*A review code for The Alters was provided.
I’m slowly going bald. Out of everyone in my immediate family, I’ve been blessed with the thinnest hair. It’s not yet at the “lonely island on my scalp” stage, but the clippers are grinning at me from across the room. They know it’s only a matter of time before I surrender.
You might be thinking one of two things right now:
1. Why are you telling me this? I’m here for a The Alters review.
2. If you’re the only one in your family, where did that baldness come from?
I’ve had my suspicions for a while, but now I’m convinced: stressful games are to blame. And after playing The Alters, those clippers have never felt closer.
This review is completely spoiler-free.
The Alters: Literally More of the Same, and Yet, Truly Unique
The Alters, developed by 11 Bit Studios (the minds behind Frostpunk and This War of Mine), follows Jan Dolski, an employee of Ally Corp. After crash-landing on an unknown planet, he finds himself completely alone. The rest of his crew has died under unexplained circumstances.
This isn’t exactly a solo mission, even if someone like Matt Damon from The Martian might disagree. But Jan Dolski is not Matt Damon. Instead of relying solely on himself, he has to make the unusual decision to clone himself and assembles a team of Jan Dolskis.
These aren’t just carbon copies. Each clone is a version of Jan who made different decisions at key points in life. That interesting concept grabbed my attention immediately.
The game presents a clean timeline of your Jan Dolski’s major life events; both the highs and the lows. This doesn’t just help you connect with the character. It also highlights the moments where the other versions, the Alters, made different choices.
Because of those choices, the Alters branched off and ended up with different lives. Each one has a unique expertise like scientist, botanist, or miner. They also have their own personalities, frustrations, and needs. And as it turns out, dealing with alternate versions of yourself can be…challenging.
If Only I Could Create an Alter Who Was Good at Multitasking
Keeping yourself and your Alters alive means managing a lot of tasks at once, and always under time pressure. Every few weeks, you need to find a way to move your base, which takes the form of a giant wheel, before the sun floods the area with dangerous radiation and ends your run.
That alone requires a huge amount of resources. To get the base moving, you need large amounts of Organics. The planet you are stranded on also contains metal, minerals, and rapidium. You will need a serious supply of all of them to craft the tools necessary to make it through this mission.
But if you think moving the base is the only thing you have to focus on, you are mistaken. You are in this together, which means you also need to keep your Alters happy. I always say that happy workers are good workers, and that applies here as well. If not, you might end up with a full-on rebellion.
And that is not all. You also need to protect your base from daily radiation by making sure you have enough filters running. Your Alters need food. They would also prefer not to sleep on the floor. On top of that, any new additions you build for your base, like a workshop or a kitchen, will regularly break down and need repairs.
Phew…Just writing about it makes me feel stressed already. Let’s zoom out a bit.
Resources Are Needed for Everything You Do, Which Makes Setting up Outposts Essential
To keep your base safe and maybe even a little comfortable, you need resources. Unfortunately, they do not just fall into your lap. You will have to scour the environment to gather the materials you need in time.
Thankfully, the game provides a clear and user-friendly map (see, it really is not that hard, developers) that shows exactly which areas you have not explored yet. By working your way through each section, which is nicely contained per location, you will come across various resource nodes. Some deposits can be emptied quickly, but if you want a reliable and endless supply, you will need to build a resource outpost.
These special sites only appear in specific areas on the map. When you discover one, you begin by scanning to locate the deepest point of the deposit. Once you have found it, you can build the outpost. Of course, building it also costs resources, because nothing in this game is ever free.
“Once the process is complete and your outpost is built and properly linked, it feels incredibly satisfying.“
Even after building the outpost, you are not done yet. To make it functional, you first need to link it back to your base using pylons. And guess what? Those pylons also cost resources. Pylons can connect both outposts and fast travel points, and each one only covers about 15 meters. Everything you place on the map needs to be connected to the network in order to receive power.
Once the process is complete and your outpost is built and properly linked, it feels incredibly satisfying. You can assign one of your Alters to the outpost or go there yourself and start reaping the rewards as materials begin to flow in.
But before you find one of these resource-rich locations, you will often run into a few other challenges first.
Exploring the Planet Is No Walk in the Park
The Alters covers several genres, but it is not a shooter. Don’t expect hostile aliens that you have to fight in intense gun battles. However, the planet isn’t exactly welcoming. It’s not people or aliens standing in your way, but anomalies.
These distortions in the environment expose Jan to significant radiation if you get too close. If you accumulate too much radiation, you will perish and have to start the day over from the beginning. The Alters only saves once per day, and that happens when you wake up. This adds even more pressure because it is frustrating to see all your hard work wiped out at once.
Early in the game, these anomalies are fairly easy to avoid if you don’t run around like a headless chicken and take your time. But as the game progresses, they become more persistent and aggressive. Fortunately, you are not completely defenseless. Each anomaly contains a core that you can destroy using your luminator (which you do have to craft first).
Using the luminator consumes battery power. You can choose to craft extra batteries to provide it with ‘ammo’, or try to carefully avoid the anomalies. You will also need your battery to climb hills.
Every day, you have to make choices. What will you prioritize today? If you want to set up a new outpost, make sure you have enough pylons with you. Want to explore new, higher terrain? Bring enough battery power. The Alters creates a strong sense of urgency, which greatly enhances the overall experience.
You Can Delegate Many Tasks to Your Alters
You don’t just choose your own priorities; you also decide what your Alters focus on. As mentioned before, each Alter has their own specialty. For example, the Miner is especially efficient at mining metal outposts, while the Botanist is skilled at quickly growing raw food, which another Alter can then prepare in the kitchen.
