I’m not great at survival games.🐬 I’ve pumped many hours into Lego Fortnite Odyssey over the yeܫars, but the fact my first example in this infamously intense genre contains the words ‘Lego’ and ‘Fortnite’ tells you all you need to know.

I fail hard and fast at less forgiving games that require you to work everything out in minute detail, with little margin for error and a constant clock ticking down. I once forgot I was playing a survival game and walked away for a snack, only to find my character died of sta🏅rvation when I returned.

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But there was hope when it came to The Alters, as it’s not just a survival game. It also features basebuilding and resource management (which I love), while also boasting a tight narrative focus. You don’t see this blend all too often, at least not to this degree. Even when I sat d⛄own to play, I was still nervous that the balance would be skewed in favour of survival and I’d find myself hitting the game over screen over and overꦍ again. But I was wrong.

I did get a game over screen once, to be fair. That radiation i༒s💙 no joke.

Jan Dolski, 🔜the sole survivor of a space expedition to an unknown planet must find help to escape the hostile environment he finds himself in. Unfortunately, the corpses of his crewmates can’t do much anymore, but the Rapidium element found on the planet's surface can. As long as you ⛄don’t mind overcoming a moral dilemma or two…

Project Dolly? More Like Project Dolski

The life path of the botanist in The Alters.

Rapidium can be used to create Alters (genetic clones) using Dolski’s own DNA. These aren’t exact clones, however, but altered versions of Dolski each with their own distinct quirks and flaws. The quantum computer aboard your base shows Dolski’s timeline in which you can view critical moment🦄s of his life, then choose to branch into a new life path to discover an entirely different version of Dolski entirely. It’s like the Butterfly Effect but without the time travel and child murder.

The game alludes to Dolly the Sheep more than once, the first clone ever created. Molly the Sheep is the first to be made usi෴ng Rapidium, and the mission Dolski is sent on is called Project Dolly.

Decisions such as whether to stand up to his abusive father or not, whether to attend college, or whether to leave his wife, are just a few examples of what can affect who Dolski became, and picking a branching path will result in a new Alter with a different appearance, persona🦹lity, and skillset. This isn’t just a case of who has better stats either, as some Alters have skills that no others can utilise.

Dolski and his alters in the social room in The Alters.

There are 11 Dolskis in total, including the original. In any given playth🔯rough, you are unable to create all available Alters, so you’ll need to choose wisely. The ones you choose not only affect the help you receive in missions and maintaining the base, but also impact the storyline and how different scenarios play out.

There are six different endings in total, opening up plenty of opportunities for replaying the game in pursuit of different choices ♏and strategies.

Learning About (And How To Live With) Your Alters

Jan Dolski and his alters in the kitchen after the miner has cut his arm off in The Alters.

The first Alter you create is the Technician, and he’s understandably not best pleased to find out he exists only as an Alter and that life as he knew it amounts to nothing in this timeline. 🃏These Alters have emotions and worries just like any one else, and it’s your job to keep them happy. One of the first things you learn is how to bond with your Alters, talking about shared memories, implem𒊎enting or building things they ask for, and perhaps sharing a plate of pierogi.

As you start to add more Alters to your team, juggling the ꦰmoods of multiple people who often have conflicting ideals is no easy task. Suddenly it becomes about more than just surviving the planet and gathering resources, but also surviving against fellow Alters. If they get too depressed they can act on it in the worst ways, such as committing a mass murder-suicide. Fortunately, a game of beer pong can help alleviate their mood a bit, providing you’ve built the social room. Be prepared to play a lot of beer pong.

It’s fascinating to see just how much each Dolski can differ, even their skill level of beer pong varies. Jan the Technician is🌄 laidback and wants to stick it to the man 🌸more, so he’ll want you to build rooms that are good for socialising and raising your team’s mood. Jan the Scientist is far more pragmatic and willing to tow the company line, and will encourage you to make the team crunch hours to get things done to prioritise the main mission.

Jan Scientist in The Alters.

The Scientist is also the only Alter able to research aboard the base, opening up a skill tree where you can unlock new benefits and upgrades to help make survival just that little bit easier𒅌.

Their requests are often at odds with one another, and that’s just two Alters I saw during m🌳y hands-on preview. Imagine how much more complicated it gets as you make even more, each with their own strong personality and opinions. It’s a careful balancing act of trying to achieve the impossible of keeping everyone happy with the finite resources you have, all while trying to actually survive yourself.

You’ll often have to neglect main story missions in order to fulfil these requests. Sure, you might need the resources you’re collecting to progress the storyline forward and get away from the danger of the encroaching sun, but then some Alter will want you to build a room, and so you ha𝔉ve to decide whether to spend it on that instead of risking things going off the rails.

All About That Base

Your space station is in the shape of a singular giant wheel, and within it are rooms that you can build and move around as you like. Building rooms and items require resources ✨that must be harvested from the planet’s surface, but it’s not like going out and picking daisies.

While you’ll find some resources scattered around to collect, you’ll need to start💯 investing in mining setups to maintain a steady supply. That means tracking down a viable location, doing a survey, building a mining machine, constructing a bunch of pylons back to your base to power it, and then you or an Alter will need to man ꦇit each day.

And even that’s not as straightforward as it sounds. While there are no enemies to battle on the planet’s surface, you’ll later encounter various anomalies that can severely damage you or drain your suit’s battery level. Youꦗ’l🧔l also have to craft new tools and equipment to navigate different types of terrain, such as a climbing hook for scaling walls, so even if you know where resources are located, getting to them is another matter.

Jan Dolski overlooking a ravine in The Alters.

Storms can roll in, knocking out multiple rooms in your base at once and leaving you scrambling to get everything operational. You’ll need kits to fix up each room, alongside a steady supply of filters for the base to keep radiation at bay. Between keeping your Alters happy, progre꧂ssing through the main story, gathering required resources, crafting all the things you need, and dealing with any potential natural or Alter fallout that may occur, your hands are always going to be full.

The Alters has gone from a game that I wasn’t sure I’d be able to master, to one I’m now desperate to finish because I need to know how the narrative plays out. If you told me at the start of the year that a survival game would become one of my anticipated titles this year, I’d ha🎶ve laughed in your face. But this is more than a survival game, it’s an ambitious narrative experience packed with challenging systems, fascinating themes, and plenty of unexpected surprises.

A lot of players who wouldn’t normally dabble in the survival genre will likely find themselves falling ꦯin love with Jan Dolski and all his Alters in no time. The only remaining question is, which Alter will be your favourite?

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Your Rating

168澳洲幸运5开奖网: The Alters
Released
June 13, 2025
ESRB
m
Developer(s)
🍨 11 Bit Studios
Publisher(s)
🌺 11 Bit Studios 🉐
Engine
Unreal Engine 5
PC Release Date
June 13, 2025
Xbox Series X|S Release Date
June 13, 2025

WHERE TO PLAY

SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL