Every so often, a game comes along that really makes you smile and pay attention because of its unique blend of ideas.

The Alters is most definitely that game. And its timely considering the spate of quality we’ve already had in 2025 so far, particularly in the indie space what with Blue Prince and Expedition 33.

So this latest from 11 Bit Studios really stands out – not least of which because of its cheeky and fun key art – because you’re essentially managing an army of clones to run a space station and help each other to stay alive. Yeah, right!

It all starts out with you crash-landing on a planet, losing your entire team and you somehow miraculously surviving. Outside of the initial intrigue, the idea seems particularly familiar – stranded space man, looking for resources, and a wayback home is about as formulaic a premise as it gets.

But as you’re exploring the planet, you soon come into contact with radiation – a plight that affects the planet every night and essentially makes the surface uninhabitable. Which is where climbing back onto your space station becomes critical and essential to your survival. And so one minute you’re going from gathering resources, exploring terrain, finding ways forward through blocked areas, to the next managing and upkeeping a space station.

And that’s where things start to get interesting and the game suddenly goes from being No Man’s Sky / Starfield lite, to suddenly having these XCOM like variables to it, where you’re base-building and placing new rooms. And within each of those rooms are new ways to improve your conditions and preserve you.

You’ll be stranded and alone still but you can take calls from a distant, far-off bases with faceless corps who ‘have your best interests at heart’ – and overtime as you progress through the story, you’ll also be able to take calls from other individuals relevant to you.

So it seems like they’re doing what they can to rescue you but you start to realise it might not be because they really want to get you home and rather research a resource you’ve found – Rapidium. And this fascinating resource, that seems to be rich and in abundance in your local area can do something quite imaginable – cloning.

Using a Quantum Computer, you discover the corporation is keeping timelines on their personnel, documenting their life’s journeys through the significant key moments in their lives – their first relationship, the time when they left home, career defining milestones. But the twist is, you can actually alterate those timelines and view an alternate reality for your character if they’d chosen a different path.

Soon these timelines begin to branch off into alternative scenarios to the key events of your life and from that, forms a person with a completely different mindset, with very different values and most interestingly, a totally different career path. And once you’ve begun the process, after first cloning a sheep using this new material, you actually begin to clone yourself, essentially creating a crew to run and maintain the ship, while also using their expertise to help you unlock new possibilities.

And as if that wasn’t enough, because of their different views and mentalities, they also come with different personal goals and sometimes they may not even want to work with you because they don’t necessarily agree with being ‘spawned’ on this station, so you might need to bond with them first or get them on side to trust you or at least co-operate. Then you’ll also find Alters will argue amongst themselves, sometimes wanting to make best use of the resources they have, but also getting grumpy if they don’t have the right living conditions and even frustrated with one another views. Sometimes crew mates may even vibe to go against you or others.

The point of me breaking this out is that, simply put, it’s a premise that sells itself. It’s genius, clever, smart, but is also complimented by witty writing, smooth traversal and loops and a vibrant aesthetic that really shines, though there are some frame rate dips on the higher fidelity modes.

And I think the thing that really sets this apart is how heavy the narrative component is. For a strategy game, first and foremost, story plays a massive part here in terms of you wanting to unravel the wider mystery, who the characters are, what lies on each planet, the secrets behind the resources you find and what they unlock, and ultimately where you’re trying to get to.

I found some of the base and room placement to be a bit frustrating at first. Considering the amount of rooms you have, the size of them and the space you deal with, you’ll find yourself quite early on doing a lot of chopping and changing to get everything where you want it to be. And the game surprises you quite quickly in how things rack up. There’s a steady pace at first, but before long the systems really kick in and you’ll find it quite tricky to keep on top of everything, all while a timer is running down each day and you only have a finite amount of energy.

Such is the point – you’re not going to see everything in one playthrough. While the game’s story is fairly linear and you have a path and direction, for the most part its down to you to figure out what to build, where to place it and how to get what you need to proceed. Quite soon as you’re getting into the gameflow, you’ll find yourself setting up tasks for your Alters the night before, so that the next day you can go out the airlock, keep digging up resources, setting up pylons and making sure you’re making the most of your time so it doesn’t catch up to you.

As someone who loves and appreciates strategy games but considers myself a middle of the road player who gets a bit lost in the weeds of the likes of Crusader Kings and Manor Lords, The Alters scratches my itch perfectly. I adore a good story, XCOM remains one of my all-time favourite games and the right balance of survival is completely my jam. It’s almost like the game was made for me and because of that, I went right down the rabbit hole with it, losing hour upon hour just trying to see as much as I could and really making sure to plan out my days, while dealing with the ad-hoc unexpected twists that always tried to throw my plans into dissaray.

Choices definitely matter here, from the types of resources you gather and how much you stockpile, to the Alters you create and side with, to the rooms you make, 11 Bit have found this beautiful halfway home between a strategy first game with layers of things to unlock, each taking a set amount of time, to making sure the story beats sync up with them and keep you invested as you learn more about what’s happened before and what’s about to happen next.

And there’s even the stories you’ll kind of tell yourself about how different your Jan is from the other Alters. What their life would have been like if they’d made some of the choices you had or how connected you really are. There’s some fascinating Phillip K Dick esque philosophies to unpack here and it takes the concept of ‘naming your XCOM soldiers and feeling a connection to them’ to another level, because suddenly you’re super invested in your Alters and the moral choice you’ve made of forcing them into this impossible situation. You asshole.

Each Alter has an emotional status to think about, but also health conditions. They create their own logs of their experiences, live their own lives throughout the day – feeling valued or ignored and this all feeds into their emotional matrix and how they’ll respond to you or the tasks at hand. Then on your travels you’ll also uncover fun collectibles and gear as well as resources but you only have a finite amount of storage unless you build more. You’ve also got the mass of your base to think about and the weight of it, in addition to having radiation filters to protect you from the outside world.

And then there are the threats that exist outside and the dangers that presents to your exploration. I can go on and on about this one, but I feel like I’m starting to venture into spoilers. Something I’d absolutely avoid because going into this game fresh, I’d say, is the way to go.

The good news is, there’s appeal here for core strategy fans who love a challenge, but also those like me who like some lite strategy elements but also appreciate being able to mix it up and follow a good story at the same time. The Alters is a banger, folks, and one you simply must not miss!

Verdict

The Alters is a sensational video game that beautifully blends a multitude of genres, mashing them up expertly into a compelling core loop that feels both stressful with a constant timer and threat of peril at your back, but also a philosophically smart and intriguing narrative that really grips and holds onto you throughout as you navigate an uncertain world with an unimaginable crew navigating unlimited possibilities. An absolute must-play!

Pros

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The Alters is out now on PC, PS, and Xbox Game Pass

Played on Xbox Series X

Code kindly provided by 11 Bit Studios for review purposes