THE ALTERS REVIEW: FACING YOUR DEMONS, AND THEY'RE ALL YOU
Ever wondered what would happen if you had to work on a group project to save your own life, but every single one of your partners was just a different, equally dysfunctional version of yourself from an alternate timeline? Well, The Alters is here to turn that therapy-session-from-hell into a full-blown survival game, and holy shit, it is a trip.
What If I Wasn't Such a Screw-Up?
The core idea of this game is so goddamn brilliant it makes me angry. You are Jan Dolski, a regular guy who survives a crash landing on a planet that actively wants him dead. Your only hope is to use a mysterious substance to create alternate versions of yourself, Alters, each born from a pivotal moment where your life could have gone down a different path.
This isn't just about spawning a clone with "+10 to Mining." You bring to life the Jan who stayed in school and became a detached, intellectual scientist. The Jan who dropped out and became a street-smart, hot-headed technician. The Jan who became a blue-collar worker with a heart of gold. And the single voice actor who plays every last one of them deserves an award, because each Alter feels like a completely different, fully realized person who just happens to wear your face. Exploring their pasts on the "branching screen" and seeing how one different choice created a whole new person is a deeply personal and fascinating hook that no other game has even come close to.
A Symphony of Bullshit and Brilliance
The moment you have more than one Jan, the game transforms from a solo survival story into a deeply fucked up family drama. Your mobile base, a giant wheel rolling across the desolate landscape, becomes a pressure cooker of conflicting egos. The Scientist wants to run methodical tests, but the Technician thinks that's a waste of time and just wants to build shit. The Worker just wants everyone to be happy and stop crunching, for fuck's sake.
You aren't just managing resources; you're managing personalities. You're mediating arguments, trying to keep morale high, and making choices that will inevitably piss someone off. It's a beautiful, chaotic symphony of base building and psychological warfare. You’ll build them a dorm, a social room, you'll even find old movies for them to watch together. But no amount of beer pong can fix the fact that these are all broken people who resent each other's choices, because they're choices they could have made themselves. It’s genius.
The Sun is a Goddamn Deadly Laser
For all the fascinating internal conflict, the biggest source of stress comes from outside: the relentless, uncaring sun. This game runs on a timer. A very, very stressful timer. Every day, you have a limited window to venture outside your base to scavenge for resources before the planet's star starts spewing radiation that will cook you alive in your suit.
This isn't a chill exploration game. This is a frantic, panicked dash against the clock. Forget admiring the alien landscape; I was too busy having a full-blown anxiety attack about whether I could mine enough metal to fix the busted life support before being incinerated. The constant time pressure is oppressive. It forces you to make risky choices and punishes you brutally if you manage your time poorly. It is, without a doubt, the most controversial part of the game, and whether you love or hate it will determine if you see this as a masterpiece or a torture device.
My Choices Matter (Except When They Don't)
The Alters loves to tell you that your choices matter, and they do... until they don't. The game is filled with powerful, narrative-driven moments where you have to make a tough call. But it's also filled with scripted events that feel predetermined, no matter how well you play. I spent hours trying to keep one of my Alters happy and healthy, only for the game's story to decide it was his time to go. It’s a bold, gut-punching way to tell a story about fate and futility, but it can also feel cheap. It robs you of your agency and leaves you wondering why you bothered trying to manage their happiness at all if the script was just going to kill them anyway. It's a feature, not a bug, but it's a feature that will make you want to throw your monitor out the window.
Save Me From This Save System
Let's talk about the game's most unforgivable sin. There are no manual saves. The game only autosaves at the start of each day when Jan wakes up. This means if the game crashes, if you get stuck on a piece of geometry while exploring, or if you make a catastrophic mistake, you lose everything you did that day. That can be 15, 20, even 25 minutes of meticulous planning, resource gathering, and base management, all gone in an instant. In a game this punishing and complex, it however also has a certain charm, but you know how I am, the more options for the player; the better..
The Verdict
The Alters is one of the most original and thought-provoking games I have ever played. It's a brilliant blend of survival, base management, and deep character study with a story that will stick with you long after you're done. It is also a goddamn stress factory that feels designed to give you a heart condition, with a punishing timer and a save system that belongs in a museum for bad ideas.
I respect this game immensely, but I can't recommend it to everyone. If you're looking for a chill sandbox, run away. But if you want a challenging, unique, and unforgettable narrative experience and you have the patience of a saint and a high tolerance for anxiety, then step into Jan's boots. You're in for one hell of a ride.
Score: 9.0/10 - A brilliant, infuriating, and unforgettable identity crisis.
We at NLM received a key for this game for free, this however didn't impact our review in any way.