The Alters

It's hard to go into more detail about why The Alters is so great without spoiling the experience—it truly is a game that is best enjoyed with as few preconceived opinions as possible. What is more or less undeniable is The Alters' ingenuity, its clever and thoughtful narrative structure, and its satisfying, genre-defying gameplay loop. The Alters represents a massive step forward for 11 Bit Studios, positioning its greatest strengths in a new light, and ultimately unfolding into one of the best gaming experiences you're likely to have all year.

This is the story of a singular man I cannot recommend enough. And who knows, perhaps along the way you might even learn something about yourself.

The Alters is an excellent narrative survival adventure from 11 bit studios, combining base-building, resource management, and story-driven gameplay. Players control Jan Dolski, the sole survivor of a botched space mission, who uses clone "alters" with modified life paths to aid his survival. The game masterfully blends exploration (à la Satisfactory) with personal dilemmas, as Dolski navigates not only a dangerous planet but also the emotional complexities of his cloned companions. Balancing immediate survival with the psychological weight of these choices, The Alters delivers a gripping experience deserving top marks.

The Alters is 11 bit studio's most ambitious, and possibly best game yet. Combining all their experiences in base building, crew management, resource gathering and survival, they try to pull off something they haven't done before. Create an engaging, huge, sci-fi narrative adventure. And they succeed. From it's themes, to it's music, acting, visuals, survival gameplay loop, basebuilding, and so much more, The Alters is a triumph that exceeds expectations and an unforgettable, deep adventure.

The Alters makes you think about the value of every life, even the "fake" ones, the burden of choice, and the fact that within each of us there are many unrealized selves. It's a powerful, emotional, and philosophical statement, packaged within complex, multi-layered gameplay.

The Alters brings you an amazing story, interesting survival mechanics, and stunning visuals. 11-Bit Studios did a masterful job creating this game, since it truly is a breath of fresh air. Anyone that enjoys sci-fi media will have a blast exploring this world they created, making choices and dealing with the consequences of their own actions. I think the main appeal for the game stems from creating alters, learning their stories and making you think about what choices you would change in their lives. There are some enemies you face on the planet, but combat is light and certainly not the game’s forte. Instead, The Alters shines when it comes to its world, great characters and the pressure that comes from pleasing your team and moving onto this planet, which can easily become your resting place.

The Alters does exactly what great sci-fi stories do: it uses the fantasy of future technology to have conversations that are timeless. It didn't need to be absurd, it didn't need to be existential, but it is at times both, and so much more. The conversations and relationships represent the true experience, but the management aspects hold their weight, too. Even though it stumbles over those heady conversations at times, either as a result of the writing itself or because stitching together disparate pieces in a video game sometimes ends up like that, it's about so much more than those individual moments. Parts of the gameplay don't reach the same heights, particularly when it comes to base building with minimal benefits, but The Alters is satisfying from so many angles when it comes to management and survival that it's difficult not to recommend it. More than that, though, it's forgiving enough with those mechanics that it becomes a must-play for just about anyone. Much like Jan Dolski, I thought I was going to struggle to survive, but I ended up thriving.

The Alters will leave you with pondering thoughts long after the credits roll. It’s a brave and daring take on the survival genre and one that will keep you coming back, hoping to answer just one more 'what if.'

If there's one thing Poles are really good at, it's video game development. This is confirmed once again by the 11 Bit studios team. After Frostpunk, they bring another great title in which you clone yourself, manage a base, explore and fight for survival on an inhospitable planet.

The Alters is a unique game that may not be for everyone but if it clicks for you, it will stay in your mind for a very long time.

All games build on or look back at what’s come before. The Alters makes a delicious stew out of familiar ingredients, both from other 11 bit studios games and popular genres. Taking survival and building mechanics and adding a complex layer of social simulation isn’t entirely foreign to this developer, but The Alters feels genuinely original, and that’s a bit miraculous in an industry full of sequels and remakes. Ironically, while the game might be about clones, The Alters is anything but a copy of something else.

If you think that The Alters is yet another throwaway survival game with the same old gameplay mechanics and story, you’re wrong. It’s truly a one-of-a-kind story of survival, life, identity, regret, and choices that you simply have to experience for yourself to understand, and I believe everyone should give this game a shot, whether it's in your typical wheelhouse or not.

The Alters is hands down 11 Bit Studios’ strongest outing yet. The developers have proven that they’re not just a one-trick pony that specializes in resource management and city-builders. They’re capable of crafting truly moving stories that will keep you hooked from start to finish.

