Editor-in-Chief Leya visited 11 Bit Studios and played their new sci-fi game The Alters. This evokes a depressing melancholy in her that simultaneously feels good for her.
I often think about what would have happened if I hadn’t taken the job at MeinMMO. I wouldn’t have moved to Munich, would probably still be living in Holland, and would have led a completely different life there over the past five years.
Who would I be today?
It is precisely these kinds of questions that the new game from Polish 11 Bit Studios, known for This War of Mine and Frostpunk, deals with. In their new game The Alters, you wake up confused on a strange and dangerous planet. You know that you somehow have to escape from here, as even sunlight can be deadly.
You play as Jan Dolski, an ordinary man who is now in a bind.
The special thing about The Alters is that you have to create multiple alter egos of yourself, who will perform different tasks for you. This increases your chances of survival. You have a mobile base available, which you can upgrade and must enhance.
How do you get these alter egos? Quite simply!
You manipulate Jan Dolski’s memories and make alternative decisions in his life that transform Jan into a different person with different skills. If Jan goes to university and pursues an academic career, he becomes a scientist. If he stays home to support his mother, he does an apprenticeship and becomes a mechanic. One can research for you, while the other can expand and repair the base.
The technology for this is provided by an ominous organization that you are connected to by phone. However, they leave you pretty much in the dark about who they are and what exactly you are supposed to do for them.
At some point, you end up managing a pack full of Jans, all of whom have different needs and expectations of you as the leading Jan. This contains a lot of potential for conflict, which needs to be resolved.
Sounds pretty wild, right? It is. That’s why I traveled to Warsaw, invited by 11 Bit Studios, to play The Alters. Because I am incredibly drawn to such offbeat concepts.
The Alters confronts me with my own life
Together with other journalists and influencers, I am led into a large, dark room full of PCs. We have about two hours to play The Alters and get an impression.
It takes less than five minutes, and The Alters has captivated me. The mystery surrounding Jan Dolski and his mission piques my curiosity. Gradually, we learn more along with Jan.
Early on, I am directed to create clones of Jan and rummage through his memories, manipulating them. I immediately start reflecting on my own life decisions.
Especially Jan’s youth is full of guilt. I don’t want to spoil why that is. It also brings up feelings of guilt in me because some of the decisions Jan had to make are very close to my own experiences. I assume that there should be topics in Jan’s life that resonate with everyone’s foundation in some way.
The theme of guilt lingers in my mind while playing. After about an hour of gameplay, I am led into a small side room and can talk with the lead designer of The Alters for a while. I wonder if guilt is something like the main theme in The Alters, and Rafał Włosek gives me an answer.
I believe that is one of the layers. I have to provide a bit more context to explain. We wanted to make a game about the theme of “what if.” We wanted to create a game about choices. It should encourage players to reflect on their own life choices.
With Jan, we wanted to create a character who can achieve this goal. We had to think through his entire life carefully. I believe he had a hard life. He had a difficult start and had to make tough decisions. More than I, for example, have had to in my life. That’s why he perhaps feels guilty about many things he’s done or hasn’t done.
But that is only a part of him. Each of Jan’s alter egos has a different focus. There are so many themes like: Do I want to live alone or with others? Do I want to try to save my marriage? Do I want to achieve a lot in life or am I happy with little? Do I want to help others or primarily myself? These are all different questions that can be seen in the various alter egos.
As the mechanic, it’s very much about the problems of his youth, and there’s a lot of guilt involved. But I wouldn’t say that’s the main theme of the game.
Rafał Włosek, Lead Designer of The Alters, about the game concept
Rafał continues that their testers and his team tend to have favorite Jans. I can well imagine that, and I believe that you are drawn to the Jans who have had similar experiences as yourself – or to the Jans you want to be.
Survival mechanics as support for storytelling
In addition to all the cloning and internal dialogues with your alter egos, there is a second level to the game. This is where the gameplay loop lies.
You have to expand your base, for which you need to gather resources around you. The planet is full of dangers, and you are racing against time until everything collapses and kills you. And there we have the foundation of a survival game.
However, The Alters is not fundamentally a survival game.
Do not come expecting that you will get a next No Man’s Sky. But what I notice while playing is that it’s incredibly relaxing to roam around this dangerous planet. Normally, I feel totally stressed in survival games because anything can kill you, and there’s hardly any time to take care of survival.
In the short time I have played, I haven’t fully understood why such a threatening scenario is simultaneously so relaxing. Lead Designer Rafał can help me with this question as well.
At the beginning, we wanted to create a game about decisions. Then we asked ourselves how we could package these elements and landed on a survival game. It took a few concept iterations before we had our overall idea. That was way back when we were still playing the game on paper and built board game prototypes.
Slowly, we started adding mechanics that support our core idea of storytelling and survival. Our main focus was on the story.
One of the things that strongly supports our overall concept is exploring the world. The world is indeed very dangerous, and the further you go, the more dangerous it becomes. But it is also a good place to reflect on yourself. When all the problems pile up at your base and you grow tired, you can just go into this wild and dangerous world, but you are alone. While you search for resources, you have plenty of room to think about the story, the branching paths, and yourself.
If it gets too dangerous and you have lost too much energy or the radiation becomes too high, you can retreat to the safety of the base. It’s warm there, there is something to eat, but there are still problems there too.
Of course, this is a typical gameplay loop in itself, but it supports the entire story.
Rafał Włosek, Lead Designer of The Alters, about the survival gameplay loop
The focus is clearly on storytelling and Jan’s story. After the first few hours of gameplay, I have the impression that this mix of survival game and story focus works and fits well together.
I could have played for a long time because it is so relaxing. For that, the philosophical part of my mind is very stimulated.
The Alters is innovative and will have its fans
Playing The Alters evokes a depressing melancholy in me, but that makes the game so good for me. Jan’s fate touches me, and I want to help the poor guy amid all this chaos.
After all, that is the most important thing in a game that focuses so much on a single character and their life path. I am not sure whether the survival mechanics might become tedious at some point.
But Lead Designer Rafał assured me that the environment outside the base will change significantly throughout the game. It is even supposed to have a symbolic component for the story.
So far, 11 Bit Studios has not disappointed, and I expect that The Alters will be as high-quality as it seems at the beginning.
Whether The Alters can build on the successes of This War of Mine and Frostpunk remains to be seen. The concept is quite offbeat, and you obviously have to like that. However, I think there will be a loyal fanbase that will continue to recommend The Alters as a special, innovative gaming experience.
My colleague Fabiano from GameStar is also convinced that this is an unusual game. Check out his preview as well: The Alters is the most unusual survival game I have ever played
I am curious whether the concept of The Alters appeals to you and whether you will add it to your watchlist? The release is still scheduled for 2024.
