The Alters wants you to face yourself again and again and again and
Every person encounters crossroads, where whatever decision you make will forever change your life’s trajectory. Some of these crossroads may not even feel very important. But the choices you’ve made are ultimately what brought you here today. Heck, the choices you made brought you to this video! What if you chose differently, though? How much would switching those choices change you? At what point do you become a different person? What if you got to meet that alternate version of you?
The Aters asks that fundamental question, ‘what if’, but from a much more pressing standpoint: the answers will potentially enable you to save yourself from lethal radiation on an distant planet. But, is it worth looking forward to? I’ll be breaking down how the preview played, and what I think in today’s post.
DISCLOSURE
But first, disclosure time! I was lucky enough to be invited to Warsaw, Poland by 11bitstudios to participate in a special press and creator preview of The Alters. So, a huge thank you to 11bitstudios for hosting the event and letting me be a part of it. We weren’t able to record footage of our own playthrough, but 11bit studios did provide us with footage from the preview build that we played. Finally, everything I share about the game today? My own thoughts and opinions. I’ll be sharing both what I liked, as well as what I’m still tentative about.
What is The Alters?
In case you haven’t seen or heard of The Alters, this is a game developed in-house by 11bit Studios, the team known from titles like This War of Mine and Frostpunk. Both of those titles leaned on emotionally heavy (as in, SUPER grim) narratives blended with strategic, survival-focused gameplay where you needed to manage resources, keep an eye on the passage of time, and navigate challenging social dynamics.
You play as Jan Dolski, the sole survivor of an expedition named, auspiciously, Project Dolly, to a distant planet in search of a unique and rare resource, Rapidium. For those who aren’t familiar: Dolly was the first cloned mammal back in the mid 90s and arguably one of the most famous sheep in history. Jan needs to figure out how to get off the planet and back to Earth, but it’s not a goal he can achieve by himself. Cue, the Alters. Using Rapidium, Jan can create Alters — alternate versions of himself tied to alternative actions during different ‘what if’ questions in his life. These Alters ARE Jan, but because of their divergent life experiences, they have distinct personalities and skills that can help (or hinder) the efforts to return home based on how you get along with them.
Jan on the ship // 11bitstudios
This core question of ‘what if’ is one I’m personally fascinated with, and for me, it’s the unique selling point to this game. Everything Everywhere All At Once, Spiderman: Into and Across the Spiderverse, and PLENTY of movies explore this idea, and while clones and the multiverse are not new to games, by any means, this is perhaps the first title that takes it to this particular level.
A CRASH LANDING
After Jan crash lands into this desolate planet, for the first couple of minutes, we get to explore and get the lay of the land. I don’t know what I was anticipating, but I was NOT expecting the controls to feel as smooth and natural as they did while initially exploring. It was a really pleasant surprise, considering both of the other 11bitstudios titles that I’ve played were more point and click focused.
I’ll admit: I was trying to speed on through the initial portion of the preview to get to the meat of the gameplay, but even with that intention in mind, I kept stopping to look around at the oil-slick water and the sky. This game is beautiful. The landscapes took my breath away, even though I don’t usually gravitate towards more grim and desolate-looking areas, which this is. As you explore, you’ll see lava fields, glowing ore lines, and even portions of land infused with rapidium.
As you explore the path, you stumble upon your comrade’s capsules, and none have survived. Your goal is clear: get to the main station — a giant wheel-shaped ship in the distance — and find a way off this planet.
Getting to the Wheel, you peel back another layer of this game and it’s multitudes. It’s critical to get the ship up and running and find a way to communicate with someone from back home, which means your first official foray out to collect resources and build a few tools.
RESOURCE COLLECTION & CRAFTING
The Alters blends a variety of mechanics and gameplay styles, which meant throughout my time with the demo, there was never a dull moment. There’s resource collection and exploring, building, crafting, base-organization, cooking, and creating (and interacting with) Alters. When managing your base, we get a more flat, doll-house perspective, reminiscent of This War of Mine. When exploring, you’ll be in third person perspective.
As you collect resources, it initially feels a bit rote. The area has sections with radiation you must keep away from, and there’s a decent amount of walking without that much visual variety. Collecting resources is straightforward — you hold down a button and time passes. The same happens when crafting in the workshop, cooking in the kitchen, etc etc.
