PETER HOSKIN: You assume the climate outdoors is frightful? Wait until you get to US Outpost #31, in Antarctica, the place some Thing is working amok…

The Thing: Remastered (PlayStation, Xbox, Switch, PC, £24.99)

Verdict: Winter wonderland

Rating:

It’s winter. A great time for you and a few close friends to hunker down in a cosy location, safe from the freezing weather outside, and… descend into madness and paranoia as a parasitic monster from outer space tears through your number. Hang on — what?!

Oh, it’s just a remastered version of the 2002 game The Thing, which was itself based on — and a sequel to — John Carpenter’s classic 1982 horror film of the same name. You, as the deadpan military man Blake, have gone to Antarctica to find out just what happened during the course of the movie. In the process, you encounter the dreaded Thing itself.

This is at once a strange and brilliant choice for a remaster. Strange because, while The Thing sold well on its original release, the world has hardly been clamouring for more in the years since.

But brilliant because there’s so much here that’s interesting and impressive — and deserves thawing out in 2024.

Take its squad-based mechanics. It’s not just that Blake is followed by a varying squad of soldiers who can help in particular situations. It’s that, in the true spirit of Carpenter’s movie, those soldiers start acting all antsy as they realise that any one of you could be The Thing.

You’ve got to manage their emotions — with kindness and gifts — if you want to progress through the game’s icy, semi-open levels.

And you’ve got to manage your own, too. The makers of this remaster, the great folk at Nightdive Studios, have decided to polish but not jettison the original’s PlayStation 2-era blockiness — which goes to show just how atmospheric, artistic and sometimes downright scary it was in the first place.

So forget the warm cottage this winter. US Outpost #31, Antarctica, is the place to be. The thing to do, in fact.