A playable demo for the PlayStation 2 was released on March 25, 2002. In an interview with GameSpot on April 1, Universal Interactive producer Peter Wanat explained "the trust-fear dynamic was born out of the film and the simple fact that we needed to give the main character NPCs to interact with. That whole not knowing who is human and who is "the thing" was a big part of the movie and worked for the game really well." Wanat cited games such as "Resident Evil", "Silent Hill", "Grand Theft Auto III" and "Max Payne" as influences. However, he stated;