What is The Alters?

The Alters is a charming, thoughtful Sci Fi adventure about teamwork and working through trauma to find what is really important, set to the tune of surviving a murderous sun on an alien planet long enough to be rescued by the people who sent you there.

11 Bit Studios throws you right into the problem from second one. You play Jan Dolski, who has crash-landed on some planet. He is immediately set off to find survivors from his crew. There are none, and it’s up to you and you alone to figure out what to do and how to survive. Luckily, the forward operating base you came with is still intact. Unfortunately, it’s not something one person alone can operate. By far, The Alters was one of my more enjoyable video game experiences of the past decade.

Developer & Publisher // 11 Bit Studios
Platforms // PC, PlayStation 5, XBox Series
MSRP & Release Date // $34.99, June 13th, 2025
Reviewed On // XBOX Series X

The Story of The Alters

The story of the game, without getting into any spoilers, is that Jan and his team were sent here to mine Rapidium, a unique and expensive material. Jan’s convenient, local access to Rapidium is both his ticket home and his lifeline in the stressful situation he finds himself in.

Jan is an unskilled laborer on this assignment, so his options are limited. He contacts the corporation back on Earth to figure out what to do. After the expected back and forth appropriate for the circumstances, it’s suggested that you use the base’s Quantum Computer to create a clone of yourself. Using Rapidium. The Quantum Computer can create clones who choose a different path through life than Jan. This results in their having different skills and specialties.

So the first clone you create is Jan Dolski, the Technician. You’ll need a variety of further Jan specialists to cross the finish line. These specialists will advance the mission by conducting scientific research, increasing resource efficiency, improving crew morale, helping you clear physical and metaphysical obstacles to get to the next safe location and one step closer to rescue, and weighing in on heavy moral dilemmas that crop up in the fight to survive.

The overall story is definitely a strength. It’s not a mind-blowing story with a plot twist that will leave you reeling for days after or lose sleep thinking about. But the story is wielded very well, and seemingly deliberately, to boost the impact of the characters. The individual stories that unfold with the characters are where the magic lies. They’ve been ripped from their reality to this new one. The events that they lived and the people they cared about in their memories don’t exist. This affects how they interact with each other. It affects how they interact with the main Jan, who is responsible for their being there. And it affects how they react to key decision points in the story. All of that is far more interesting than the single main narrative, and it’s what will leave a lasting impression on the player.

Impressions That Last

An example without spoiling anything major. Jan came from a broken home with an abusive father. He ignored it and got out on his own at the earliest opportunity. Some of the other alters handled that differently. One stood up to the father and basically kicked him out, and finding out that the main Jan just let it happen leads to a tense, organic, emotional conversation between them as the other Jan tries to understand how the main Jan could allow that, and supposing that’s why the main Jan ended up as an unskilled laborer on this mission. But through the friction of these interactions, the Jans become closer and understand each other and all of the traumas they went through in their lives in each of the ways they did. And there are some pretty wild experiences some of these Jans went through that they’re having trouble dealing with, which can even lead to gameplay challenges.

I have one criticism of the story. For a story that hyper-focuses on the theme of choice and consequence, where every alter is basically an entirely different person because of a choice they made differently from the main character and the consequences of that choice throughout their life, the multiple endings for the main story could have been more different. Each ending makes sense, and the conclusion is definitely satisfying and gives the choices you made throughout a fairly meaningful meaning. It just feels like a big missed opportunity to not crack open the possibilities and really flesh them out, such that it could have taken this game to a much higher level.

The Alters Gameplay Loop

The Gameplay Loop in The Alters is simple. Each day begins with waking up inside the base. You have a limited number of days before the sun reaches the horizon and kills everyone aboard. From there, you assess the status of the base and the morale of your Alters. And then you assign Alters tasks and choose a task for yourself.

These tasks range from crafting items at the work bench to conducting research for new technology, to processing resources, to mining resources out on the planet’s surface. Each Alter is better at specific tasks than others, and you yourself can perform most of the same tasks they can. There are only a few specific tasks you can’t perform yourself during the day.

So the day-to-day gameplay is a balance of base building, resource management, and crew management. Outside of that, the one task that only you can perform is exploring the planet surface to solve problems relating to progressing the main story and getting out of the place you are now before the sun arrives.

Opinions Matter!

Each Alter will have their own opinion of the choices you make and things you say to them in dialogue. This will impact your relationship with them, their relationship with each other, and their morale. Their morale will impact their work performance and their willingness to cooperate.

