The video game industry’s love affair with science fiction is as old as the medium itself, so it’s no minor statement when I say that 11 Bit Studios’ The Alters is perhaps the weirdest sci-fi game I’ve ever seen. This bizarre survival game is packed with weighty building mechanics and social links, and every time I thought the 40-minute demo couldn’t get any wilder, it defied my expectations by throwing yet another curveball. Whether it’s the planet’s rising sun that threatens to burn you into oblivion or the giant wheel-shaped base that serves as your home, the Rapidium miracle element that’s Earth’s only chance at survival or the alternate reality clones of the protagonist that serve as your companions, The Alters is perhaps the most high-concept science fiction game of all time – and maybe that’s not such a bad thing. I quite enjoy weird science fiction stories myself, and there’s something about The Alters’ extreme weirdness that gives it a neat dreamlike quality that’s unlike anything I’ve seen before. That’s definitely something to get excited about.
In the Alters, you play one version of Jan Dolski, a space-faring captain on an expedition to a remote world that’s gone horribly wrong, seeing you stranded on a planet with a slowly rising sun that will kill you if you let it. While waiting for help to arrive, you’ll need to pilot your mobile command base across the surface of a hostile world, and that can’t happen on your own. To assist you, you’ll need to gather resources to build alternative versions of yourself called Alters, who are pulled from the multiverse where Jan made different life choices and became a different person. This way, you can find a version of yourself who became a miner to help with gathering raw materials and another version who became a scientist to assist with research and development of new technologies.
Not only do you have to contend with keeping your base fed with supplies and solving obstacles to move the base along the planet’s surface to stay out of range of the sun, but you also have to manage the various alternate versions of yourself, who each have their own baggage, needs, likes, and dislikes. In the demo, one version of Jan struggled with opioid addiction after being involved in a mining injury, and constantly caused issues with his unpredictable behavior, while another conflict arose between two other Alters who disagreed over how to best use resources. Keeping tabs on everyone’s mental state and engaging in dialogue sections to resolve disputes and gain understanding of each of your clones’ mental state already seems like it’s a tough balancing act somewhat early into the game, so I can only imagine how complex that gets as you add more and more Alters.
Speaking of which, one really cool part of the demo was when they dove into Jan’s past, represented by branching life decisions that turned Jan, and his alternates, into the people they are. One scenario shown involved Jan recruiting a version of himself who was an expert botanist due to a critical life decision that led him down a different career path. Coincidentally, that life path resulted in a version of the protagonist who had a better relationship with his now ex-wife, allowing him to better navigate a delicate social situation in addition to gaining some much-needed botany expertise to help on his mission to keep the crew of clones fed.
Outside of the base, most of the demo focused on gathering resources to keep the base afloat and feed the production of expansions, the most important material of which is called Rapidium. This magical and rare element enables the rapid growth of organic materials and is connected to Jan’s space mission gone wrong, as it’s the only hope Earth has of getting out of its apparent food shortage. But it has other, more immediate uses as well, namely creating new Alters to help you power your base and help keep you alive long enough for rescue to arrive.
I have to say, despite being a super bizarre story that mixes a whole bunch of disparate genres together, I found myself extremely drawn to the uniqueness of this totally strange game. Time will tell if The Alters can balance all of them into a single, cohesive player experience.
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