The Alters

The Alters was provided by 11 Bit Studios for review. Thank you!

When 11 Bit Studios introduced The Alters last year, I was completely hooked on the premise. A sci-fi, futuristic survival base-building game where you clone yourself to survive sounded very appealing, and I wasn’t sure how they were going to pull it off. It sounded a little too ambitious at times, especially as I learned about the relationship management and details of the base building. However, after playing through the game, I can say The Alters succeeds in what it sets out to do, even when it feels a little bit overwhelming.

The whole premise and setting of The Alters roped me in from the start and never let go as my clone team and I investigated the planet. You play as Jan Dolski, a builder who was sent on a mission to a desolate planet in the hopes of finding a groundbreaking substance called Rapidium. Unfortunately, your entire team mysteriously died on entry to the planet’s surface, so to survive, Jan uses Rapidium to make alternative reality clones of himself, splicing his own memories and creating new ones. From there, the team will have to work together to overcome obstacles and make it off the planet alive.

The overall premise is fantastic, and I was so curious what was wrong with this planet and what Rapidium was needed for. I was captivated by the story and challenges that we faced, and it made me even more curious about this planet, the mission, and the motivations behind each person involved. Some of those story beats were a little boring, with some cutscenes taking place in a phone call that I was a little bored by, but these never took too long, and I was right back into the thick of it.

I also love how Jan and his alternative selves are handled. Even though I felt they accepted themselves as fake clones a little too quickly, the way they interact and contemplate very unethical scenarios, including their own existence, is intriguing. They may all be the same person, but their personalities, actions, desires, and memories all make each person feel like their own individual being. I have to praise Jan's actor, Alex Jordan, since he was able to act wonderfully as multiple different versions of the same character, all at once, and still make it a joy to watch and listen to.

There will be tons of choices to make throughout the game, and it feels like each one reverberates and matters as the story progresses. Not only do they change the course of events, but they can also impact how each of your clones feels. It becomes a bit of a balancing game, trying to keep them happy while also ensuring your survival, but in the end, it is one of the few games I have ever personally wanted to go back and replay just to see different outcomes. Generally, I am happy seeing the end of a game and don't feel compelled to give it another go, but that was different with The Alters, and I couldn't be happier.

And I have to say, this planet we are on has some of the most haunting visuals and gorgeous landscapes I have seen in a long time. It was a treat running through lava rivers, bluish-hue valleys, and anomaly-filled passages. There were so many stunning spots across the planet, and it was hard not to love running around when I could.

Gameplay-wise, The Alters mixes up a few different types of genres to create an enticing experience. The game is separated into individual days, and you can do whatever you want throughout the days to get as many materials as you can and craft the required items and buildings.

You will start off running around and inspecting the planet, finding deposits of metal, organics, and minerals, and then setting up mining buildings and connecting them by pylons. From there, you can spend your day mining those materials, exploring to find new ones, completing your missions, or heading back to the base to work. You have to pick and choose wisely to make sure you have everything you need, like food and radiation filters, while also gathering enough materials to craft all of it.

That's where your clones come in. The alternate selves can be assigned to work at one location at a time, making them mine or craft as needed. Each alter you create has a specific job as well, which can give them bonuses when they are doing work that matches their job, making it more appealing to make the Miner go mine, Refiner go to the Refinery, and the Worker go to the Workshop. This all sets up a nice automatic chain to ensure you get everything needed, but it's almost never enough, so you will still have to contribute.

While your materials are used for crafting, they are also going to be used for adding new room modules and expanding your building space. It reminded me a lot of the mobile game Fallout Shelter. You will have to craft different rooms to provide some helpful function, like a Refinery or Greenhouse, or ones that can help make your alters feel better, like a park with a bench or a Gym. Once built, your modules can be easily changed, so nothing is set in stone.

I really want to praise the UI here. Not only is it very obvious where all the information is, but it's easy to reassign your alters and queue up items to craft without needing to be anywhere specific. It was a fantastic decision to include it this way, and it makes management significantly less obnoxious. The team did a great job offering quality-of-life improvements that make it easy to manage everything happening, and it makes it significantly more enjoyable to play this way.

Later on, it can get a little overwhelming with all the decisions that need to be made, coupled with worsening tensions with your alters and disasters like radiation and magnetic storms, but it still felt enjoyable to deal with. It didn't matter what came up, I still had such a great time tackling all the challenges that came by way. The balancing act of gathering materials, crafting new items and buildings, choosing which quests to prioritize, and keeping all my clones happy always has me something to do and never becomes too much.

The Alters - Steam Deck Performance

While I was worried about playing The Alters on the Steam Deck, I am happy to say I was pleasantly surprised by the performance. It isn't amazing, but for the scale of the game, I am quite pleased. However, this is a big title, and because of that, we should keep our expectations in check. There are definitely some compromises, but in the end, it is playable.

Now, that all being said, we are going to be targeting 30 FPS and not trying to go over. The game has a lot of choke points that are temporary, but will slow down the performance. Running around the planet will fluctuate on the default settings, which are at all Low with TSR upscaling at Performance, and can go down into the high 20s for a moment. There is also a ton of slowdown when going up and down the elevator in your home base, but this was also prevalent on my desktop.

I also found that TSR looked much better, and while it does have a slightly lower framerate, FSR doesn't improve it enough to justify using it. After using all of the upscalers, TSR won out for me. XeSS looks better than FSR as well, but it has some slight shimmering further away, so I still felt that TSR was the way to go. We will also have the maximum battery drain, but in the end, it is playable, and I am happy about that, just expect some hitches and performance drops here and there.

So, at the default settings, I was averaging around 32 - 34 FPS when it wasn't dropping, so we can't do much to improve quality above the Low setting. However, with the drops already happening, I found that playing at the Balanced upscaling setting to be bearable performance-wise, while also looking slightly better:

Accessibility

The game does have an accessibility tab, which allows you to change closed caption font size, HUD scaling, and toggle some of the effects. We can also change the economy and action elements, language, subtitles, time localization, units (meters or feet), change controller movement mode, invert the camera, rebind keys, and change audio volume.

The game does support 16:10 resolutions, as well as cloud saves and controller support. There are no HDR settings.

Conclusion

The Alters is an amazing game, and one of the few that I could actually see myself replaying for the story. The combination of survival, gathering, and base building, mixed with a winding, sci-fi story where your choices matter, is a treat and so intriguing that it only gets better the longer you play. Even with some little nuisances later and a slight overwhelming feeling, nothing ever detracted from the gameplay or story, and I was loving it.

I was also surprised that it plays as well as it does on the Steam Deck. It isn't perfect, and does have some hitches and slowdowns, but it sticks above 30 FPS for the most part and looks great. It does need a lot of power, but in the end, it will be worthwhile to play on the go.