Just Me, Myself and I | The Alters Review

WACO, Texas (KWTX) - Code provided by publisher - Reviewed on PlayStation 5

You know that thing where you lie awake at night thinking about every mistake you’ve ever made and how it could have altered the course of your life? The Alters’ gorgeously atmospheric sci-fi narrative is aimed right at that. It’s a wonderful blend of different game systems and genres set against a bleak alien world and is top shelf indie gaming that isn’t afraid to dive into morality and ethics. I must imagine that somebody off the cuff said something like “if you want something done right, do it yourself” and then one of the genius Polish developers at 11 Bit said, “I have an idea”. Because The Alters sets out on a straightforward survival path, setting our intrepid space builder out on a foreign planet, crew-less to seek rescue at a far-off rendezvous point. Then veers off into philosophic and ethical grey areas by forcing poor Jan Dolski to clone himself with altered consciousness, and this is where the game’s true core is exposed. These clones may be genetically identical to Jan, but each has memories from a fabricated branching life that makes them a specialist in one thing. The thing is they are real living flesh with falsified lives that they remember. While the overall gameplay of The Alters is a basic resource management, base building survival game its’s strength is in the brilliant and bold way the interpersonal story telling unfolds. Jan has some bleak and often times impossible choices to make, resulting in a tale that carries a lot of weight on its shoulders, which 11 Bit handles with care while leaving room breaks of levity. Not since Mass Effect has games choices left me so impacted. Balancing the needs of Jan’s clones with extracting enough resources from the surrounding planet makes for a tense and smartly delivered drip of stress. The Jan gang’s emotional journey is one that made me ask what being real even is and question every choice I’ve ever made in my life. 11 Bits deft handling of heady themes like identity, destiny and self-preservation make The Alters character study made even more impactful by the sense of dread brought on by the threat of a sun scorched death looming. Regardless of your feelings towards this genre I think you’ll find an undeniable satisfaction in the loop of The Alters bolstered by cerebral, enthralling story that has cleverly executed.

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The Alters starts off like any good sci-fi survival game, with a crash landing. Moments after awakening in a crashed cryo-pod, Jan Dolski scrambles out onto the surface of a foreign planet in search of his crew. Unfortunately, your team has mysteriously died on entry leaving Jan isolated and setting a dark tone from the jump. The unnamed planet on which Jan finds himself is unsettlingly alien, formed of oddly textured spiked up rocks, washed with grey landscapes and dark skies. Amongst the muted colors of the land are pockets of vibrant color indicating areas with valuable resources, and just outside your base lies a restless sea of oily water that crashes against the greyscale shores. That base is a cutting silhouette on this world’s horizon, a colossal wheel shaped mobile base which acts as your interim home. It doesn’t take long exploring the game’s opening area to discover the mysterious and apparently rare mineral Rapidium, as its very existence distorts the area around it. This discovery is the catalyst for Jan’s unique situation.

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Tension is high from the moment you set out, and you can practically taste the fear and stress in Jan’s environment. The Alters sells this urgency with a frantic race against time to find enough resources to get the base moving. Each day begins with a reminder that the sun is planning to absolutely decimate you on its approach in just a matter of days. So Jan will need to venture back out onto the hostile surface to gather resources. Blue smoke rises from the ground making organic material easy enough to gather, as well as the orange-red glow of the metals. These materials will feed, fuel and build upon your base, so you’ll need to keep an eye on how much is mined versus spent. Scan the ground, find the vein and plant your mining rig then simply network it back with a series of lines and viola you are now in the mining business. The gameplay loop is simple but effective, allowing you to easily acquire what resources you need. However, the trick is to keep an eye on everything all at once, including radiation levels, watching the clock to make sure you don’t push poor Jan too hard and most importantly navigating around the deadly anomalies that dot the planet’s winding paths. You’ll encounter reality bending new anomalies as the game progresses keeping you on edge at all times while exploring.

Rapidium isn’t just some fancy glowing rock; its applications are nearly universal,, and the way it alters quantum states can allow super-fast-food production, regrow limbs and endless other uses. So naturally the goal of Project Dolly, Jan’s ill-fated mining mission was to research and mine this new wonder-metal. Desperate to survive and under the advisement of Lucas an Ally Corp member, Jan is forced to create the aforementioned Alters, a genetically identical clone whose mind has been altered to remember a branched lifepath now thrust into a dire situation by Jan’s actions and the power of this enigmatic new element. This moment is the first real story telling pillar of The Alters. As you take on the role of captain for this ever expanding crew Jans, you’ll find your self in need of some specialized skills. Luckily the identifying name sake for each character, Jan Scientist, Jan Botanist, ect. Is also their job. In many ways this is also the start of The Alters ingenius approach to the theme of identity. Because in some ways by playing God Jan has brought these clones into life simply for their profession, which forces them to wrestle with their purpose in life beyond this, should they live to see the journey’s end. You’ll find these are no mere 2D copies of the original, as real or not, the lives they remember have differed quite a bit, ranging from a Jan who stood up to his abusive father or a Jan that worked things out with his girlfriend. They have differing tastes in everything from music to food and even prefer different leisure activities. Genetically they are all the same man, but on a fundamental basis of what makes a person different they couldn’t be less alike.

