You find yourself stranded on a distant alien world with only a few days left before the sun rises and reduces you to ashes. Your employer, a corporation that assures you it’s not malicious, sent you and your crew there for the purpose of mining an element called rapidium. Unfortunately, during your journey, your spaceship disintegrated in orbit, scattering its contents across vast areas of the planet and leaving everyone else onboard dead, except for you.
The experience kicks off with a resemblance to an action game. As you traverse, you discover a beach from a third-person vantage point, running swiftly over hot volcanic sands while evading turbulent, tempestuous seas, and scuttling beneath bizarre cliffsides carved from jagged basalt pillars that defy gravity. This is when the sun sets, and your radiation detector begins to emit static. You hasten your steps and navigate sharp turns across switchbacks in the canyon walls, through the fractured, rocky entrances of the cliffside.
In the end, what comes into view is a massive wheel, encircled by lights. It serves as a guiding light. Security. Your portable home base. This is the sole area on this planet where you can be safe from radiation, but only if you consistently maintain a supply of radiation filters.
Upon entering, the perspective shifts to a sideways view reminiscent of an ant colony, a sight that will feel familiar to players of XCOM. Here, you’ll split your time between this area and venturing out for exploration, combat against anomalies, and resource gathering to upgrade your portable base as you journey across the planet while avoiding the advancing sun.
The Alters offers an unusual blend of gaming genres, yet it manages to create a unique harmony among them. While it may not match the finesse of dedicated action games or the depth of top-tier strategy titles, nor does it provide the extensive range of choices typical of Telltale-style games, it combines these elements in an innovative fashion that I’ve yet to encounter elsewhere.
In addition to constructing your base and managing resources, you also need to acquire assistance. However, everyone around seems to be deceased. The only solution then: clones. By employing rapidium and a quantum computer, the protagonist’s life is displayed in a chain of interconnected neural connections, each one a significant memory. Would you change if you had made another crucial decision at a crossroads? The Alters suggest so. The character you control, named Jan, primarily builds, but his clones can specialize as scientists, doctors, miners, security personnel, therapists, and many more, each with their unique traits and flaws. Each clone possesses a distinct personality. Are they human? This is one of the major ethical questions the game poses.
In a balanced setup, no aspect of managing The Alters is more crucial than the others. Neglecting people management can snowball into interpersonal conflicts, which might then affect your infrastructure or resources. Insufficient resources could spark discord that leads to additional problems. Failing to provide suitable facilities for their needs may lead to similar issues – it’s all interconnected.
In The Alters, there’s constant stress because time is relentless, whether it’s being used wisely or not. Every real-life second counts, as each minute moves you one step closer to nightfall, which means exhaustion and increased danger from radiation in the outside world. With every passing day, sunrise approaches, symbolizing death. Therefore, your mobile base must always be prepared for a quick departure when dawn breaks.
The onboard computer in the spaceship is malfunctioning, supplies are dwindling, and we require metals to manufacture essential tools. We have a stone wall to breach and ore to mine from the other side using a drill. To complicate matters, the ship is deteriorating, some crew members are quarreling, and one holds a grudge against you due to a disagreement. There’s a potential for mutiny, but your priority is preventing everyone from starving. It’s chaotic, intense, yet intellectually stimulating.
If you handle your team members effectively, each one offers valuable insights about yourself and provides additional dialogue options for future interactions. Successfully completing tasks and uncovering these character traits paves the way for greater opportunities later on, such as more choices during the final week and a wider range of decisions when it comes to the climax. I haven’t felt this engaged at the end of a game since the Mass Effect 2 suicide mission.
The Alters immerses you instantly with its thought-provoking ideas, intricate management, and captivating exploration. It’s like a top-tier strategy game that keeps you hooked for hours on end as you accomplish tasks and strive towards objectives, but it’s even more enticing because it presents a multitude of mysteries that pique your curiosity. Although it experiences occasional technical glitches, such as frame drops in certain areas and occasional character model flickering, its execution is generally exceptional, innovative, and offers just the right amount of tension.
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2025-06-12 15:16