Now Playing: The Alters

In The Alters you play as Jan Dolski, the sole survivor of a deep space mining mission that’s gone disastrously wrong. Stranded on a hostile planet full of dangerous anomalies and the unrelenting approach of a sunrise that will incinerate everything in its path, Jan must find a way to survive and escape – but he won’t be able to do it alone.

Jan is going to need help and that’s where his ‘alters’ come in. Using the quantum computing technology of a mobile mining base combined with the special properties of the element ‘rapidium’, Jan can create clones of himself – but not just clones. These ‘alters’ are tailored by the quantum computer (QC) to fulfil specific roles that Jan cannot – a technician, a doctor or a scientist for example.

By analysing Jan’s life, the QC can create ‘branch’ life paths for the clones, giving them the necessary skills. The alters are created to be used like tools – not people. But they are people, and they’re all Jan. Or rather, they’re like an alternative version of Jan who made different choices in their life.

The Alters is one of the most unique games I’ve played in a long time. There’s a third person exploration aspect as you take Jan out onto the planet’s surface to locate and harvest the various resources you need, but also to investigate and overcome obstacles in your path. The game is split into three main acts, each of which takes place in a new location on the planet.

Each location is visually distinct and more expansive (and challenging to navigate) as you progress. Each also features new anomaly types to contend with. You’ll have to research and develop new tools in order to advance and escape the approaching sun. But everything you do costs resources, so you’ll also need to locate resource nodes and set up mining installations across each location and assign either Jan or his alters to operate them.

But when you return to your mobile base, the game switches tack to a base building and people management sim. You’re given a 2D side perspective of the base. This is where Jan and his alters live and work. It’s their home and their refuge from the radiation and anomalies on the surface and it’s also their only chance of escape.

As you progress through the game you’ll be able to expand the base, constructing new modules to gain access to new base functions – some required to produce the tools or resources you need to survive such as a workshop or a greenhouse – but others to improve the lives and moods of your alters such as personal accommodation or social spaces.

The alters are Jan, but they’re also not Jan and they don’t all necessarily get along with each other or with Jan himself. They’ve all ‘lived’ different lives and have different perspectives on life and on how to approach the situation they all find themselves in. And those are perspectives that Jan can learn from. Through his alters he can see all the different ways his life could have gone – for better or worse.

Expanding the base takes resources. A bigger base requires more resources to maintain. More alters require more food. The base management aspect of The Alters is a balancing act of various priorities – figuring out how to maximise your available resources, deciding what to research, what to build or where to assign your alters. Because if you can’t keep your base stable and operational and if you can’t keep your alters happy then they will turn against you.

I really love the story and character aspects of The Alters. It’s one of those thought-provoking premises that – yes, it’s been done before in other media – but it translates really well into a game thanks to the ability to give the player a choice in not only what kind of alters they want to create, but various choices throughout the story as to how they all (or just Jan) can survive and escape.

I don’t want to spoil any specific story aspects here because I think it’s best going into The Alters without knowing too much about the direction it takes but I can say I thoroughly enjoyed playing through the story and I certainly want to do a second run with a different selection of alters.

That said, I can’t say that your choice of alters in terms of gameplay progression really makes that much of a difference – you can build an infirmary without a doctor, for example, but even if you have a doctor alter, you’ll probably never need to ‘assign’ them to the infirmary because there’s never any real need to do so.

I do feel like they could have pushed the replay value more by making each alter choice more impactful upon how you progress and expand your base. The alters are all different in terms of personality and they each have their own ‘story’ to work through – but ultimately, you can assign them all to the same key roles (maintenance, mining and crafting) regardless of their specialisation.

I also have to mention a bug I hit during Act 1 that made me ‘fail’ the game despite completing the goals of an assigned task. I had to restart from scratch, losing 8 hours of play. That wasn’t super fun, but I did race back to where I was in much better shape in half the time. Once you understand all the systems of The Alters and how they connect and interact, it becomes a lot easier to manage.

Overall, The Alters is a very unique and original game that successfully combines an engaging premise with a strong narrative, great characters and a cool mix of third person exploration and base management. It’s one of those games where you can honestly say there’s nothing else quite like it and if you’re a fan of thought-provoking sci-fi then I definitely recommend checking it out.

8/10