Game Review: ‘The Alters’, 11 Bit Studios’ Nightmarish Sci-fi Survival Game
Imagine waking up in the aftermath of a nightmare. A space nightmare. Your whole space expedition has gone catastrophically wrong, and your crewmates are either dead or missing. You are stranded on a dangerous alien world trying to escape death. There is no rescue, no sanctuary, no hope. Only a massive wheel‑shaped mobile base, helping you find an escape, while your existence is on the brink of destruction. As you scramble to find a way out, you have to use the only items that are at your disposal. To survive, you must do things that are on the brink of forgetting about your entire morality. You have to know how to escape, how to survive, and most of all, how not to lose yourself in this world. Ladies and Gentlemen, this is… The Alters.
[Note: While I am reviewing this game independently and honestly, it should be noted that it has been provided to me by 11 Bit Studios, & Terminals for the purpose of this review. Warning: Light spoilers from The Alters are below!]
Background on 11 Bit Studios’ new survival game The Alters
The Alters is the newest survival game from the Polish 11 Bit Studios. They are known for games like Frostpunk 1 & Frostpunk 2, This War of Mine, The Thaumaturge, The Invincible, and many more. If I had to say, currently, they are one of the hottest and best gaming studios. None of their most recent games from the past 10 years was received below great. This particular game mixes survival, base‑building, resource management, and self-examining storytelling into a sci‑fi survival game that plays with your mind at each step.
When you boot up the game and start playing, you immediately get sucked into the positively overwhelming narrative of The Alters. From the moment you wake as Jan Dolski, who is the main character in the game, and the ordinary space miner, you get thrown into the whirlwind of weird events. When you start finding out everything step by step, at one point, travelling in the wheel‑shaped mobile base will seem like the most normal thing in this game. Every action you advance with is just as important as every breath you take, every step you take, and every move you make. What makes The Alters different from previous 11 Bit Studios’ games is its need to explore human psychology, players’ mentality, and show you familiar aspects from other games in a different surrounding.
One of the main goals in the game is obtaining an enigmatic substance called Rapidium. Don’t want to spoil much, but it’s one of the plot points for the game where you confront yourself with a harsh truth. To survive, you must make decisions that will affect not only you, but also other people from your team, other…YOUs.
The Alters: the story
Jan’s story begins with landing on a weird planet, where he immediately starts to feel isolated and full of grief. The destruction of his crew, the collapse of a mission, and the weight of guilt led him to a place where he almost wants to end this. His only hope is the base just near the landing zone. After fixing some parts of it, he finds out about the “Womb” facility on the ship, which can help him gather a crew. The crew, which are the alternate versions of himself called The Alters. Without saying too much and spoiling the story, these aren’t merely clones of Jan. They are living, sentient beings, full of memories, different skills, similar hopes, and similar regrets.
The whole point of the story is to escape from the sun, which will burn everything in its way. Especially everything that is not a natural resource of the planet. To escape, Jan must use the base he found, contact Earth, and try to survive until the rescue team arrives. Aboard the base at your disposal, you have tools such as the quantum computer, kitchen, engine room, magazines, and more. Through the game, you can upgrade and explore the base. For example, you can go to the quantum computer and let Jan tap into his “Tree of Life” to learn about his past, and some other very interesting things.
For the sake of his survival, Jan creates The Alters. They are fully developed versions of him, each with unique skills, emotions, worldviews, and stories. You’ll meet Jan Technician, Jan Botanist, Jan Scientist, and more. Each with distinct accents, temperaments, and very unsettling memories. Due to the number of different worldviews and rules, conflicts arise. One Alter might resent Jan for being a lousy boss, and another might praise him for trying to focus only on a mission, not on his own morality. Managing these relationships demands finesse. If mistreated, Alters may rebel, sabotage the mission, or even spark an uprising. This interplay of self and alternate selves forms the emotional heart of the narrative.
Jan isn’t simply fighting for survival. He is confronting parts of himself that embody his success, failures, love, and loss. It’s a dark take on identity, regret, and accountability. It’s also very manipulative because when you are as immersed in the game as I was, you start feeling their emotions and their problems. You can’t just run away from them. You feel the need to help them escape and survive, no matter what.
Gameplay in The Alters
The gameplay of The Alters is very similar to some survival games, but it’s more upgraded. It’s like a mix of Death Stranding (but in space), This War of Mine, Frostpunk, Alan Wake series, and 60 Seconds. Your main goal outside the base is to scavenge for resources, scan underground deposits, build pylons to mine, and make your base bigger with modules and upgrades like dorms, research labs, kitchens etc. You construct rooms to house Alters, craft items to improve morale, and assign your variants to tasks like mining, cooking, repairing, and research.
