates may only become infected by direct contact with a Thing beast,” software engineer Josh Dowell said.
The infected system isn’t the only thing that will be different in the modern version. As SyFy reported, 1,500 code changes and 2,000 art and level improvements are included alone. Additionally, the difficulty has been reworked, with more ammo and health packs present. Unseen content, including new creature assets, will also be part of the final product. In other words, The Thing: Remastered is shaping up to be more than just a high-res re-release.
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