The Alters Reviews
The Alters will leave you with pondering thoughts long after the credits roll. It’s a brave and daring take on the survival genre and one that will keep you coming back, hoping to answer just one more ‘what if.’
If there's one thing Poles are really good at, it's video game development. This is confirmed once again by the 11 bit studios team. After Frostpunk, they bring another great title in which you clone yourself, manage a base, explore and fight for survival on an inhospitable planet.
Review in Slovak | Read full review
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
11 Bit Studios delivers its best project to date with The Alters. Become the humble builder Jan Dolski and survive on an extreme planet while fleeing the dawn. Exploration, action, decisions, management, and strategy are the keys to a title that cleverly blends various components, giving the experience a very original touch. Play with the fabric of time, manipulate the universe at quantum levels, and perform scientific magic as you try to keep your crew alive and return home safely
Review in Spanish | Read full review
I thoroughly enjoyed my time with The Alters, especially thanks to its blend of gameplay styles and variety of mysteries throughout. If you relate to the protagonist then it'll be a much better experience for you but keep in mind that not everyone will. 👨🚀
The Alters is another fantastic game from 11 bit studios that effortlessly blends strong storytelling with engaging survival mechanics and base management. It explores themes of identity, purpose, and guilt in a personal and often confrontational way, as you create alters of yourself with some shared and some vastly different memories. If living alongside multiple versions of yourself sounds like a scary but exciting idea, The Alters delivers with the backdrop of a hostile planet.
I can’t remember ever playing a game quite like The Alters. The story hooked me straight away with its unique twist: you’re stranded on an alien planet, with a base built at the centre of a giant wheel. To survive, you must create alternate versions of yourself, called alters, using memories stored on a quantum computer. Simply speaking with each alter made me reflect deeply on the choices I’ve made in my own life, and where I might have ended up had I chosen differently. There’s a remarkable amount of depth here, and I have to applaud the development team for what they’ve accomplished. The visuals and sound design are impressive throughout. The story unfolds across three acts, each set on a different part of the planet, offering new environments to explore and fresh challenges to tackle. Whether you’re a fan of survival games or new to the genre, this is definitely one to try. I can’t wait to dive back in and play more.
All considered, The Alters offers a thoughtful survival game focused on ethical questions and self-reflection, making for a memorable and unique journey.
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!
In short, you will have understood that in The Alters it is necessary to keep an eye on a fair amount of options, parameters, and eventualities. As already mentioned, however, most of these are introduced as the story progresses without ever overwhelming the player. You will have noticed, however, that I wrote “most.” Yes, because on a handful of occasions, I found myself unable to perform an action necessary to save my life without understanding why I couldn't do it. Mind you, the game manual has its own section in the main menu and can be consulted at any time, but leafing through the instructions while you're in imminent danger of death is not a particularly reassuring action, especially when you realize that the information you're looking for is nowhere to be found. Another important factor to note, which could add further stress to players who are not particularly fluent in English, is that in The Alters, the entire experience is completely devoid of Italian. We are certainly not talking about a title with the quantity and complexity of texts found in Disco Elysium, but this absence could be debilitating for some or, if we want to look at it optimistically, make the experience even more survival-oriented. In any case, The Alters is designed to allow the player to partially roll back their run in an agile and extremely granular manner. The system automatically saves progress every time Jan goes to sleep, thus marking the arrival of the next day. Although I, spoiled by Xbox's Quick Resume, found it a bit limiting to have to wait until the end of the day to turn off the console, this system has the advantage of not only allowing for fairly precise reloading within your game timeline, but also triggering the virtuous circle of ‘I'll do another day and then turn off’, thanks to an articulate and extremely satisfying gameplay loop that will keep you playing The Alters for hours on end without ever getting tired of it. Take one part third-person action, two parts management, mix in survival mechanics, and blend it all together with an intriguing but never excessive narrative component. The result is The Alters: a well-balanced cocktail made intriguing by a lingering sense of unease. Sure, the geological detection phases lengthen the overall flavor a bit, and some ingredients may be a little cryptic, but these are almost canceled out by an irresistible fruity, almost cherry-like aftertaste that keeps you coming back for more.
Review in Italian | Read full review
The Alters is a daring, intensely reflective game that pushes 11 Bit Studios' narrative goals to new heights. It successfully fuses a philosophical and intimate story with survival mechanics. The main idea of the game—creating several versions of yourself in order to survive—is handled with both mechanical depth and emotional sensitivity.
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 is a deep, emotionally resonant experience that blends engaging gameplay with sharp writing and rich character work. Despite some rough edges and repetition, it stands out as one of this year's most compelling and successful releases. Its ability to challenge the player’s conscience outweighs its flaws, proving that emotional impact can matter more than mechanical perfection.
Review in Italian | Read full review
The Alters is a masterfully crafted experience that elevates survival gaming into something genuinely meaningful and emotionally resonant. While the relentless stress and complexity won't appeal to everyone, those who embrace its philosophical depth will find one of the most thought-provoking games in years. It's 11 Bit Studios firing on all cylinders, creating a rare game that makes you question your own life choices while desperately trying to survive.
The Alters is the title that best showcases 11 bit studios’ narrative strengths. It delivers a compelling and immersive story that explores how countless choices impact the game and lead to meaningful consequences. A well-crafted game where choice, consequence, and survival seamlessly intertwine.
Review in Korean | Read full review
The Alters delivers a phenomenal space survival game with an impressive UI. This helps newbie gamers to gather their thoughts and master the core mechanics. Alongside this, every previous dialogue choice is highlighted. This will impress completionists and those looking for increased longevity, replay value and a straightforward path to each branching storyline. This is a love it or hate it genre. The survival elements can be stressful. Additionally, managing your weird cloned twins is pretty odd. However, combine these mechanics with interesting exploration and base building, and you have yourself a winner. The Alters is unusual but fun. It offers an original take on the genre, and I recommend getting it from the Xbox store.
The Alters lets you recruit alternate versions of yourself to survive on a desolate planet. It’s a unique concept that ties in with the story and makes you curious about what comes next. Figuring out what to do next can be difficult and having to progress to unlock upgrades feels inconvenient. This game has an interesting concept that knocks the premise out of the park.
The Alters is an extremely ambitious game, rich in compelling ideas and executed brilliantly where it truly matters — particularly in its branching narrative, its encouragement to explore the different personalities of the protagonist, and its promise of a unique journey from player to player, or even upon revisiting. Despite some harder-to-endure barriers, largely due to its attempt to merge too many mechanics, The Alters stands out precisely because of this fusion. The result is a tone that feels intense, claustrophobic, and even philosophical, evoking emotions not unlike those of a horror game — where you never know what’s around the next corner — or a survival experience where you’re surrounded by threats and left with “a single bullet”. There are no monsters here, no locked doors — just a ticking clock and the success of an entire mission in your hands.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review