Technical issues aside, we’ve had a great time playing The Alters. It poses tough choices and requirements to the player, and gives us a tight time limit and a thousand other things to keep track of, all while teasing us with new exposition or areas to explore that we’ll never get to in one sitting. It’s a tough game, but give it the time it deserves and you find yourself deeply invested in Jan(s) home.

The best indie game I've played in a while, The Alters is an ambitious sci-fi tale that successfully marries several game genres with an interesting plot to deliver a standout experience unlike any other. Supporting all the exploration and base management is a beating emotional heart to this game that makes you eager to push forward and see what will happen next.

The Alters is a very successful blend of base management, survival crafting, and narrative-driven exploration. It delivers a compelling story, intense gameplay, and a unique approach to the genre, offering strategic depth without being overwhelming, and allowing players to stay focused on the story.

The Alters teaches us that along the non-stop race for survival, sometimes you need to relax with a movie night with the people who know you best.

The Alters may not reinvent base building or survival gameplay, but it masterfully frames both around a fascinating narrative hook. This is a game that asks the player, “What if you could meet who you could’ve been?” and makes that question its core mechanic.

It can be very difficult to take these games that are focused on complex system management and add a nice layer of humanity to it all, offering a reason beyond simple efficiencies and problem-solving for people to engage, but 11 Bit Studios does it well and has once again succeeded with The Alters.

As a survival game, The Alters poses surprisingly hart questions. It forces players to make difficult decisions that test their morals and ethics. With its deep story and the far-reaching consequences, it could be the most innovative game of the year.

From its philosophical musings to its management and exploration, The Alters pulls you in from the opening and refuses to let go. It has the same quality of a good strategy game where real life hours get sucked away as you tick off tasks and work towards goals, but it’s even more engaging because you want the answers to all of its mysteries, too. Minus some iffy technical performance – frames drop in certain areas, and there’s some strange flickering around character models occasionally – it’s brilliantly executed, completely original, and just the right level of stressful.

Wildly unpredictable but always enjoyable, The Alters is a masterclass in high-tension gaming.

Stuck on a remote planet far away from home, The Alters tasks players with helping Jan Dolski to survive by creating clones of himself who have experienced different life choices, changing the core of who he became. With each new Alter comes new motives, memories, and skills that can help and also hinder the survival effort. Its a truly tasking challenge to keep everybody on the same page to survive, but it is also a mind-bending narrative that forces us to look at some of the most intense parts of human nature and what it means to become who we are.

The Alters is a masterfully crafted sci-fi adventure about survival, self-discovery, and learning to live with the version of yourself who tried a little harder.

The Alters is a wonderful mix of genres that combine to form a powerful and unique whole. It's a game that requires thought, leadership, and strategy, but also a game that offers a deep story, strong characters and a world you want to understand. I wholeheartedly recommend it if you're into that kind of thing.

The Alters is both immense in scope and deeply introspective. 11 Bit Studios has once again found the humanist side in a genre rooted in systems and management. It's a fantastic base builder and survival sim, but what makes The Alters truly brilliant is how these systems are underlined with vulnerable, emotional moments – like holes being punctured in your space suit.

The Alters doesn't just tell a story — it forces you to live with it. Every choice feels heavy, not because of game mechanics alone, but because of what it says about the person you’ve become. Managing time, resources, and fractured identities is often stressful, sometimes overwhelming, but always meaningful. Even when things spiral out of control, there’s a quiet power in how the game ties survival to introspection. It’s not flawless, but it’s rare to find a game that merges concept and execution with such emotional clarity.

The Alters delivers such a high-quality experience in gameplay, graphics and storytelling that it’s easy to forget that this isn’t an AAA game (or priced like one, either). Exploration and survival-management gameplay pair perfectly with the themes of death, purpose and trauma that recur throughout the plot, making for a memorable and unique adventure that keeps you on your toes at all times.

Despite some frustrating bugs, The Alters is the most unique and interesting survival-crafting sim I’ve ever played.

In The Alters many souls coexist. It is a strategy game, a third-person survival game and an action game. It is a title with a strong narrative imprint, with an exciting plot and characters of great charisma, but it also has an effective gameplay formula and solid gameplay loops. Almost everything in the game makes sense: the story, which also takes up the classic themes of Western science fiction, is enjoyable and keeps you in suspense until the end; the management phases within the base are satisfying and push you to carefully manage the (little) time and (many) available resources, to be wisely divided between main objectives and pleasant secondary quests. Only the external exploration phases leave a bitter taste in the mouth, in which 11 Bit pays for its more than ten-year specialization in genres where adventure and action are only side elements - when not completely non-existent.

