In 2002 fans of the movie The Thing where able to partake in a new chapter of the film’s universe by playing the 3rd person survival horror game, ‘The Thing’ where players take on the role of Captain Blake, a Special Forces soldier sent in with a rescue team to find survivors at the doomed U.S. Outpost 31 from John Carpenter’s film.
Boxart for the 2002 game
Long story short, the events of the film and this game were part of some nefarious plot by a Biotechnology company called Gen-Inc who has subterranean research facilities all around Antarctica studying the alien organism in which a certain strain of the “Virus” was developed to be used in Biological Warfare.
The game surprisingly did very well in the ratings and in 2003 the game’s developing company, Computer Artworks, were in the works to make a sequel to the game picking up where it left off, Blake flying off in a helicopter with R.J. MacReady, the protagonist from the movie played by Kurt Russell.
This vision of the game will not see the light of day since the production of the game was canceled after the company entered receivership and did not appear to have recovered from it. The developers said that in this game there would be new “Thing” beasts that players would have encountered and released the art guide showing concept art for the would-be game.
Concept art for the Sonic Beast Thing for ‘The Thing 2’, Computer Artworks
Looking at the creature art, the one that struck me most was the one called “Sonic Beast” a Thing creature that burst out of the back of its imitated host. This stood out not just because it’s a cool concept but because it looks very familiar. I’ve seen this creature before all over the internet and being shared with me from my friends who are obsessed fans of this show I’ve never seen before, it looks like the Demogorgon from the hit Netflix series ‘Stranger Things’
The Demogorgon from ‘Stranger Things’
The creature design originally came from Aaron Sims before being completed by Spectral Motion. I’m not trying to start any rumors or make claims that the design was inspired by the concept art, who knows, maybe the original artist works for one of these companies now (my research did not turn up a solid lead on who the artist was) but we all can agree, both creatures are pretty cool!
Ok, NOW I’m getting suspicious!/ TeePublic
