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I’ve had my eye on 11 Bit Studios’ The Alters ever since the game’s giant wheel of a base was revealed. I was hooked without even knowing the title’s true premise: Managing a moving base against all odds on a planet where the sun will atomize you, and doing it all with only the help of cloned versions of yourself.
The Alters launches on June 13, 2025, and instead of rushing out a review for you, I wanted to give you a glowing, spoiler-free recommendation, because this is definitely a game you should be playing. One of the best things about it is that you get it as part of your Game Pass subscription, so you really have no excuse to dodge it!
A Truly Alternative Survival Game
In The Alters, you play as Jan Dolski. He’s nothing special, just another member of a crew sent to the far reaches of space in search of an element that could save humanity. Think of a sci-fi show or movie, and the character who is kind of cool because they have one banger of a line in the entire thing, but you wouldn’t really care if they died. That’s Jan.
Well, he’s your protagonist, and he knows he’s not up for the job. After locating the aforementioned awesome unicycle-like base, you follow Jan as he realizes he’s got no chance of getting out of this situation alive.
The planet he’s on has lethal night radiation, and the sun is so hot it turns anything caught in its rays to ashes before turning those ashes into ions and sending them on their merry way into the wider universe. Luckily, he’s found the very element his ship was sent here for, and one of its uses is to speedily create cloned lifeforms.
That’s how Jan figures he’s getting off this hot rock alive. He uses the base’s computer to simulate entire life paths that he never lived, and brings those alternative versions of himself to life. This allows him to have an Alter that’s a scientist, a miner, a botanist, and a whole host of other things.
Of course, with more people comes more responsibility. Between Jan, his Alters, and the base, you’ve got to gather enough resources to keep everyone alive and ensure the base is always ahead of the sun. Oh, and you’ve got to work with a seedy corporation to bargain your way off of the planet. Easy right?
Stressful, But In The Best Way Possible
If all that sounds like a lot to manage, it is. Thankfully, The Alters introduces you to every mechanic with ease, but it doesn’t hold your hand. Just as quickly as you learn how to set up a mining outpost and hook it up to the base, you’ve got to set up even more for every resource.
Likewise, once you know how to create an Alter, you’re left to create more of them as you see fit. For example, I thought I could manage the base just fine by myself. As jobs quickly built up and I started to feel overwhelmed, though, I gave in and pulled in some new Alters to help pick up where Jan couldn’t.
You see, each day only has so many hours in which you and the Alters can work. You’ve got to maximize your workload and be efficient, or the sun will quickly catch you out. This means organizing research to help you unlock new rooms and systems as you need them, getting Alters to man mining outposts while you explore, and dealing with the daily surprises.
Something I really didn’t need on my plate was a radiation storm that took out half my rooms and left us limping with barely any production. So, I had Jan Scientist research an early warning for storms, Jan Technician man the Workshop to craft a ton of Repair Kits and Radiation Filters, and we were relatively prepared for the next one.
You have to know that this took me days to get on top of, though. That’s where The Alters really shines. It keeps you uncomfortable, always throwing curveballs for you to adapt to. It’s a fantastic twist on. The survival genre that broadens it and makes you feel like you’re always one day away from complete chaos and failure.
A Personal Touch
I have to say that while the survival mechanics keep moment-to-moment gameplay gripping in The Alters, it’s the story I’m here for. Every Alter has a different history, and you must learn it to better understand them and speak with them.
If you don’t work on the social needs of Jan’s Alters, then everything will fall apart. These people are all the same dude, but they’re also not. They have real histories that set them apart from one another in huge ways.
This leads to conflicts and friendships just like you’d see with total strangers, but with the added dynamic that you’re in charge as the original, and everyone looks pretty much identical. When fights break out, you decide who wins. When your Alters have something to say, you’ve got to choose whether to listen or ignore them, and your choices most certainly do have consequences.
Add in the shady corporation that’s pushing Jan to stock up on rare materials to get himself a ship home, treating the Alters like sub-humans in conversations, and you’ve got a melting pot of complex situations. There is an actual story chugging along in the background, too, but it’s a narrative vehicle that simply allows every other element to shine brighter.
While I’ve been playing, I’ve been plagued by the idea of my own potential Alters. The versions of me who could look and behave so differently as a result of choices they made that differ from mine. It’s almost enough to drive you mad if you think about it too much, and I think it might be the single most important change to standard survival mechanics you see.
Survival is easy if you have a few constants. When you, yourself, as the constant, aren’t sure if you’re the best version of you for the job, how do you survive? That’s the question that I repeat over and over as I play, and it makes The Alters all the more enthralling.
Thank you so much for reading the latest feature under our I Can’t Stop Playing label. If you loved reading about a game without having it spoiled, then you should read my last entry for Blades of Fire.
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Good stuff! I will have to give this one a try.