I’m often hesitant when it comes to boardgames based on movies, some being little more than Candyland with IP slapped on. Based on a single playthrough of The Thing, I’m going to give this one a thumbs up as something that has managed the feel of the tension and paranoia of the source material.

You play as one of the movie characters, each with a special ability and serving as part of the science, maintenance, or operations team. You must explore the base, looking for equipment and Things to eliminate before you can proceed to the next area of the base. In each room, you must complete a randomly drawn mission. Each mission requires a number of players, one or more of the three teams, and specific cards like a petri dish or copper wire or ones of a certain dice amount. Each player on the mission puts in a card face down for the mission which might help, hinder, or downright sabotage the mission. If your mission fails, you don’t get to explore.

Why would someone try to sabotage the mission? Because at the beginning of the game you each draw a card telling you if you are playing a human or an alien imitation. To complicate matters, at key points you draw another card, meaning that partway through the game you might turn out to be an imitation. You can use one of the items (rope) to tie up a suspected imitation and remove them from the missions but there’s only so much rope. For the humans to win, they need to complete enough missions and gather enough equipment to get to the helicopter and escape with no imitations among them. The imitations win in every other outcome, either sneaking aboard the helicopter or destroying enough of the base. And yes, the humans can still win even if some humans are left behind as long as there are no imitations on the helicopter.

Overall, despite the human loss (and four players is probably too few to play with), I still enjoyed it and look forward to playing it again. There are lots of different characters to play and all kinds of missions so each game is going to be a little different. We quipped movie quotes at each other as we descended into paranoia and desperation, tossed accusations (and we were right about who the initial imitation was), and watched the Outpost burn to the ground as we scrambled for resources. It plays up to eight players which isn’t easy to find in board game, and the turns passed pretty quickly. Even the players not involved in the mission get to discard a card and draw up so even when you aren’t directly involved you still get to do something. If you’re a fan of the movie or Lovecraftian horror or just social deduction games, I recommend checking it out.

Similar Games of Hidden Identity

The Resistance

Complete a set number of missions while attempting to deduce who among you is secretly sabotaging the Resistance.

Shadows Over Camelot

Defend Camelot, complete quests, and uncover the Traitor. Even if the Traitor is exposed, they can still work to undermine the progress of the other true Knights of the Round Table. It’s a quick game of usually an hour and a bit once you know how the game goes. Like Pandemic style games, win or lose, the game is over un under 90 minutes.

Battlestar Galacticia

Based on the reimagined grimdark saga of a rag tag band of humans seeking a new home, safe from the dangers of space and Cylons. It’s a long grind of a game, even before considering the shifting allegiances, hidden goals, and the sudden discovery that you have been a Cylon sleeper agent halfway through the game. It uses a similar mechanic of players contributing cards to complete missions and loyalty cards.