The Alters

In 2010, a Polish indie game dev named 11 Bit Studios formed and helped make the Anomaly series for publisher Headup Games. This series did pretty alright. Enough to create a sequel, but despite the mild success of Anomaly the developers decided to break off and work independently. They’ve gained enough experience and funding to work all on their own, and in 2014 the team made and published their own title. This War of Mine, a game often credited for being one of the most depressing gaming experiences out there. A game that managed to tell a powerful message through both gameplay and emergent situations. Following the player controlling a small group of survivors as they struggle to survive in an active warzone. It’s tough as nails and is not afraid to kill the player in unexpected ways. Forcing them to make tough decisions to push through. It’s not the most fun game out there, but in some ways it communicated its message pretty well. That war isn’t fun. That we’ve been desensitized through how war is depicted in the media. How often books, movies, and games fantasize war to a disgusting degree. Proof that games don’t always have to be fun. Engaging with a piece of art is better than forcing it to be what you want.

It’s an important title when it comes to the discussion of war games, and it helped kick 11 Bit to the massive success they have today. After the completion of This War of Mine they’d go on to make Frostpunk. Another grueling game, but considered by many to be one of the greatest city builder games of all time. Turning a relaxing genre into a challenging resource management game about survival. Frostpunk was nominated for numerous awards in 2018, received a ton of expansions with time, and a sequel in 2024. 11 Bit Studios have been kicking so hard that they’re no longer just an indie game studio. They have gone onto becoming their own publisher, what they once worked for, and now help numerous indie studios get their names out there. Titles like Moonlighter, Children of Morta, and Indika. This doesn’t mean they stopped developing games as their most recent entry is the most experimental and ambitious title they’ve made. The Alters, a survival game all about resource and time management. Utilizing high end modern technology to create detailed environments, and having multiple systems at play just like previous games. Multiple choices and branching paths each playthrough mean one run can be different to another.

What makes The Alters unique though is its main premise. What if the only thing you could rely on to help survive were alternate versions of yourself? Clones to fulfill jobs you can’t possibly do or don’t have the time to do all at once? Individuals with their own personalities and lives you must come to terms with understanding. A premise that only sparks variety in terms of gameplay, but moral complexity as each individual brings questions to be answered and if not wonderment on what you’ll do to get by. I remembered seeing this game get revealed back in 2022, and being impressed by the idea. However, it’s from a studio who makes a style of games I’m not a fan of. I heavily respect them and the balls they have to put the content they put into This War of Mine and Frostpunk. They've made games that open our mind to real world issues they critique. However, when I hear the words “survival game with resource management and time crunching” I feel stressed out, because I know it’s either my life is gonna get sucked away or I won’t end up having fun after four hours. Which is exactly what happened when I gave This War of Mine a go last year. So I was skeptical with The Alters. I knew it would be good, but I didn’t expect to love it as much as I did. You know how much I love it? I crank 15 hours in the span of two days.

The Alters is one of my favorite games of 2025. It’s rivaled with Clair Obscur for being choice for Game of The Year, and in some ways it managed to resonate with me more as a person. I’m noticing a trend that my favorite games of the year are all emotionally engaging titles, and it’s a good thing as it’s shown how far games have gotten into becoming art. The Alters enthralled me from start to finish, and made me fall in love with a style of games I normally don’t enjoy. It is a wonderful blend between gameplay and storytelling. It’s one thing to make a game with a great narrative and fun gameplay. It’s another thing to make it so both have a tight relationship. Just an incredible game overall, and while it may not be a game for everyone I think it’s worth giving a shot. It doesn’t overstay its welcome, says what it needs to say, and even at full price it’s more affordable than most big games out there. 11 Bit Studios delivered everything they planned with this game and I am extremely excited to discuss it with you all about it today. Today we’ll be talking about why I adored The Alters and why it utterly deserves your attention. The days just keep getting crazier and crazier.

