The Alters Review (PC)

What would you do with an army of you? That’s the question posed by 11 Bit’s The Alters, though the stakes are a bit more dire than that may seem. With life and death a simple choice away, The Alters tasks us with working together, making tough choices, and dealing with the fallout – and it’s bloody entertaining, if mind-melting, stuff to boot. 

We play as Jan Dolski, a builder aboard a deep space exploration vessel that runs into issues and crash lands upon a far flung planet. Jan is the sole survivor, and initially it seems that this won’t remain the case for long; his supplies are gone, his crew dead, and he has no idea where he is. After luckily finding the base of operations that came with them still intact, he begins a seemingly fruitless endeavour to survive. 

Things start of chaotic and only grow from there. Not only does Jan not know where he is, or why he was the only survivor, he also must contend with incredibly harsh land and climates, and the impending sunrise which will fry him in an instant. Getting the base moving from this sunrise is key, and to do this we need to scavenge resources and build key parts to get more of the base working. He can’t do this alone though, and after happening across Rapidium (the reason the vessel and crew were out in space to begin with) he learns that he can create Alters of himself; alternate timeline Jan’s that come with different life experiences, skills, and personalities. 

Within an hour or so we have created Jan’s first Alter, and it’s here that the seed is sown for just how tricky this is going to be. Gathering resources alone is tough, but they also don’t deplete as fast. A second pair of hands helps, but also will rinse through limited supplies much quicker. The Alters thrives on a constant state of battle and balance, and it can be exhilarating to manage as we go from harvesting organics to make food, to minerals or metals to build more rooms on base, to needing to power all of this with more Rapidium and people.

Each day we get a rough 12 hour period to complete tasks, with each one taking up valuable time. Mining, exploring, conversations, and more just pile up, and it soon becomes a game of picking one option over many in order to survive. We can push past the time limit at the risk of becoming exhausted and reducing our output the next day, and while this may seem daft, there will be times where we need that extra push in order to not be fried or starve the next morning. 

Those Alters become more and more important, and each new one created is a joy to behold as well as another possible sticking point, depending on how you treat them. We have half a dozen or so to choose from, with a scientist, doctor, or shrink complimented by more blue collar labour in technicians, refiners, and gardeners. Each offers a set of skills and traits that prove vital, but despite all being based on one Jan, come equipped with a broad set of personalities and styles that will eventually clash with you and the others.

As with the more literal resource management, carefully cultivating the Alters is a tricky task. The doctor and technician might never see eye to eye, but they both agree that Jan fucked up in helping another character over them. Or certain key choices will leave us in the bad books of those we’ve grown to trust and rely on, possibly alienating them altogether. 

Each of the Alters are brilliantly portrayed though, with Alex Jordan proving more than capable in making each Jan feel unique while still having the same basic look and feel. The doctor sounds smart without being condescending (the latter can’t be said of the scientist), the miner gruff and blunt, the shrink softly spoken and gentle, and so on. If the time constraints weren’t so tight I’d have loved to speak to each of them more, but alas it’s impossible to see everything in one playthrough. Handily, the game will notate which dialogue choices we’ve made in the past, so repeat plays can easily be mixed up.

Make no mistake, The Alters is – if you couldn’t tell already – a tough game. 11 Bit really don’t hold our hand here, and a poor choice made on day 5 might not come back to bite us until day 15, at which point it’s either reload from day 5 and try again, or go back fewer days and try to be more efficient. I ‘lost’ about 5 hours of playtime due to poor planning, and while initially I was a bit peeved, it allowed me to go back and be far more time conscious, letting me survive further and make it to a new act. 

And that’s the key to what makes The Alters great in my eyes. It’s punishing, and there’s a constant state of stress and panic as we try to spin dozens of plates at once. But, it’s also immensely satisfying to pull off a great day’s work, or resolve a dispute to get everyone back on the same page (as temporary as that may be). The moral and ethical quandaries 11 Bit have cooked up are truly tough, but never anything less than engaging to deal with, from what kind of food to grow to who gets the lead in a vital mission’s method of attack. Backed up by the fantastic Alter crew, I found myself keen to hop back in and play even when I was on the backfoot. 

It’s not all roses though. We played this for review on PC, and while we were warned of a few technical hiccups, The Alters performed pretty dreadfully at times. There’s a long wait for shader precompilation on each load, and performance would be a random chance between excellent and running at single digit frames, or simply crashing outright. We had about a 50/50 chance of the game crashing upon going into the Quantum Computer (where we make new Alters), and because the game is only saved once at the start of each day, frequently lost progress because of it. Updates and patches alleviated some issues, but others remain up until writing this review. We really hope 11 Bit can iron out some kinks, and that console performance is better as there’s such a great game here it’d be a shame for the technical side to let things down.

Conclusion

Technical issues aside, we’ve had a great time playing The Alters. It poses tough choices and requirements to the player, and gives us a tight time limit and a thousand other things to keep track of, all while teasing us with new exposition or areas to explore that we’ll never get to in one sitting. It’s a tough game, but give it the time it deserves and you find yourself deeply invested in Jan(s) home.

This game was tested and reviewed on PC (via Steam). All of the opinions and insights here are subject to that version. Game provided by the publisher.