Admittedly, I was hoping for more interaction with each task, as simply holding a button felt a little uninspired. As the preview progressed, we got some initial tools like pylons and a mining outpost (both craftable items) to help expedite the collection of resources but ALSO, it seems like we’ll be able to assign Jans to manage those elements. So, perhaps the rote-ness and simplicity of resource collecting is a not-so-subtle incentive to delegate tasks to the appropriate Alter if or when he’s created. While setting the optimal placement for the outpost felt a little clunky initially, I thoroughly enjoyed placing the path of the pylons, and generally found navigating the tool wheel was fine.
Exploring the planet can feel like a trek, but there are moments of striking beauty // 11bitstudios
I was also happy to learn that once you set up pylons and the mining outpost, you activate a fast travel point, allowing you to move quickly between your ship’s airlock, base entrance, or any other outpost. This tutorial element came up for me EXACTLY as I was wishing for fast travel, so kudos to the devs for timing that perfectly.
MEETING JAN…TECHNICIAN.
After reactivating the ship’s comms room, you receive bleak news from the mysterious voice on the other side of the line: the planet you’re on has a radioactive sun, and you need to run the ship to stay out of its range. The problem is that the ship is broken and you don’t have the skills to repair the engine to get moving.
The solution? The suspicious voice on the other side of the screen suggests you use the quantum computer and rapidium to create an Alter of Jan who DOES have those skills. Nevermind the fact that memories of your life, the timeline of your life, has been uploaded to the computer, as if they were ready for this very moment. Suspicious.
But, this brings me to my FAVORITE part of The Alters. You’re introduced to the Quantum Computer and what looks like a neuron strand filled with the timeline of Jan’s life with key moments highlighted: a fight where he didn’t stand up to his dad to help his mom. His choice to leave home. Meeting the love of his life. Losing the love of his life.
You’re prompted, by the game, to select one of the events to branch from. The first one is determined by the game: you’ll choose to stay home and stand up to your (abusive) father rather than leave home, and your mom, behind. This choice sets up an entirely separate timeline for Jan, creating an Alter who has the skills of a technician and can fix the ship. But this Jan has a strikingly independent personality, one that doesn’t enjoy relying on others — and initially doesn’t get along with our original Jan.
I want to add: every time we got new events in this neuron link, every time we added a branch, I couldn’t help myself: I read every. single. blurb. Getting to see the nuances, the similarities and differences between each Jan is not something that’ll get old to me, and I can see myself playing the heck out of this game JUST to unlock every possible Alter.
GAMEPLAY: GETTING TO KNOW THE ALTERS
As the preview progressed, we got to create two additional Alters (the number of alters available seems to be limited by the quantum slots in your ship, and you’ll eventually be able to unlock more). This means there’s the potential for different combinations of Jans on the ship, and potentially different endings based on the branches you choose and how you navigate the interpersonal relationships with them. Mechanically, hanging out at the base and navigating the more emotional elements of the game felt like a mash-up of The Sims, choice-based narrative games, and taking care of a tamogatchi (this is said with love. I love all of those things). It doesn’t get into the nitty gritty (I didn’t have to tell the Jan’s to go to the bathroom, for example) but that element of care-taking was evident to me.
The Wheel is your home away from home // 11bitstudios
The primary interaction I experienced in the demo was conversing with each Alter, as well as giving gifts. You can walk up to them while in the base, although if they don’t want to talk, they won’t. Alters can even ping you while you’re out exploring to see if you’d like to talk and take on side requests, and in these conversations, your responses will impact their feelings towards you as well as their feelings regarding to the situation you now share. I generally did my best to console and get along with each Alter, and quickly learned that because each Alter had a different personality, different types of responses resonated differently.
Again, the concept of the Alters themselves is the most interesting element of the game to me. Will the differences in your life choices be a source of grief and strife, or will you be able to find ways to get alone and bolster one another? How will the Alters interact with one another without you there?