Story

Just about every science fiction game set in the future sees humanity improving space travel, so let’s skip to the part you really care about. Our journey follows Jan Dolski as he joins AllyCorp for a dangerous mission. Jan’s life hasn’t been the greatest. He still has trauma from all the abuse he endured from his alcoholic father, regret for not being there when his mother died, the failed relationship with his wife Lena, and never achieving anything significant. Jan’s tired of it all and wishes to escape it. Run away from the past and leave all his problems behind. When things got too hard he was forced to work for AllyCorp to make ends meet. Be shot up into space to help with a mining operation. Humanity had discovered an extraordinary resource on a faraway planet called Rapidium. Using it with the proper machinery allows an individual to create natural life and resources within a few hours. Perfect for helping solve any ongoing food shortages. The mining team goes to explore the planet, collect Rapidium, and bring it back to earth. However, the operation does not go as they planned. The ship malfunctions as the team begins descending towards the planet, and everyone flees to their designated evacuation pods. Jan lands safely on the planet's surface, and begins locating the crew hoping they survived.

He discovers the lifepods of his crew, and horrifyingly finds they all died upon landing. Luckily there is a base nearby for Jan to take shelter from the approaching radiation storm. A base that’d normally take multiple people to operate, but now only has one member. Jan attempts to call for AllyCorp support, but the unstable frequency and poor maintenance of the base leads to a hard time. He does manage to receive a voicecall, and the voice instructs him to collect resources to fuel the base. Jan does so by exploring the area and setting up mining outposts, but along the way he found Rapidium. AllyCorp is thrilled knowing the planet has what they want, and the voice on the other side of the line instructs Jan to use it. Jan incubates a sheep, and afterwards is given a new idea to help with his survival. The Quantum Computer aboard the base contains a record of his entire life, and by changing different choices Jan made he can conjure alternative versions of himself. Alters who can perform tasks he has no knowledge or experience in. Jan does exactly that and forms a technician to fix the base, gather resources faster, and escape the radioactive sun slowly rising in the distance. With the base now fully operational Jan is able to gain more help from AllyCorp representatives. Those being space traffic controller Lucas, scientist Maxwell, and his ex-wife Lena who’s trying to rise up the corporate ladder. He’s told the only way he can escape the planet is reaching a rendezvous point, and as time goes on he’ll uncover more dangers and challenges on the planet. Jan will have to forge several clones, the Alters, if he wants to get off the planet and through them he’ll learn more about himself and what it means to be better.

Gameplay

The game feels like a massive blend of multiple games I’ve played before, and while there have been tons of games in the past that try to blend multiple genres and struggle, this one works very well. The Alters is what happens when you take This War of Mine and mix it with Fallout Shelter and a little bit of Death Stranding. Your goal is simple. Build a way forward so your base can progress onto the next area, but to do so you need to fulfill multiple steps. Research the plans to forge the structures you need to move onward, and to forge things require resources and time. You’ll have to explore to find resource deposits and they come in two forms. Shallow deposits that can be mined within short periods of time but are limited, and shallow deposits which give infinite amounts but are more time consuming. Outposts have to be set up for deep deposits, and be linked to your base through network lines. Once done you can freely fast travel between your outposts, which saves time. You also have to worry about food for each day, base maintenance as nightly radiation and occasional magnetic storms have the ability to destroy modules, and manage your health. All of this is difficult to do on your own, and if you don’t manage to move onto the new area within a certain amount of time the sun rises. Scorching everything including all the hard work you’ve done. There is a way to make things easier.

You have your clones, The Alters, and they can be formed using the Quantum Computer and the Womb. Using Rapidium you’ve gathered allows the formation of an Alter after seven in game hours. Alters have the ability to perform jobs to save time. Some jobs cannot be done by you or specific Alters. For example, you need the Technician to fix the base and you need the Scientist to research upgrades you can utilize. Some Alters like the Miner or Botanist may make collecting certain resources faster and more plentiful. What makes things interesting is that the Alters aren’t just clones who mindlessly work away. They were formed by changing important choices made in Jan’s life, and their lives and personalities will be different than yours. The first thing they’ll do upon awakening is tell you what they were sent on the mission for, and it’s different than why you came. They’ll be panicked learning about the current situation, and you have to juggle your relationship with them. Tending their needs, keeping them calm and happy, and trying to prevent them from clashing with surrounding Alters. Those with low relationship status and are stressed will work less or take longer amounts of time to do things. Those on the high end will be easier to manage. It’s very important you carefully consider what Alters you want to make as you only have so many crew slots in a single playthrough and some are only unlocked through discovering certain Alters. A bonus you may unlock through spending time with Alters are lessons, and they may unlock different dialogue options Jan can use to manage his relationships or discover new ways of solving problems. Get what you need, fulfill objectives, and progress. New areas bring new problems to overcome and require better time management to move on. Hopefully you can do just that, make it to the extraction point, and figure what to do after all is said and done.

