The Thing: Remastered Update Brings Epic Fixes and New Trousers!

by

Summary

  • Nightdive Studios released a console update for The Thing: Remastered, fixing bugs and enhancing performance.
  • The game, a mix of squad-based shooter and survival horror, was Nightdive’s fastest-selling launch title.
  • Patch 1.1 for the game includes fixed crashes, performance optimization, and even new trousers for a character.

Nightdive Studios has rolled out an update brimming with enhancements and bug fixes for “The Thing: Remastered”. This update mirrors the intense efforts of R.J. MacReady’s flamethrower in eliminating issues. Known for their dedication to reviving abandoned video games, Nightdive Studios is a US-based developer that brings joy to gamers by refurbishing old games for modern consoles. Since its establishment in 2012, Nightdive’s collection has expanded to include enhanced versions of “Turok”, “Doom”, “Quake”, and “Shadow Man”, among others. With “The Thing: Remastered”, they are paving the way for more thrilling restorations in the future.

First released in 2002 for PlayStation 2 and original Xbox by Computer Artworks, The Thing combined squad-based shooter gameplay with survival horror elements, inspired by John Carpenter’s famous 1982 film of the same name. After its remastered version was released in December 2024, The Thing: Remastered achieved massive success and set a record as Nightdive’s fastest-selling launch title in their studio history. The storyline serves as a sequel to Carpenter’s movie, focusing on Captain Blake, a member of the U.S. Army Special Forces team, assigned to uncover what occurred with the original Antarctic outpost crew after an extraterrestrial lifeform caused chaos.

On February 11, 2025, Nightdive released Patch 1.1, now accessible for console gamers, augmenting their remake of System Shock from last year. Highlights of the update encompass fixing crashes that took place during game exit or combat with Thing beasts, adjusting display items to rectify depth of field issues, and most significantly, offering Whitley some new trousers. Notably, the Steam Deck’s frame rate is no longer capped at half the screen refresh rate when using Vulkan renderer, and the Nintendo Switch benefited from improved performance.

Enthusiasts of old-school gaming found solace in the fact that The Thing: Remastered rectified the bothersome aspect of the 2002 game’s original version, and the horror community welcomed the latest upgrade with open arms. Furthermore, a Twitter user inquired whether Nightdive Studios had any intentions for a physical edition of the remaster, to which they replied that further information on this matter would be revealed later in the year.

Building on Nightdive’s impressive track record, enthusiasts of the film The Thing are eagerly anticipating the studio to take on another beloved classic next. The 2005 survival horror game Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth, developed by Headfirst Productions, skillfully brought H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos to life and was appreciated by gamers with a taste for darker, grittier experiences, even though it was a commercial flop. Nightdive’s mission to breathe new life into long-forgotten games is commendable and ongoing, driven by nostalgia, and the list of games fans want remastered continues to expand.

The Thing: Remastered Patch Notes for February 2025 Update

General

  • Fixed the Conspiracy Theorist achievement. Old saved games are retroactively fixed!
  • Fixed a softlock where Stolls would stop running to the black tech lab door.
  • Fixed a crash after detonating the C4 on the airstrip level.
  • Fixed a rare intermittent crash when fighting Thing beasts.
  • Added a “Most Recent” button to the load game menu, so it’s easier to load your latest save.
  • Autosaves now contain the name of the level they were saved on, instead of just “Autosave”.
  • Fixed a bug where characters would sometimes become unable to step up onto higher surfaces after falling off of the curbs in the roadway tunnel.
  • Fixed a crash when quitting the game.
  • Fixed a bug where bindings would be missing from the input options on first launch.
  • Fixed a crash in Strata Medibay when Fisk dies before telling you the code.
  • Fixed Blake’s hand clipping with his sleeve in the first cutscene with Faraday.
  • Fixed a bug where the second camera angle would fail to activate during the weather station cutscene, allowing you to interrupt it and recruit yourself.
  • Improved performance when querying dynamic game options.
  • Moved the game version information to the options menu, off of the interstitial screen.
  • Decreased the visibility of the game version information so it is less intrusive.
  • Reimplemented the pan upwards when the game over screen is visible.
  • Updated Colin’s Fate achievement description.

Gameplay

  • Fixed an oversight where weapon firing rates were not properly respected when mashing the fire button. Excluding the pistol.
  • Ammo and health dispensers now dispense fewer clips and medipacks depending on the difficulty. This can be changed at any time during gameplay.
  • Marked some grenades as “volatile” so that they explode when damaged, like the original game, to fix a quirk where grenades placed for cinematic purposes would not explode.
  • Changed the direction Blake faces after ending the cutscene in the weather station level.

Levels

  • Fixed an oversight where an explosive barrel would explode when passing through the tripwire of an already exploded tripmine charge in the penultimate level.
  • Hid the out of bounds “Back Door Key” item that looked like a document in the submersible level.
  • Fixed innacurate collision in the first level, where characters would appear to sink into the snow.
  • Fixed collision in the watchtower on the third level where you could get stuck in the handrail.
  • Renamed Carter in the Strata Medibay level to Hawk, to utilise a set of unused voice lines.
  • Added the missing green light to a save terminal in the third level.
  • Fixed two computers in the weather station level that did not have an ID set for the Conspiracy Theorist achievement (given automatically to old saves).
  • Shimmied a medipack dispenser down in the level following Strata Medibay that was WAY too high up.
  • Fixed bad collision on the external stairs in the weather station.
  • Flipped a few ammo boxes which were facing the wrong direction.
  • Fixed several collision bugs in the Norwegian outpost where you could fall off of the world and walk underneath the building.
  • Fixed sounds across several levels that would duplicate forever, causing the game to eventually fall silent.

Display

  • Fixed the depth of field effect sometimes creating bright flickering pixels.
  • Fixed the glass on the doors in the submersible being opaque.
  • Improved normal maps on many posters and boards.
  • Gave Whitley new trousers.

Sound

  • Fixed a bug where speech audio would sometimes not follow the speaker.

PC

  • Changed the on-screen watermark in the editor build, so it doesn’t confuse people.
  • Added support for autoexec.cfg, allowing users to customise console variables not usually marked as saved to kexEngine.cfg.
  • Performance improvements when using the D3D11 renderer.

Steam Deck

  • Fixed the framerate being locked to half the screen refresh rate while using the Vulkan renderer, when launched outside of the Steam client.

All Consoles

  • Fixed a bug where Blake’s head and legs would sometimes disappear after leaving first-person mode.
  • Fixed a light flickering very, very fast in the Norwegian base.

Nintendo Switch

  • Optimized performance.

Read More

2025-02-12 13:15