THE ALTERS

Me, Myselves, and I

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Developer: 11 bit studios Publisher: 11 bit studios ESRB Rating: M (Mature) Release Date: 06/11/2025 Played On: PC (Microsoft Windows) Reviewed By: Erik McDowell

It's rare for a game to genuinely surprise me anymore, so when one comes along and changes my whole week, I tend to gush. And this week, no one can shut me up about The Alters.

The Alters is a moody, sci-fi survival game with base-building elements, developed by 11 Bit Studios—the same publisher behind INDIKA, another game from last year that I still try to shoehorn into every conversation.

In a word, The Alters is different. It's high-concept science fiction that relies on a mind-bending framework to tell a grounded, personal story. At the heart of that story is Jan Dolski, the sole survivor of an ill-fated mining mission, now marooned on a distant planet. To stay alive, he must keep a mobile mining base moving, racing toward rescue and away from the incinerating light of the rising sun.

But he can't do it alone. To fill the void left by his lost crew, Jan is forced to use experimental technology to create a new one. Using a cloning machine and a quantum computer, he creates Alters—copies of himself from timelines where he made different choices at key moments in his life.

Each Jan brings a new skill to the table but also unique complications. As the crew grows, their personalities clash and start to threaten the mission. Survival soon depends not just on technical skill but on self-reflection, personal growth, and confronting life's what-ifs. If Jan doesn't carefully manage his relationships with his Alters, the crossroads that once split their lives may lead to a head-on collision that could doom them all.