Thoughts

The Alters is a masterpiece. A wonderful piece of work that manages to mix together challenging gameplay, emergent situations, moral choices, and more into a beautifully written narrative about self reflection. Earlier in the review I said it’s one thing to make a game with good gameplay and writing, but it’s another to tie both together tightly. What I meant by this is that it’s hard to make a game where what you do in the gameplay affects the story, and vice versa. A choice you could make during an important dialogue scene may make the experience easier or harder, and a choice you make during gameplay changes the way the narrative plays out. Whenever I think of stories driven by player choice I think of RPGs like Baldur’s Gate 3 or Fallout: New Vegas. Games that are heavily impacted by what the player decides to roleplay as. However, in The Alters there is only one role you can really fulfill. That being the leader of this entire operation. A commander that can steer the crew towards safety. You are Jan Dolski. You have a preset background, single personality, and specific story scenes always happen no matter what you do. It's a known tool in games called “the illusion of choice” and The Alters utilizes this well. Ensuring just about every player’s playthrough is similar, but not so similar that they all feel the same. Choices do matter at times, and you constantly think whether you go through them.

A good example of this is in Act 1. You need to forge polymers so you can craft bridge anchors, and the only way to do so is with a refiner. You need to collect refined metals to craft polymers, so I made the Miner. However, another choice I could’ve made was the Refiner who could more easily produce the Polymers. Saving time and allowing me to focus on other things. Resources I needed became difficult to make, and for a second I thought I made a terrible choice. However, the Alter that I made before the Miner was the Botanist. In his lifetime he managed to maintain a relationship with Lena, our wife, and he gives me advice on how to calmly talk to her. I follow through and Lena gives me an alternative solution to make the polymers. Grow them using the Rapidium I’ve collected and plant them in the greenhouse. Something I had and wait I have the Botanist with me who can grow them faster! Notice what I just described here. It felt like I was about to be heavily punished by the game, but it accommodated one of the alternative choices I made earlier in my playthrough. It felt rewarding, because something I wasn’t expecting to work played in my favor in the end. While you could argue the game is failing to challenge me in this given situation I still appreciated how it played out. How investments I made in specific Alters and stations played out. Preparing myself in another way brought a good outcome.

There are a lot of moments in The Alters where I thought my entire playthrough was screwed. It ramps up difficulty by introducing magnetic storms where your base is torn apart easily if you’re not careful, and each time these happen the sun approaches. Making the environment worse and letting nighttime radioactive rain happen faster. There was one point I left my mining outposts behind, because I didn’t have enough storage. It led to Act 2 being the most difficult for me, but with good time management and utilization of my crew I pulled through into the final act. One of the greatest feelings I had gameplay-wise this year. The gameplay itself is really good even if it’s part of a genre of games I don’t like. Base management is all about laying each module so they all fit within a given space, similar to inventory management in Resident Evil 4. The exploration is fun as you discover resource outputs and shortcuts that lead back to homebase. Being able to fast travel between outposts cuts down backtracking, and even when you do backtrack I wouldn’t say it’s too annoying. Maps are big but not so big and sprawling that it becomes confusing. Your Alters can be assigned to tasks via a menu screen, and the UI here is nice. Does a good job laying everything out, making it easy to navigate, and creating what you need by the end of each day. I also like the feature when Alters are done doing specific tasks they ask if you want them to work on something else. Makes things easier without opening the menu.