The Alters blends 3D survival, resource management and base building with a strong narrative component. As Jan Dolski, we must explore a hostile planet, manage a space base and create alternate versions of ourselves to survive. Each Alter has unique abilities, but also memory, personality and unresolved conflicts. Managing tensions between clones, assigning the right roles, keeping morale high and coping with extreme environmental conditions becomes the heart of the gameplay. A deep challenge, between micro management, psychology and human science fiction drama told through multiple multiple choice dialogues.

The Alters is a masterful evolution of 11 bit studios’ signature grim survival formula. Instead of pushing players into abstract moral quandaries, it offers something more personal: a sci-fi tale of regret and self-reconciliation. Stranded on a deadly planet, lone survivor Jan Dolski creates alternate versions of himself — each shaped by paths not taken. These “Alters” are not clones but fully realized personalities, forcing Jan to confront his own failings while managing survival. Beneath its familiar gameplay loop lies a deeply human story about identity, missed chances, and emotional repair. This is survival — not of the body, but of the soul.

The Alters by Polish developer 11 Bit Studios once again showcases their talent for blending complex gameplay mechanics with a thoughtfully crafted narrative and mature themes. The decision to make the protagonist's clones into fully realized alter egos - each with distinct personalities, backgrounds, and ambitions - adds meaningful depth to this unique survival-management experience. While the interface can feel a bit unwieldy, and the gameplay loops may become repetitive with an uneven difficulty curve, these issues don’t detract from the game's compelling story, immersive atmosphere, and solid visual design.

The Alters is a simply splendid and original project that the team at 11 Bit Studios has managed to bring to market after already astonishing the world on multiple occasions. It's a title that offers a unique and distinctive take on base-building management games, thanks to its survival elements and the brilliant narrative premise that permeates the entire gameplay experience with a constant system of cause and effect. However, there are several rough edges and gameplay issues that could have been smoothed out with more balancing and polish, and these weigh on the overall pacing of the experience, leading to repetitiveness and occasionally some frustration. The Alters is not a game we come across every day, and for that reason alone, it still deserves to be acknowledged and recommended—despite its flaws.

The Alters is the title that best showcases 11 bit studios strength in narrative design. It delivers a compelling and immersive story that highlights how each choice affects the game and leads to different outcomes. It’s a well-crafted game where choices, consequences, and survival all come together seamlessly.

A genuine science fiction work that, even if it slightly sidelines gameplay to stay true to its original concept, manages to captivate players with its strong emotional core.

The Alters is a unique experience in the world of video games, blending a variety of different elements to deliver a cohesive, polished, and thought-provoking product. It’s the kind of story that could have come from the mind of a great science fiction writer—but its impact is only truly felt when you step into the shoes of Jan Dolski.

Those who appreciate emotionally gripping sci-fi stories and moral decisions should definitely give The Alters a chance.

The Alters impresses with its sci-fi setting and the story seamlessly woven into it. It's not just another survival game with base-building elements - those mechanics serve a greater purpose: telling the story of Jan Dolski, a man forced to do the impossible in order to survive. While it’s not without a few rough edges and technical shortcomings, The Alters stands as another strong entry in the portfolio of 11 bit studios.

The Alters delivers a gripping, existential survival experience that explores identity, regret, and self-acceptance in a way few games attempt. It's a little longer than it needs to be, but its story, systems, and emotional weight make it hard to forget.

The misery of Jan Dolski and the disaster of the expedition he was part of is a really good starting point for a game that stands on script, management and exploration. The Alters uses its strengths over skillfully by appropriately developing many gameplay mechanics.

Questions like how to reconcile with oneself, how to pursue personal growth, and how to decide the fate of different versions of "you" lie at the heart of The Alters - and they are exactly the kind of existential territory 11 bit studios excels at exploring.

The Alters is a survival game from 11 bit studios, a developer known for its strong track record in the genre, now blending in elements of science fiction to great effect. The game delivers a refined atmosphere and a clean, intuitive interface, while the theme of “choices made in conflict”—a hallmark of the studio’s previous work—is thoughtfully integrated into the gameplay.

The Alters is a survival base-builder set against the backdrop of a hauntingly desolate planet, with gameplay that mirrors that atmosphere—deliberate, reflective, and occasionally a bit unpolished. It’s not without its flaws, having traded some base-building depth to prioritize its narrative, but the experience as a whole is still thoroughly rewarding. Best of all, it’s a fantastic deal considering its visual quality and strong replayability.

