The Alters Reviews
While The Alters tells a decent sci-fi story, its real strength lies in its gameplay. The unique mechanic of creating skill-specific clones adds meaningful variety and challenge. If you enjoy pulpy sci-fi with a clever twist, it's well worth your time.
The Alters by Polish developer 11 Bit Studios once again showcases their talent for blending complex gameplay mechanics with a thoughtfully crafted narrative and mature themes. The decision to make the protagonist's clones into fully realized alter egos - each with distinct personalities, backgrounds, and ambitions - adds meaningful depth to this unique survival-management experience. While the interface can feel a bit unwieldy, and the gameplay loops may become repetitive with an uneven difficulty curve, these issues don't detract from the game's compelling story, immersive atmosphere, and solid visual design.
Review in Italian | Read full review
The Alters immerses us in a unique experience where personal decisions are intertwined with innovative management mechanics and a rich narrative that addresses the existential and ethical dilemmas of cloning. 11 bis Studios does not present a typical management and survival game...
Review in Spanish | Read full review
The Alters is an intense survival and resource management game that impresses with its deep sci-fi narrative and morally complex choices. While the unique mechanic of creating alternate versions of protagonist Jan adds a compelling layer to the gameplay, the constant pressure, dwindling resources, and emotional strain make for a demanding experience that left me more relieved than exhilarated—though its thought-provoking story will certainly stick with me.
Review in German | Read full review
"Every Choice Leaves a Mark" The Alters goes beyond the usual survival trope, offering a profound tale of identity, regret, and decision-making under pressure. Its visual design, voice acting, and layered gameplay create an unforgettable experience. Despite some demanding aspects, such as the lack of automation or complex resource management, the game excels at making every move calculated and impactful. It's one of the most human games of 2025, not only in its narrative but also in the questions it poses about self.
Review in Arabic | Read full review
The Alters achieves something tense and new by merging strategy base-building with third-person exploration and a sci-fi story about cloning yourself. But repetition and complicated busywork mar the overall effect.
The Alters is a highly atmospheric sci-fi character study mixed with simple but effective resource and base management that cleverly builds existential and interpersonal pressure throughout its story.
The Alters is a cerebral, thought-provoking, and beefy story-driven survival game, and undoubtedly 11 Bit Studios' magnum opus.
Wildly unpredictable but always enjoyable, The Alters is a masterclass in high-tension gaming.
Many games feel like they mirror film and television in the stories they tell and the cinematography they present, but The Alters feels like a best-selling sci-fi novel. The intricacies, branching storylines, decisions that actually matter, and world-building that makes you feel at home on a planet millions of light years away is a terrific accomplishment. This is the story of a singular man I cannot recommend enough. And who knows, perhaps along the way you might even learn something about yourself.
The moral implications of cloning yourself aren't lost in all the resource and base management systems.
The Alters is an engrossing survival adventure that delicately balances captivating self-reflection and engaging base management
Hardcore Gamer's official review on the new sci-fi strategy game The Alters.
The Alters is a unique and atmospheric survival game that riffs on the existing 11 Bit Studios blueprint in a meaningful way. Offering a superb sci-fi story that is equal parts somber, surreal, and silly. The economy, base building, and Alter Management are the highlights, which are somewhat dragged down by the rather mindless exploration that feels like a means to an end. But overall, The Alters is a brave and bold step forward within the survival genre, and one that will make you question your life decisions more than any other.
There were times I wished The Alters was a pure adventure game without any of the survival elements, but that friction is what makes it work. While the interpersonal relationships and conflicts between the Jans are the heart of the experience for me, and what I can wholeheartedly recommend, I came to appreciate the basic survival loop as a way to add more agency to all the choices I made. Like all the best sci-fi stories, The Alters will leave you with plenty of philosophical questions to chew on.
It can be very difficult to take these games that are focused on complex system management and add a nice layer of humanity to it all, offering a reason beyond simple efficiencies and problem-solving for people to engage, but 11 Bit Studios does it well and has once again succeeded with The Alters.
The Alters is one of the stand-out survival games of this generation. Imbued with a fascinating sci-fi concept for the ages - one that asks genuinely fascinating ethical questions – and with high-pressure survival mechanics that keep things stressful from beginning to end, this is quite the experience. Did I enjoy playing it? Not really, but good grief, I'll never forget it.
The Alters is a unique narrative experience all its own, asking you to survive by manipulating your own history to create clones and escape from a fiery fate. As far as the genre goes, The Alters makes for a very accessible survival experience. With that said, hardcore fans of the genre may see gameplay in The Alters as far too simplistic. The other potential issue is that the Sun's looming danger isn't quite as looming as it initially feels, with most of the game progressing naturally without much actual danger. Either way, the combination of strong narrative and accessible gameplay makes this the perfect game for anyone who even remotely interested in trying survival-builder games. The Alters is a definite recommend title, even at its $40 launch price.
All games build on or look back at what’s come before. The Alters makes a delicious stew out of familiar ingredients, both from other 11 bit studios games and popular genres. Taking survival and building mechanics and adding a complex layer of social simulation isn’t entirely foreign to this developer, but The Alters feels genuinely original, and that’s a bit miraculous in an industry full of sequels and remakes. Ironically, while the game might be about clones, The Alters is anything but a copy of something else.
The Alters blends 3D survival, resource management, and base building with a strong narrative core. As Jan Dolski, we must explore a hostile planet, manage a space base, and create alternate versions of ourselves to survive. Each Alter has unique skills, but also memories, personalities, and unresolved conflicts. Managing tensions between clones, assigning the right roles, keeping morale high, and coping with extreme environmental conditions becomes the heart of the gameplay. A deep challenge that mixes micromanagement, psychology, and sci-fi human drama, told through branching, multi-choice dialogues.
Review in Italian | Read full review