I was a little disappointed that in my playthrough, I didn’t get to dive even deeper into the interactions with (and between) each Alter. I was able to have conversations with each Alter I created - Jan Technician, Jan Scientist, and Jan Miner, but I didn’t get to see them interact, nor did we get into any deeper conversations, so I’m unable to speak to how satisfying the management of the Jans will end up feeling at the end of the day. As it currently stands, I was constantly looking forward to seeing the personality of whoever was appearing next, and while I’m tentatively excited to see how the Alters all interact, I didn’t get to see any of that in-depth.
As an final note on the Alters: while the first Alter is bound narratively, after that, options up. I ended up selecting the scientist and a miner, but other paths I saw available included roles like botanist and guard. There were around 10 total potential Alter options I noted after the first one was created, and while I didn’t get a final count of how many there would be by the end of the game.
ESCAPE THE SUN
It’s easy to get lost in the minute by minute of this game. Each day is a mini gameplay loop within a longer block of time: the time it’ll take for the sun to reach where you’re currently stationed. Remember: your most pressing goal — other than making it back to earth — is to evade the radioactive sun, constantly moving around the planet, just out of its range. Each day ticks by with each second of real time equating to 1 minute of in-game time. And with approximately 24 hours, you’ll have to prioritize specific tasks. To ensure you’ve got the resources to keep moving.
I am curious to know how it’ll feel to have to pick up and move and restart at each point around the planet. Will we eventually circle back to where we were, and able to use previous resources we placed? Will we have to start fresh every single time? I only moved my ship once, so don’t have a ton to go by, but it does have the potential to feel a bit tedious, depending on how that ends up working.
Energy and time are finite. While there are about 24 hours in a day, you only will be able to — sustainably — work for a limited amount of time before each Jan becomes exhausted and unable to continue. In the evening, radiation will spike, forcing you to stay in your station and focus on tasks closer to home, like repairs and bonding with your Alters.
By the end of the preview, there were lots of questions with the narrative, but they were all ones that I was happy to have by the end. Who were the folks pulling the strings back on Earth? What happened to my crewmates (and was it intentional)? Why did my first alter have the number 3 on his jacket, but the Jan we were playing had 1. Is there a 2? If so, what happened to him?
I didn’t even get into the thread involving Lena, Jan’s first love. She plays a major role in all of Jan’s lives, and I think she will play a big role in Jan’s motivations by the end of the game.
It’s human to wonder what if, and the Alters encourage us to allow Jan to face the results of potential divergent past choices. At the end of the day, I wonder if he’ll be able to truly escape the consequences of his choices, regardless of how many divergent timelines he explores and Alters he creates.
A Rapidium store near your ship // 11bitstudios
THINGS I’M STILL CURIOUS ABOUT & POTENTIAL AREAS OF IMPROVEMENT
By the end of the preview, I was excited to play more, and I can say that this is a game I’m highly anticipating based on what we played… but I also want to acknowledge that the preview was quite linear and in the earliest parts of the game. I wonder how the game will feel when the training wheels are removed and there’s more room for error. Resources were superabundant, so I never got to the point where I felt like I needed to prioritize or plan, and I’m curious to see what the game feels like as the difficulty ramps up.
Finally, I’m curious about the consequences. How will the narrative address the broader consequence of Jan’s actions (creating Alters)? How will the game provide consequences to me, as the player, based on how I interact with the Alters and manage my resources? So far, while the narrative stakes felt high, as a player, the game was early enough that the urgency of the impending sunrise didn’t feel mechanically pressing, and my responses to the Alters didn’t feel like they impacted the progression — positively or negatively.
CONCLUSION
The Alters shows growth on the part of 11bitstudios. It flexes their ability to create highly cinematic and story-rich work, yet still builds upon the mechanical systems that we know they’re familiar with. It feels like an ambitious, but natural, next step in 11bit’s portfolio, and while there are questions I still am left wondering after this preview, I do feel like this is a game to keep an eye on if the premise intrigues you even a little bit. As someone who is often intimidated by survival, resource management, and base-building, it felt accessible. As someone who loves an emotional and character-driven story: I was hooked. And, as someone who normally doesn’t give a second thought about vehicles or ships in games…I actually felt pretty proud of my cozy lil space wheel and how I arranged it by the time the preview was done.
As always, I want to know what you think — let me know if you’re looking forward to The Alters in the comments below, and what draws you to the game (or, if it’s not your cup of tea, why not!)