In extreme cases, it may even lead to them leaving the station to fend for themselves. Each alter can also… alter the gameplay options. Some Alters just have a passive bonus or two. Some alters have skills or specializations that engage new mechanics altogether.

There are also events like radiation storms and conflicts of personality between the different Jans. These events might throw a wrench in your carefully crafted itinerary for the day that you’re currently working through.

But How Fun and Engaging is the Gameplay?

The Alters’ gameplay mechanics are a strength and a weakness. The Base Building and Management gameplay is varied, fun, and engaging, yet simple. The Exploration/”Combat” gameplay is noticeably weaker and felt a little out of place. There’s no real combat in this game, but there are floating “anomalies” that have a few different, simple behaviors that can cause you to take on a lot of radiation if you don’t “shoot” them with a special scanner during the exploration sequences. These gameplay segments were not particularly fun and were sometimes even annoying, and I think the game would have been better without them entirely.

While I enjoyed the Base Building and Management gameplay, I think it could have been more fleshed out and deeper if the gameplay focus wasn’t split so much with all the exploration on the planet’s surface, navigating anomalies and phase gates, and I think it could have been a stronger and more interesting gameplay experience in that case. But, for it is, it’s fun from the start of the game to the end of the game, and the pace of progression is very satisfying.

The Alters Themselves

The Alters‘ greatest strength is its characters. Easily. Alex Jordan voices all of the Jans, which makes sense since they’re all the same person. Alex does an incredible job making each Jan very unique. Some Jans’ life choices lead to them living in very different areas, and they have different accents to reflect that. Scientist Jan speaks quickly like he’s overdosing on caffeine at all times.

Miner Jan has a grizzled, anxious voice that fits his character as you learn about his own life experiences before being brought into this existence. I had the pleasure of speaking to Alex at GDC in 2026. He gave a little insight into the things he would do with his surroundings and how he would get into the mind of the specific alter he’d be recording for. This is how he would bring out each one when it was their turn. His genius in the work of this game definitely went criminally underappreciated.

The writing team for The Alters also contributed tremendously to the breadth of different Jans. If you were to read the script without hearing or seeing who was speaking and read each line without their job distinction, you’d still be able to recognize who was speaking based on what they’re saying and how they’re saying it. They are very unique from each other despite being the same person, but in a way that absolutely hits the mark.

The Sound and Graphics of the Alters

The sound effects are solid AA fare. Nothing in the sound effects stands out positively or negatively. The graphics I would clock a little above average in the AA space in this genre. Better than I expected, but they didn’t stop me in my tracks with a couple of exceptions. The music works really well at establishing the appropriate ambiance. I don’t remember ever having a track stuck in my head or humming it at work, but the music definitely fits the game.

The voice acting, as I’ve alluded to previously, is excellent in this game. There are a few voice actors other than Alex Jordan, and everyone did a fantastic job on this one. This is especially positive because what makes this game so special is the dialogue and intrigue, so a dropped ball in the voice performances would have really hit hard. Similarly, such a stellar performance by everyone involved really elevates the experience. They definitely put the production value and budget in the places that best served the game and player experience.

The Alters Accessibility Options

If you’re a gamer who requires accessibility options and you’re wondering what The Alters will do to make this game more approachable, there aren’t a lot of great options here. You’ve got Closed Caption and HUD scaling with a few different size options for those with compromised vision. And then there are two options for gameplay segments (“fighting” the previously mentioned anomalies and controlling Jan under the influence of alcohol) that require coordination and reaction timing, which you can change the difficulty of separately from the normal difficulty adjustments. They’re more forgiving for people with impaired motor control.

I will say most of the game doesn’t have high demands of fast-paced button inputs or anything. But if you’re looking for specific accessibility options in your games that you think would be necessary for what I’ve described of the gameplay mechanics, you’re not going to find them here as of this writing.

Final Verdict – The Alters

The Alters is a game I would strongly recommend to anyone who enjoys a good, heartfelt single-player story. If you’re looking for challenging gameplay, combat, or complex mechanics, this game isn’t going to scratch that itch. But this cast of characters and their stories, both shared and individual, are absolutely worth experiencing. And the gameplay is fun and engaging enough to never make the journey feel like a chore. Especially with a price tag under $40 in today’s market, it’s a no-brainer.

Author Credit: Jacob McBride