The Alters, PS5 Review
The Alters is another example of a smaller studio showing these big developers how its done! Coming from a dev team of approximately 50 people, The Alters is a unique experience, with an awesome eclectic mix of genres and unreal engine 5, AAA aesthetics.
11Bit studios in Warsaw, are the studio behind This War is Mine and survival city management game Frost Punk. They are the real deal for sure, but I would argue not a traditional “AAA” studio. But they have swung for the fences with The Alters. I love they have taken their survival and base management game development chops and poured it into a totally new I.P!
The rub for The Alters is this. Our character, Jan Dolski, is the sole survivor of a spaceship crash on a hostile alien world. Just before the crash and a massive emergency base deployed to the planet. The plan is to use it to survive and even escape, but it ain’t gonna be easy. The first issue is that to maintain, operate, and fuel this rolling habitat, it’s going to take some help. A lot more help!
I need more hands!
Yep, as hinted by most promo material. Jan discovers a rare element, and with the help of some quantum computing, he makes clones of himself. With said Quantum-tomfoolery, we trim or add life choices into “Jan Primes” past life, to create clones. Who have walked different paths, made other life decisions and built useful skills.
The Jans look similar, sound similar…. but all are very different.
Clone Jans have their own psychological traits, needs, wants and failings. Which you as “Jan Prime” must plan for and manage. One early challenge struck, was a Jan who couldn’t handle the new body he was occupying… so he mutilated himself, by cutting off his arm!
The nuts and bolts of this game is this. The base must keep moving, so resources and repairs have to occur, and the clones have to do it. I mentioned the mix of genres in the intro, and they shake out like in afew ways. Think- 3rd Person exploration, survival and resource gathering, then base management akin to XCOM 2, with a zoomed back, “Ant-Farm” view featuring facilities and labs. And then a relationship management and conversation system. So, The Sims crossed with an RPG. I hope that makes sense, and yes…there is a lot going on!
Playing with my Ant Farm.
But 11 Bit Studios know this is a busy game. So they ramp up the difficulty very slowly. It allowed me to get a handle on the systems and “My Jans”, before the game started throwing radiation storms and the inevitable Jan-infighting at me. Yep, chaos comes, thick and fast.
The voice actor for the Jans has done a great job, with emotions, frustrations and the mundane well delivered. The lip sync and single camera view during conversations is a tad off putting at times. But considering what this small team of devs were trying to achieve, I will happily cut them some slack on that minor gripe.
Day to day base operations is a mix of menu navigation, queuing up construction, assigning tasks to Jans and exploring the hostile alien planet. All the User Interface (UI) elements are well designed, with player experience at its cor,e which is crucial in a game of this type.
The game is helpful, be it in menu design, alerts and prompts or just underlying systems, For example, you want to mine on the planet right to the last second before next wave of radiation hits?! No problem. Fast Travel is immediate from mining outpost to outpost or to base. You want to work deep into the night until your Jan collapses, no problem. Just expect a sleep in the next morning as your Jan recovers from burning the mid-night oil. The game has little restrictions, but guide rails all through so you don’t come too “unstuck” when trying to push the games systems. Its a very clever game.
I haven’t played a game like this before. Granted, I have played games with elements of it, but not with them all in one title. A beautiful 3rd person survival game with AAA visuals, but mixed with resource management and even some RPG “ant farm” stuff. It was so new and refreshing, especially in the day an age of most AAA games are very cookie cutter and safe. I loved The Alters….and I think you should go and buy it.