While the gameplay on display moment to moment is genre meshing and, in my opinion, maybe the only time, I’ve actively enjoyed base building, the real star of the show is the Jans. It was a herculean task to write these characters and keep them grounded in their respective viewpoints, but 11 Bit Studios has not just written a character with intellectual depth but a dozen variations of that character with incredible nuance. Sure, the Jan-alters serve as function in the gameplay, allowing you to delegate tasks to the appropriate clone, but they are also well-defined individuals whose personalities can be traced along the timeline branch seen in the games mind files. Now funny enough this presents most obviously through your other Jans sporting differing haircuts, facial hair and even speech patterns, which does help to diversify the voices. This puts Jan prime in an fascinating balancing act where he has to maintain progress on escaping, keeping things moving at a solid click to outrun the solar threat while also befriending, placating and engaging with his variant brothers to prolong cooperation and peace.

The Alters wears the garb of a overwhelming resource management game but at its heart it is an unbelievably intricate social sim. Like I said earlier, I haven’t felt my choices impacts hit this hard since Mass Effect. Every action at every feasible level from what quality food you make to how often you plan a movie night has an effect on your crew members. Go above and beyond and you’ll find them to be the best of buddies, delivering their best work. Slight one of them and you’ll find them slacking off, irritable and less cooperative overall. To make amends you can sometimes, bring gifts to them found from your lost luggage delivered I assume by Frontier airlines to the various corners of the map. Don’t feel like walking all that way for a t-shirt or a rubber duck? There is a surprisingly fun beer-pong table and a movie watching area featuring videos from one of my favorite comedy duos Chris and Jack. The latter of which shocked me when I sat down for a movie the first time because I have recently been rewatching some of my favorites just before receiving my review code. Felt kind of like I was being watched... Anyway, any of these activities will leave the alters feeling reinvigorated and joyous. To certain point... because there are multiple hurdles on the path to salvation for our lost crew. A gravity well, a river of lava and some much more esoteric obstacles as well. Some of these will come with vastly important decisions, and the heavier the burden the more traumatic the results. In some of the best written scenarios you are given choices that actively fly in the face of some of your team’s core values. Values that once violated breakdown the trust between you. Long lasting ramifications linger after you make a big choice and the results are often heart ripping. Split between doing what you feel is right or best for the team and doing what your team values as right. Its an unexpectedly devastating place to be. On top of that the little faults can build larger divides between you and a clone. Your choices as a captain and a friend to these genetic brothers can have rippling effects on the overall experience. As an example, in order to help Jan Technician have a place of his own I used hologram tech to recreate a special place he and his mom used to frequent. I thought since this was a special moment I missed out on in my time line he would enjoy regaling me with more conversation about her. Instead he became frustrated and accused me of selfishly trying to use him to make up for lost time. I am not Jan Dolski but it felt like a personal attack and also a cuttingly true one. Jan is living my worst nightmare, because even though none of them lived easy fake lives they are all the things I could have been. Looking your regrets in the face has to be one of the hardest things possible.

With the threat of imminent death approaching my crew began to question if they were merely a means to an end. Who are they outside of this mission now? If their memories are false do, they not matter? Cutting questions that haunted my every action. I feared for everything I did but this strong sense of identity and community management never ate away at the satisfying progress driven gameplay. Which is good because one thing I love about this game second to only its writing is that there is no busy work. The game’s system actually informs the narrative leading to a much higher level of fulfilling gameplay. You’ll spend most of your 20 hours in game days, scouring the area for resources and maintaining a steady influx of them as well as exploring in 3rd person adventure style looking for new trails forward and new mysteries to unravel. You’ll find no traditional combat here as those floating blobs of quantum anomalism energy are your only real threat. Don’t let the amorphous appearance fool you; these ghostly bubbles will try to eat you with their radioactive mass causing real damage to you as they attempt to rip Jan from this universe. This where the equipable gear comes into play. You’ll need suit batteries, to power your defenses, allow you to repel up a rockface and to provide the sick blacklight of death that dissolves those blobby bastards into balls of basic materials. Jan Scientist is an essential part of your team helping you to not only better expand your base but provide you with these instruments of survival. The other half of your time will be spent reorganizing and growing your hot wheels base to include things like additional storage, workbenches, social rooms and even a pee converter. I enjoyed this aspect of the game a lot with the ant farm perspective offering a fun twist to gameplay, but holy crap did I cause myself a lot of problems by constantly reshuffling the pods. I was constantly wondering where I moved my captain’s cabin or the research lab. The two gameplay systems play into each other perfectly.

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The world in which Jan finds himself is rendered beautifully. Its complex otherworldly geography makes for a perfect blend of familiar and science fiction. Jan himself has a solid design and each iteration of him has a distinct and memorable look. There are some breath-taking moments in this game, with massive time bending walls of gravity towering in a canyon or watching the inaugural journey of wheelbase as it moves toward a volcanic path with a river of glowing lava gutting the area. My favorite effect has to be the titular process of making the Alters. A kaleidoscope of images flash before as your DNA is used to craft a branching mind in the form of a new body ending with a glimpse of who that may be. Literally removing their identity as Jan Dolski and naming them with their labeled profession. The visuals are incredible throughout the game but the eerie synth laden soundtrack is what sells the sci-fi atmosphere the best. Creeping synth strings and pulsating almost hammering beats drive home the alien nature of your mission.

The Alters is not just a genre defining moment for 11 Bit studios. Its possibly the most well executed survival base builders I’ve ever played. I can’t tell you all the details for fear of spoiling its best bits but The Alters is an experience you’ll want to have. An unexpected gem of polished world design, slick gameplay loops and believable character writing that exemplifies what makes 11 Bit such a unique voice in the indie scene. Unabashedly smart, thought provoking and brilliant The Alters is a must play for any sci-fi fan. The Alters is easily a 9/10 from me and its going to remain on my mind for a long long time.

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