There are many inspirations for The Alters, the new game from Frostpunk developer 11 Bit Studios, but the most obvious are a duo of science fiction films; 2009’s Moon, starring Sam Rockwell, and Bong Joon-Ho’s Mickey 17 from this year (based on the 2022 novel, Mickey7 by Edward Ashton) starring Robert Pattinson. Both films deal with cloning, and shady corporations using cloning to advance their profit margins in nefarious ways. The Alters feels like it is cut from the same cloth, while also taking some inspiration from Frostpunk itself in terms of narrative-based scenarios with time-bound goals.
You are Jan Dolski, the sole survivor of the original crew of Project Dolly, a mining and survey expedition to an unknown planet. Faced with inevitable death if left alone, your only way to survive and eventually escape is to make use of a rare element called Rapidium to create clones of yourself, using a quantum computer to create “alters”; versions of Jan which have implanted memories of lives from when he made different life choices. These aren’t literally from different universes, but the concept is the same. For example, in Prime Jan’s life, he went to university, but in Technician Jan’s life, he did not. Scientist Jan specialized into research, and so on. Each branching of Jan’s life creates a new alter and new possibilities for different skills and interests, eventually staffing the entire mobile base with different versions of Jan.
The story is the core driving the entire experience, always keeping you motivated you towards your next objective. It’s an extremely well written and performed narrative, with Prime Jan (who you directly control) able to have many conversations with his alternate versions, as well as with people back on Earth coordinating the rescue. Alex Jordan does a great job as the voice of the Jans, providing a great deal of character to each different iteration. You need to not only gather adequate supplies for survival and to expand the base, but also keep the crew united, as not all the Jans are necessarily happy about being cloned or having to work together. Thus while the game has a natural cadence and loop of activities, each day can feel remarkably different.
Each chapter of the game has different objectives; in the prologue for example, you’re simply aiming to move the expedition base (a giant, hamster-wheel like contraption which can literally roll across the surface of the planet) away from the oncoming sun, which will cause temperatures on the surface to skyrocket to an un-survivable level. In others it might be to progress past an obstacle, or some other goal, alongside side objectives such as ensuring your clone crew have adequate living conditions, food and entertainment. The core loop is similar to survival games Stardew Valley or Don’t Starve; you have a set amount of time, from 7 AM to 10 PM, and a set amount of energy in which to do things, after which you’ll become exhausted. Mining for materials, constructing new items and surveying for new resources takes time, and you can only do a limited amount each day. You control Prime Jan in third person, roaming around the landscape outside your main base.
Your crew can be assigned to automatically do most tasks, including manning different parts of the base or harvesting needed materials. You’ll need to make judicious use of this, ensuring the best crew members are put to work on tasks which suit them best. Scientist Jan is a natural fit for the research lab, while Technician Jan is a dab hand at maintenance. At the same time, you’ll gradually be improving and changing the habitation base, in a manner very similar to base management in XCOM: Enemy Unknown. You can freely move rooms around, building elevators between them and broadly making the layout exactly how you’d like it, as well as making sure there’s adequate storage for all the resources you’re collecting. In time, you can upgrade the base to support even more rooms and personnel.
In between the day-to-day management you’ll be getting regular story beats, via conversations with people in Mission Control or with other members of the crew. You can also eavesdrop on alter Jans who will sometimes chat amongst themselves when they’re off duty, often with some quite funny dialogue. You have dialogue choices which will impact how the other Jans will behave; angry or depressed people will work shorter hours and achieve less, while more satisfied and happy ones may do extra work. This feels quite inspired by Fallout Shelter and games like it, leaving you juggling a variety of different tasks, always at the edge of chaos.
There’s not really another game in exactly the same mould as The Alters. It uses survival, base-building, strategy and storytelling interchangeably and in myriad overlapping ways, creating its own unique blend of gameplay. I was hooked pretty much immediately from the introduction by its strong sense of place and great writing, with Jan’s reactions to what’s happening feeling natural and believable. Even though he’s mostly just talking to different versions of himself, they feel like proper characters in their own right, rather than simply pastiche. So far, it’s the most compelling and intriguing game I’ve played this year.
