Let’s be clear: when it comes to survival games, few developers understand the genre as well as 11 Bit Studios does. Arguably, the reason for this is that rather than crafting some dry, inoffensively bland genre effort, the talented Polish outfit instead infuses its thoughtful takes on the strategy survival genre with a very human, emotional core that separates them from any other developer out there. From This War of Mine to Frostpunk and its most recent sequel, 11 Bit Studios has long made a habit of blending personal turmoil and survival mechanics in super interesting ways and with its latest effort, The Alters, they’ve done it again. If you’re a fan of 11 Bit Studios’ past work – or simply looking for deeper, more ambitious survival games – The Alters is shaping up to be the next big thing.
A Terrifying, Murderous Sun Is The Big Bad
In The Alters, players take control of Jan Dolski, a resourceful miner who finds himself stranded on a hostile planet where the sun is powerful enough to provide anything living with an instantly lethal dose of radiation. Much like a memorable sequence in the underrated Chronicles of Riddick that has Vin Diesel attempting to outrun a murderous sun, so too does The Alters employ a similar idea – essentially reversing the role of the sun as a life giver into an indiscriminate death dealer. Yeah, Boots’ own brand E45 sun cream isn’t going to cut it here.
The Great Thing About Being Me Is, There Are So Many Me’s
In a bid to keep himself alive, Jan realises that he needs to pilot a mobile, wheel-shaped base across the surface of the planet to avoid the sun’s deathly rays. Of course, Jan is just one fella, and the wheelbase is massive, so this is where the mysterious chemical compound known as Rapidium comes in. Much more than just a cool-sounding name, Rapidium allows Jan to create the titular ‘Alters’, which appear at first glance to be clones of Jan himself, which is handy for trying to keep a mahoosive wheelbase up and running. The problem is, they’re a lot more than that.
Taking The Mickey 17
In a similar fashion to Bong Joon Ho’s excellent Mickey 17, each Alter isn’t a straightforward copy of Jan, but rather an alternate version of him based on a particular set of different decisions that were made at key points in his life. This means that not only does each Alter have their strengths, weaknesses and unique skills which would be useful for maintaining the base, gathering resources, providing scientific solutions and so on, but they also have their own personalities too, which provide the personal turmoil which sits at the heart of The Alters.
You see, every Alter has their own needs, fears and emotions and much like the ragged survivalist civilians seen in This War of Mine, or the burgeoning throng of desperate folks in Frostpunk, these needs, fears and emotions must be met, lest there be consequences. For example, one Alter might be especially proficient at solving particular problems but might also desire simply to have some face-to-face time with his fellow Alter. Failing to satisfy this need, however, will mean that this particular Alter will begin to slow down in the fulfilment of their duties, before beginning to act out and then eventually rebel completely against your commands.
The core of this mechanic is the Brain Map, a handy central point of reference that shows the current memories Jan has, in addition to the memories he doesn’t. By using Rapidium and other materials, Jan can create these alternate memories from the paths never taken and create new Alters as a result. Certainly, the whole situation is fraught with ethical considerations – are these Alters their own people? Do they have their own thoughts, feelings and emotions? Do they respond to how you talk and treat them? The answer to all of those questions is a big fat, morally grey ‘yes’.
And this represents what is essentially just the tip of what is a very big socially-linked iceberg, too. The Alters is far more than just the sum of your individual interactions with each of your Alters, it’s also about how they act with each, how they work (or don’t work) as a community and having to deal with moral compass realigning decisions on the fly that can really, really punch you in the gut. You can expect a lot of moral gut punching too – this is an 11 Bit Studios game after all.
A World Filled With Deadly Opportunity
Even though The Alters is very much about this balancing act between personal turmoil, social cohesion and survival, there is a whole heap of exploration to be done as well. The planet that Jan finds himself stranded on is quite the melting pot of chaotic insanity and deadly opportunity. If the skin-blasting sun and terrifying magnetic storms weren’t enough, Jan’s newfound home is also an unexpected bounty of bespoke biomes filled with secrets to be unearthed and precious minerals to be extracted.
Given the volatility and ever-present threat that this planet presents, such rewards go hand in hand with a whole range of additional dangers beyond the ones already mentioned. As it turns out, the planet is riddled with all manner of bizarre anomalies which can not only cause instant death (as if there was a shortage of that in the first place), but can also have psychological effects on Jan and his Alters, disrupting their relationships and introducing yet more turmoil to the proceedings.
As such, exploration in The Alters certainly embraces a risk and reward dynamic in much the same way that previous 11 Bit Studios titles did. Do you push the envelope and force your increasingly unstable Alters out further into the world in search of precious materials and secrets every so often, or do you play it safer, inching your way across the planet’s surface for incremental gains more frequently?
In The Alters, 11 Bit Studios has once again crafted a deeply human survival experience full of emotional complexity, this time wrapped in sci-fi spectacle. With its lethal solar menace, morally murky cloning mechanics, and a planet teeming with both promise and peril, the game doesn’t just challenge your strategic thinking; it demands your empathy, too. It asks what it means to survive not just physically, but psychologically and ethically, when every decision can unravel a delicate social fabric. If This War of Mine made you care about nameless civilians and Frostpunk forced impossible leadership choices, The Alters takes that legacy further, putting your very sense of self under the microscope. It’s survival not just against the elements, but against your own fractured identity – and that might be the toughest enemy of all.
