[cap-drop]A[/cap-drop]s the sole survivor of an ill-fated space exploration mission, Jan Dolski must do what he can to escape the planet upon which he’s marooned. In The Alters, Jan’s hopes of staying alive rely on himself – duplicates, alternates, clones, whatever you want to call them, Jan needs them to survive. Developed and published by 11 bit studios – the team behind challenging survive-a-thons This War of Mine and Frostpunk – The Alters is another entry in the survival’s growing pantheon, but with a complex narrative focus elevating the experience beyond what we’ve come to expect from the genre. Here’s 15 things to know before you buy.
What is it?
The Alters is a sci-fi survival sim with a distinct twist. You’ll assume control of space miner Jan Dolski who’s tasked with maintaining and modulating a wheellike base, working industriously to keep himself out of the sun’s rise for its radiation is strong enough to kill him. Aiding his mission to survive are duplicates of himself – the titular Alters. These duplicates are versions of his former self shaped by different life choices. As such, they harbour distinct skills, knowledge, and personalities.
Gameplay
At its core, The Alters is about survival: exploring, mining, scavenging, creating, sustaining, the staples of the survival experience are here. Using harvested materials to expand infrastructure makes up the bread and butter of The Alters’ experience, but it’s in the use of, or employment maybe, of Jan’s carbon-copies which creates a gameplay mesh of sub-genres. Yes, alongside base building, resource management, and time observation players will engage in a social sim. Strongly narrative-driven, interactions between Jan’s created Alters advances the game via managing of a host of psyches and personalities. In other words, Jan needs to keep everyone happy and motivated.
Creating Alters
To formulate these copies of himself, Jan uses a quantum computer system known as the ‘Tree of Life’ to simulate his life from certain points in history and the disparate trajectories other forms of himself would have taken based upon pivotal decisions they made. To bring these alternates to life, Jan must invest the resource Rapidium, a harvestable substance illuminating the dark recesses of this hostile planet.
The variety of Alters
Forging ahead down different paths has led to quite the variety of Alters, each with unique skills and emotional maturity. For instance, there’s a Botanist Jan who sacrificed his career for marriage, who practices empathy and understanding. Miner Jan followed in his father’s footsteps whilst highly skilled Technician Jan stood up to his father’s abuses. Players need to consider carefully which Jan to create at any given time as invariably they’ll prove useful to solve a particular problem. For instance, a scientist can research more optimum ways to survive the planet’s harsh climate, whilst a Jan with a medical background will prove invaluable in maintaining the health of the entire crew.
Ramifications of creation
Creating a professionally astute Alter can solve tangible on-base issues for Jan but might provide headaches in another way. See, someone who’s professionally accomplished presumably has ambition; they’ve led a life of high achievement. They might not take too kindly to being fed orders by someone who they perceive as a lesser version of themselves, and could opt to challenge Jan via insubordination, disrupting the culture of entire base in the process. There’s a tightrope players must walk between servicing the needs of their Alters without overstepping the mark.
Only one Alter can be created at a time
You might think it’d be a good idea to stock up worker Jans, or intelligent Jans to speed up maintenance or research tasks respectively but The Alters does not allow you to do this. Only one variation of a particular Jan can be created during individual playthroughs. Reason being each Alter is their own person. Less an NPC, more an integral thread in a wider tapestry; their own independent thoughts and emotions feed narrative arcs which branch away from the main storyline.
Branching storylines
Yes, alongside The Alters’ main storyline are the branching narratives of individual Alters’ which can shift in numerous directions depending on player decisions. Each conversation, every dialogue choice, each decision made, and order given, can lead a particular Alter down one path or another, one of anger, sadness, or elation. How these narrative systems will function cohesively underneath the main storyline is intriguing. There’s undeniable complexity here.
The Alters is designed for replayability
Of course, all this narrative potential can lead players down some unique paths. One person’s experience with the game can differ greatly from another’s. Chuck into the mix the fact that 11 bit studios have confirmed its impossible to unlock every Alter during a single playthrough, then we have a game on our hands that’s designed to be played through multiple times, with wholly different experiences on offer each time.
Survival mechanics
Back to the aforesaid bread and butter, to survive the harsh realities of this alien planet and keep Jan’s mobile base operational, players will need to collect precious metals, organic materials, and a raft of other resources which can then be crafted into new modules or speciality items built for a specific Alter and the tasks they must undertake. The sun’s rise brings intense radiation, so the mobile, big-wheel base must be constantly on the move.
Exploration
In addition to the just-mentioned survival mechanics, The Alters presents a planet laced with dangerous anomaly, invisible risk, and the threat of instant death. Venturing outside the confines and relatively safety of Jan’s base is fraught with peril, but there are a handful of options to tip the odds in Jan and his Alters’ favour. Those craftable special items? They include anomaly detectors and radiation filters, which can be deployed to extend exploration’s reach. However, as you might expect by now, crafting one item comes at the cost of making something else integral to survival.
Base building
Expanding Jan’s base feeds into the overarching demand to maintain a healthy culture amongst the on-board Alters. From a tyre with innards resembling the cross-section of a Fallout bunker to a colossal, circular megastructure, the direction players can design and iterate their bases is substantial. Every additional module, occupational or social, like a research lab or breakout room, will push the mission forward in its own way, but it’ll be impossible to please everyone.
Themes and dilemmas
The paradoxical ‘what if’ scenario we’ve all thought of: what if I had or hadn’t done this, would my life be different now? Would I have met the people I know now? Would I even live in the same place? Would I still be alive? In Jan Dolski creating multiple versions of himself there’s an argument here he’s messing with freewill. Pragmatic their creation may be, The Alters doesn’t shy away from the ethical considerations in forming life from simulations of– truth be told – instances which never happened. Exemplifying this is an ongoing discussion between Alters as to what will happen to them. If they escape the hostile planet, where will they go? They don’t have homes to go to. They don’t have family. Does their future have meaning beyond the base? These are interesting conundrums which – fingers crossed – the game explores to its full potential.
Release date, platforms, price
The Alters releases on Friday June 13th to PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC via Steam. It’ll also be available day one via Game Pass. Priced at £28.99 / $34.99 with a 10% discount available up until release date for PS Plus subscribers.
Deluxe edition
The Alters Deluxe Edition will retail for £39.99 / $49.49 and included with the base game is an exclusive in-game outfit, one DLC pre-paid, and a digital copy of the game’s soundtrack composed by Piotr Musial, an artist with scores for This War of Mine, Frostpunk, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, and Diablo IV to his name.
PC requirements
Minimum PC requirements for The Alters include an AMD Ryzen 5 1600 or Intel Core i7-6700 processor, AMD Radeon RX 570, Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060, or Intel Arc A570 6+ GB GPU and 16GB RAM. Recommended specs demand an AMD Ryzen 5800X or Intel Core i7-8700K processor, AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT, Nvida GeForce RTC 2070, or Intel Arc A770 8+ GB GPU, and 16GB RAM. 50GB storage is required.