What impresses me the most, as with many others, are of course the Alters of The Alters. They’re the result of Jan making different choices in his life, and they function well both from gameplay and story perspectives. You create them to perform tasks original Jan can’t do, and you can’t help but feel sad. Knowing Jan could’ve been more successful and happy if he had made different choices in life. Events he regrets to this day. That’s one of the main themes of The Alters, regret. Wishing you could go back to make things better. To want a life better than the one you’re stuck in. However, it doesn’t mean your Alters are all better than you. Miner Jan for instance lost his arm in a workplace accident, got fired for not meeting quota, and became addicted to painkillers. So his relationship involves you handling his drug addiction, and mental breakdowns when he screams about an arm he lost suddenly being back. You have Doctor Jan who regrets choosing to save your mother over other patients in line. Betraying his oath and soon enough going down a dark path of bad choices. Hoping to redeem himself with the new life you gave him. Balancing relationships is fun as not only do you have to pay attention to who these people are and select dialogue choices carefully, but know when you should and shouldn’t dedicate time. You’re trying to work against the clock afterall, or in other words the sun you don’t want to be cooked by.

Visually the game is very impressive especially for an indie studio. Each environment is different from the last, and the world does a great job at feeling alien. You’re alone, but you know there is something wrong and when it does take you by surprise you can’t help but jump in your seat. A feeling of knowing it’s there, but not in the way you thought. I really want to highlight the voice acting, and how every single version of Jan is voiced by one individual, Alex Jordan. He has an amazing range and the fact he’s able to do all this for a twenty hour long game is stunning. The game ends just when it needs to, and the ending depending on what you choose is satisfying. See how far Jan has come into becoming a better person. Learning from his Alters, reflecting on who he was, and choosing to grow. That’s the whole message of The Alters. To grow as a person. To not let past struggles and trauma hold you back. Learning to move on not just for yourself, but for other people. A message I and many others are able to connect to as the world becomes more crazy each day and you’re forced to make tricky decisions to help yourself and your well being.

Now there are a few complaints I have with the game. It’s one of 11 Bit Studios most ambitious and polished games to date, but there’s still that indie feel to it. A few rough edges and holdbacks that remind me this is an indie game. Exploration is fun, but controlling Jan ranges from being real smooth to him not being able to walk down a small elevation as there’s no way to jump. Just climb small ledges or grapple hooks. The game looks nice, but despite having great voice acting characters have stiff animations similar to Mass Effect or Fallout. It’s the “I am a robot” dialogue conversations that continue to this day with many games. At least here I can understand why as it’s an indie studio. Don’t know why Bethesda does this to this day. You can have a maximum of six Alters in a single playthrough, and there’s like ten of them to unlock. While I can understand this for balancing reasons such as not having a large crew to do everything or too many mouths to feed it does suck I can’t see everything these guys can do together. That and two of these slots have to be the Technician and Scientist, meaning you really only get to choose four Alters in a playthrough. Remember the Miner earlier? During the second act I needed the Shrink to fulfill his questline, but I couldn’t do that as you need to unlock the Doctor before doing so. And the Doctor was what I used my last crew slot on Meaning I failed the quest.  

My last complaint is one Yahtzee Croshaw made in his review in that some Alters are better than others. The Shrink felt like a good choice, but I was so late into the game there was no reason for me to use his abilities. I had good relationship status with all my Alters, and all you gotta do to keep these guys happy is feed ‘em good food and perform acts of kindness. There’s the Guard, but the entire time I thought why would I make an Alter who could possibly stress everyone out more and make them feel unsafe? That’s about it more criticisms, but one I know some of you will want me to address is the usage of AI. Recently the developers were caught using AI to help make placeholder assets. Something they forgot to remove on release, and they soon patched it out. I have never been a supporter of AI usage. It steals work and takes jobs away from people, and even though 11 Bit removed the AI work it’s still concerning they used it at some point. It’s bad, but I don’t think it should be used to talk down the entire game. More than ninety percent of the work here was made by hand, and overall the heart behind The Alters is strong. The game should speak for itself, not actions a few members of the team made. I give this a game a strong recommendation. Again, it's not a game for everybody, but give it a chance and you’ll leave with a hopeful smile on your face. It's the joy of playing niche games and genres. Seeing why it works, who it was made for, and enjoying what the developers were trying to do. In the end I am going to have to give The Alters a 10/10 for being incredible.

10/10, Incredible