The Alters Review
Have you ever wondered how different your life would be if you made different choices along the way?
The Alters explores this idea, it’s what drew me in and it might likely be what draws you in as well. Full disclosure, I am not the target demographic for a survival and base building centric game.
However, The Alters primary focus is the sci-fi narrative that is crafted around a bold and unique concept. The survival and base building elements aren’t here for you to create your own narrative, but instead they drastically heighten the stakes of the existing one.
The Alters exceeds expectations in every facet of the game. The narrative had depth beyond an intriguing premise as it provoked philosophical thought. The base building featured a tetris like grid, which made it engaging, but easy to understand, and the survival elements didn’t feel meaningless, they felt crucial to my survival. Best of all, The fusion of all of these elements highlighted the best everything harmonized together
What Is The Alters?
The Alters is about Jan Dulski, an astronaut, which is a term that is used lightly, as you are just an average, blue collar worker about this futuristic mining vessel searching the galaxy for Rapidium, a rare mineral with the power to change the world. Your ship crash lands and becomes stranded on a remote planet with no other survivors on the crew. You somehow manage to establish connection with Earth in the communication room of the ship as they are able to provide guidance. It’s up to you to decide if they have ulterior motives or not.
You’re informed that the only chance of survival is to create clones or “Alters” of yourself with the help of the quantum computer about the ship and the Rapidium that you recently discovered. With the technology and the rare minerals you are given the power to go back through your life and create an alter you based on the “what if” decisions you made along the way. The life choices resulted in a completely different person with a different skill-set based on choices and life experiences. Each new you, will help move the mission of returning home, one step closer to success.
The good news is that the cloning process works after experimenting with a sheep. The bad news is that a star is closing in and within days will devour the planet if you don’t get moving.
WHAT’S GOOD ABOUT THE ALTERS?
The Alters instantly thrusts you into a very captivating premise as you don’t know what happened, where you are or why you are the only one who survived. It’s a classic tale of human vs nature, but with a very unique twist. However, The Alters isn’t just about surviving and finding a way home, but it also explores more complex themes like capitalism and existence. The strong narrative is the catalyst of the experience, but it get’s accented by a great fusion of gameplay mechanics from multiple genres.
The gameplay is broken into sections, first you have to familiarize yourself with the harsh planet outside. You will need to find and harvest multiple different resources in order to expand your ship and upgrade your exploration capabilities in an almost metroidvania-like way.
As for the gameplay loop, the day/night cycle is perfectly segmented and the rotation of mechanics and genres break up any possible monotony. It’s also very addictive as you always want to do just one more day to accomplish the next goal. The Alters constantly gives you the right amount of tasks and deadlines. You are always juggling many different jobs that you are always kept buys and are always working towards certain goals or deadlines such as impending death, but you never feel overwhelmed.
You never experience the same day twice. There are some days that I’m out exploring the inhospitable planet, some days I don’t leave the base at all and I just repair things, and there are some days that all I do is have conversations with myselfs. The days are never the same
Outside of the base exploring the planet can feel a little clunky at times as the terrain can pose problems, some intended and some not. However, even the ones that aren’t intended actually felt immersive as you are not trained for this, and the suit you are in is bulky. You are not supposed to survive this world and you are constantly reminded of it.
Jan Dulski and all of the other Jan Dulski’s look slightly different, but it’s the voicing that gives them their personality and all are voiced by the same person who does an incredible job of giving each character their own identity with subtle differences. In addition to the great voice work, the brooding industrial score combined with the environmental audio provide a great sense of immersion and atmosphere.
WHAT’S NOT SO GOOD ABOUT THE ALTERS?
Expectations were low heading into The Alters and maybe due to this, I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, but it never did. At worst there were a few areas of that could have used minor improvements, and these can all be patched out, post launch. Playing on standard difficulty, staying out past curfew when the radiation is higher didn’t pose too much risk. If the radiation became too much, eventually you would pass out and as long as you have one alter, they will come rescue you and the next morning, you will awake inside the base the next morning with everything you found. There were many choices and timelines that could spell doom for the mission, but this felt like a weird exception to the rule.
The other exception to the rule was researching. You will have to create items in places like the kitchen and workshop, but you will also be able to create automations, so that you don’t always have to make sure the blueprint is in the queue. Unfortunately, the research lab is an exception to creating a long list of automations as you can only research two items at once. This meant that valuable time was wasted because sometimes it was just easier to tell the scientist to do whatever chores he suggested as opposed to going back into the research mindset and deciding what was the most effective upgrade.
There is also a very high spike of difficulty near the very end of the game, when it tries to throw everything at you.
VERDICT
Pleasantly surprised would be an understatement for The Alters.
There are a multitude of places that The Alters could have come off the tracks. The sci-fi story could have lost steam, but the experience was succinct. Survival games can often feel like an endless treadmill, but there is a definitive a finish line and base building can be overwhelming, but your template begins small, it’s easy to understand and fun to adjust
The concept of cloning is what drew me in, the premise of being stranded is what intrigued me and the variation of the settings and mechanics are what captivated me The Alters boldly goes where no game has gone before with its effotless fusion