The Alters is unique in how it explores trust, regret, choice, self-sacrifice, labour and autonomy through its characters every bit as much as its pylon puzzles. [Issue#413, p.110]

The Alters is an authentic and intriguing sci-fi experience. Its narrative and visuals position it as one of the best space travel games of the last decade. However, simply collecting resources and managing a base can become tiresome as the journey progresses.

The moral dilemmas and confronting moments created by manufacturing and living with alternate versions of yourself is a captivating narrative that The Alters delivers on, creating moments of emotional and mechanical tension by balancing its various management systems atop one another. It paves the way for some nail-biting victories and memorable interactions, but is also hampered by occasional tedium and needlessly frustrating exploration that is governed too heavily by a single resource. Still, the plight of Jan Dolski and his mission to get home is one that is bound to be very different for each player of The Alters, and is a stressful adventure I won't soon forget.

The Alters achieves something tense and new by merging strategy base-building with third-person exploration and a sci-fi story about cloning yourself. But repetition and complicated busywork mar the overall effect.

A thoughtful and refreshingly original survival experience, where managing clones of your alternate selves becomes both a mechanical puzzle and an emotional journey.

The Alters combines great survival with resource management, exploration and a narrative section with decisions to make. A unique game where our crew will be made up of alternative versions of the protagonist.

The Alters is more than a fascinating concept, mixing strong characterization and impactful decision-making with an enthralling quest for survival, even if the gameplay doesn't always excite.

The Alters has taken the idea of choices and their ramifications and used it to create a world where you can only count on yourself to survive. It mixes these with literal elements of survival, such as mining for materials, keeping important items stocked, and keeping your base in working shape. All these elements made me think about my own choices in life, and what could have been if I had taken different paths. Therefore, not only was The Alters a captivating story and world to play in, but it also really made me think philosophically about life and what it really means to survive.

The Alters is a highly atmospheric sci-fi character study of one man who meets the effects of the formative choices he’s made throughout his life face to face. Managing Jan’s relationships with his alternate selves while extracting enough resources from a hostile alien environment to survive is a balancing act on top of a balancing act, and it cleverly builds up the pressure over the course of its story. Exploration of these barren but eye-catching maps presents a series of puzzles and threats without resorting to blasting aliens, and the conversations and moral dilemmas that arise from Jan’s clones are a novel way to approach a game like this. It’s clearly not a big-budget game with resources to throw at cinematics and character models, but it does a lot with a little to tell its story effectively, and its occasional interface quirks don’t get in the way of that.

Those who are thinking of embarking on the expedition that is The Alters, should first ask themselves what their prime objective is. If the answer is 'standard sci-fi management game', disembark ASAP, because The Alters is anything but standard. While management is a core aspect of The Alters, dealing with complex personalities becomes more prominent as your precious time ticks away. Just remember that failing is human and therefore inevitable, and it will suck, so ask all your alter ego's if you're up for all that trial & error.

The Alters combines a bunch of genres I hate, and somehow makes a game I loved (when it worked).

The Alters is a game that resonates more for what it tries to say than for how it says it, and although it doesn’t always manage to balance ambition with execution, it still carves out an interesting niche within the landscape of narrative-driven experiences.

The Alters is a unique and atmospheric survival game that riffs on the existing 11 Bit Studios blueprint in a meaningful way. Offering a superb sci-fi story that is equal parts somber, surreal, and silly. The economy, base building, and Alter Management are the highlights, which are somewhat dragged down by the rather mindless exploration that feels like a means to an end. But overall, The Alters is a brave and bold step forward within the survival genre, and one that will make you question your life decisions more than any other.

A well-executed sci-fi psychological thriller that explores how a single decision can alter the course of your life. Over time, dialogue becomes the main gameplay focus, though the base management system is also solid. The weakest aspect lies in the planetary traversal, which feels too restricted. Still, it’s a powerful and engaging experience, with branching storylines that make it worth revisiting more than once.

I like The Alters. It sells its premise in a way I wish more science fiction games would. We need more of them. But the watering down of its gameplay elements makes it hard to recommend. If you’re willing to slog through tedium and gameplay filler there is a wonderfully fun story to experience.

We suspect The Alters of having been too ambitious for what it can deliver, and yet the efforts that have been made are plain to see. The result is cool, but only part of the ambition has been mastered.

The resource management is pleasantly challenging, and the story poses interesting questions. However, the emotional component is crushed by inconsistent, far too pragmatic dialogue and decisions.

The Alters may be ambitious in its effort to supplement base-building and survival with a strong narrative, but in doing so, it sands away all the sharp edges of its mechanics, losing the skin-of-your-teeth hardship that defines a great survival game.