Each in‑game second demands attention. Sleep cycles must be balanced because exhaustion and stress may cause losses in productivity, ergo the crisis is coming. Food quality, living conditions, and emotional bonds. Every single factor in the game influences the morale of your crew. Feed them poorly, don’t let them rest, or ignore their feelings, and you risk rebellion or worse.
Furthermore, time is constantly slipping between your fingers, meaning you must always evaluate whether exploration, bonding, or resource harvesting takes priority. You also have to be aware of the upcoming magnetic storms, which are one of the worst moments. The productivity must be two times bigger, and the resources must be mined to create radiation shields. It’s pure chaos. This pressure results in a unique emotional gameplay that is quiet, requires very careful planning, and lets you experience making the toughest decisions.
A technical and artistic showcase from 11 Bit Studios
The Alters is a game created on Unreal Engine 5, and it beautifully shows the magnificence of different alien terrains, lousy interiors, various weather effects, and even cutscenes. Outside of base, different parts of the planet are darker, depending on whether they have enough light sources. Inside, the wheel‑base takes you back to the ’90s sci‑fi projects, showing rather clean, sometimes functional, and constantly evolving, a self-contained human habitat. It also has a lot of very nice-fitting Easter eggs to Polish culture.
The voice of Jan Dolski and his variants is Alex Jordan, who previously worked on games such as Cyberpunk 2077, Dragon Age: The Veilguard, or Warhammer 40K: Darktide. He does everything in his power to show us different accents, different emotions, and different pronunciation with each different Alter. His performance is a standout of the game, as he had a very tough job playing so many characters. Even though they are the same person, they are so different, and that was a real challenge.
Among other actors who are in The Alters, there is also an English voice of Geralt from The Witcher 3, Doug Cockle. He plays Maxwell, one of the most important characters in the narrative besides Jan and his Alters. He is one of the directors of the company that hired Jan and his deceased crew. When you play the game, I advise you to listen carefully to what he’s saying. Because of the different tones and accents in his speeches, they may help you to understand what is going on, and what’s about to come.
The music and ambience sounds are something else in The Alters. The person responsible for the music and soundtrack is Polish composer Piotr Musiał. He composed the music for The Witcher 3 DLC Blood and Wine, Frostpunk 2, and others. His understanding of giving the player different experiences depending on the scene, situation, interaction, or simply just vibing is unbelievable. The themes in the game fit it very well, but they are also so good that you can listen to them even after you stop playing.
There is one moment in the first act of the game in the kitchen that is a “musical” moment. It is one of the highlights of the game for me. It describes perfectly the whole situation that’s currently happening between Jan and his Alters. It serves both as a show and as a catalyst that connects them all to the same goal, and proves to them that even though they are different variants of one person, they are almost the same. And for that moment in the game, Piotr Musiał and the writers deserve praise because they did one hell of a job giving us an iconic scene and one of the most important ones in the game.
Final thoughts on 11 Bit Studios’ game The Alters
I spent far too many hours playing in The Alters. The best thing I can tell you about it is that it’s not just another survival game. You won’t see everything in one run because it has different endings and different solutions with each new decision, and each new play through. It’s a game that washed me emotionally, and made me question my morality sometimes. It’s that good. This is a game about time spent, time lost, and time fought for. Both physically and emotionally. Each in-game minute has weight; each relationship with an Alter shapes the psychological contour of survival. I cried, I laughed, I was afraid, basically I felt everything this game wanted me to feel.
It is one of the best games this year, easily. The Alters will leave you speechless and will make you wonder how it’s possible that you spent so many hours playing it. If I had to pick, it’s easily the best 11 Bit Studios game. I love The Thaumaturge, This War of Mine, and the Frostpunk series. But this, this is something else. It still leaves me wondering what I could have done differently or what else I should have done to prevent such a bad outcome. And the best thing is, I’ll never know. Unless I play it again and try different options.
The Alters is an easily 10/10 game in its category. There’s no better game at this moment that would capture the essence of survival games as good, while playing with the emotions of players. Story, gameplay, technicalities, music, it all fits. Even though it’s not a blockbuster game, I have to say that I really want The Alters to be among the Game of the Year nominees. 11 Bit Studios deserves it. As a Polish person, I am very proud that this game exists and will be available for people around the world to experience.
Are you excited to check out The Alters? Have you played it already? Let us know what you think on social media @MyCosmicCircus or @TheCosmicCircus.com on Bluesky!