Besides your main tasks, which is usually to get your base moving, you’ll also receive various side quests from your Alters or other contacts.
It’s up to you which tasks you prioritize and how you delegate work accordingly. For instance, if there’s a specific tool you need to craft in the workshop that requires a lot of metal, you’ll definitely want to have someone assigned to the metal outpost that day.
At the same time, you need to craft enough items to keep your base and your Alters safe. By setting a certain uphold, you can ensure your Alters always produce a specific amount of a certain item. Once they finish, they’ll suggest taking on a new task.
Sometimes, not everything you want to accomplish in a day is possible due to lack of time or resources, and then you’ll have to make some tough decisions.
After a Hectic Workday, It’s Time to Socialize
If you go to bed on time and don’t exhaust Jan too much, your workday starts at 7:00 AM (two hours earlier than those lazy Alters of yours). You can spend the whole day indoors helping with various tasks around the base, or you can head outside to explore until evening.
When radiation forces you indoors, you still have until 11:30 PM to socialize. You can start conversations with your Alters to learn more about them and, hopefully, build a connection. The answers you give will affect each Alter’s mood.
It’s important to understand the personality of each Alter. For example, with my work-focused, less emotional scientist, I often chose answers that went against my own feelings. He prefers that you focus on the mission rather than on his or his colleagues’ emotions.
You will also sometimes receive calls from people who are closely following your mission. They have their own interests in what you decide to do.
By building certain modules, like the Social Room, you can relax a bit. Here, you can play beer pong with your teammates, which boosts their mood and is a fun little mini-game. You can also watch found movies with your Alters in this room, giving everyone a one-time mood boost.
Building these modules is fun as well. Each module takes up a certain amount of space and needs to connect properly to a lift, corridor, or another room. Constructing your base is like solving a puzzle; you have to fit everything in the right place. If it doesn’t fit, you may need to rearrange some other rooms or expand your base further.
I Hope My Alters Wouldn’t Be Such Ungrateful Jerks
Keeping your Alters happy can be just as challenging as keeping them alive. To some extent, this adds an interesting gameplay mechanic, but sometimes I felt the game went a bit too far with it.
Of course, providing your team with beds, food, and protection from radiation is essential. If you don’t do that, their frustration is understandable. But my Jan Dolski supported his Alters every step of the way and risked his life for the most demanding and far-reaching requests. And yet, they still sometimes dared to rebel. That didn’t just feel unfair at times, it also felt a bit unrealistic.
“Keeping your Alters happy can be just as challenging as keeping them alive.“
If I had Alters, one might be more educated because he worked harder in school. Another might have made something of his game design degree or continued writing novels and become a bestselling author. And another could have been fit from head to toe because he actually had some discipline.
But one thing I know for sure; they would have shown gratitude if someone had done as much for them as my Jan Dolski did.
I just had to get that out of my system, and it feels good. If only I could’ve told them.
The Alters Stands Out as a Survival Game by Offering an Engaging Narrative
Admittedly, I haven’t played many survival games. Not just because they often stress me out a bit, but mainly because most rely heavily on survival mechanics rather than on the story.
What drew me to The Alters right away, and kept me hooked, was the story and the character development of all the different Jans. For anyone who feels hesitant about survival games for the same reasons, I highly recommend The Alters.
The core idea is the same as most survival games: gather enough resources to escape a hopeless situation. But The Alters is much more than that. It shows how our lives, and those of the people close to us, can take vastly different paths based on the choices we make.
Making choices is also crucial within the game itself. There are multiple endings, each depending on the decisions you make. If that’s not reason enough for replayability, consider that you can’t create all your Alters in a single playthrough. This means there are still some Alters whose life stories I haven’t experienced and whose side quests I haven’t completed.
And about that stress? Maybe I exaggerated a bit. I admit I was overwhelmed at first, but once I got the hang of the mechanics, I managed to complete most tasks well on time. So don’t let that stop you from experiencing this unique game.
Some Loose Scraps
- Jan Dolski is voiced by Alex Jordan, who also voiced Rook in Dragon Age: The Veilguard and Mr. Hands in Cyberpunk 2077.
- Terrance Maxwell is voiced by Doug Cockle, the legendary voice actor behind Geralt of Rivia in The Witcher series.
- Okay, one more: Agatha Wilson is voiced by Bethan Dixon Bate, known for voicing Vlaakith in Baldur’s Gate 3.
- 11 Bit Studios has played their own “saving up on resources” game by coming up with a clever reason to justify reusing a character model and voice actor. Next-level game design.
- Compared to 11 Bit Studios’ other game, Frostpunk, The Alters feels like a breeze. That game is definitely a must-play for die-hard survival fans.
- Fun challenge: think about how your Alters’ lives might look. What different choices would they have made, and what would the outcome be?
Conclusion
The Alters blends genres in a way we don’t see too often; a survival game built around a compelling narrative, shaped by your choices.
Its concept is fresh and stays interesting throughout the roughly 30-hour playtime. It’s challenging enough to get your heart rate up (especially if you’re new to survival games), but rarely unfair. Once you understand the mechanics, there’s usually enough time to get things done.
Each in-game day throws new dilemmas your way. And with the game only saving once per day, one wrong step can wipe out a lot of progress. That adds tension and makes you think twice, though it can also lead to some frustration if you miscalculate.
Still, if you’re looking for a survival game that doesn’t just test your resource management but also tells a meaningful, personal story, The Alters is well worth your time.
