The first time I played The Thing: Remastered, I couldn't help but draw parallels to the chaotic gold rush era I'd been researching for months. Just like those fortune seekers who poured into California in 1849, we players enter this game with certain expectations about teamwork and survival, only to discover the experience is far more isolating than promised. Both historical and virtual frontiers promise community but ultimately force us to confront our own solitude.
I remember reaching the game's third mission where my squad included four other characters, all supposedly vital to our survival. Yet the game mechanics made it painfully clear that their fates were predetermined. The narrative would transform them into monsters regardless of my actions, much like how gold rush towns would see miners disappear without explanation - some to disease, others to violence, many simply vanishing into the wilderness. The weapons I carefully distributed to my digital companions would inevitably drop to the ground when they transformed, rendering my strategic planning meaningless. This mechanic perfectly illustrates what makes The Thing: Remastered stumble as a squad-based experience - you're never truly incentivized to care about anyone's survival but your own.
What struck me most was how the trust system, which should have been the game's emotional core, became its most mechanical element. Keeping my teammates' trust high and fear low required minimal effort, just following basic patterns like sharing ammo or using the flame thrower near them. I never genuinely felt that tension from John Carpenter's original film where anyone could be the monster. The game's halfway point marked where everything devolved into standard shooter territory, with about 60% of the gameplay becoming repetitive alien blasting. Computer Artworks seemingly struggled to take the concept further, turning what began as psychological horror into what I'd call a "boilerplate run-and-gun shooter" that sees you fighting both aliens and mindless human enemies alike.
The gold rush comparison becomes particularly apt when examining why this approach fails. Just as the 1849 gold fever created thousands of individual competitors rather than genuine communities, the game's design encourages selfish survivalism. There are no meaningful repercussions for trusting teammates, no complex moral choices - just temporary alliances that dissolve when the script demands it. By the final levels, I was just going through the motions, my attachment to any character completely severed. The disappointing ending felt inevitable, much like how many gold rush stories ended not with wealth but with exhaustion and disillusionment.
If I were redesigning this game, I'd implement proper relationship mechanics where choices actually matter beyond immediate survival. Maybe permanent character traits that develop through interactions, or multiple transformation triggers based on player decisions rather than fixed plot points. The gold rush era's untold stories reveal how fragile human connections become under extreme pressure - that's the psychological depth this game misses. We need digital experiences that capture not just the action of survival, but the emotional weight of depending on people who might betray you, or whom you might need to betray. That's where true horror resides, both in history and in gaming.
