Have you ever wondered how your life might have been different if you had only made other choices? If you’d agreed to go out with the weirdo in high school, would you have ended up marrying your current spouse? If you hadn’t taken a chance on moving to a new area, would you have stayed in touch with your old friends? What if you had decided to stick with that same dead-end job instead of going back to school? How vastly different would your life have been if you’d made other decisions at crucial points? The Alters, from 11 bit studios, explores this very theme in a wonderfully unusual way.

After a space mission gone wrong, Jan Dolski finds himself the only survivor after crashing on an inhospitable planet. Naturally, his first task is to find and secure his ship after being separated from it during the crash. Next is to find a way to communicate with his home base. Then the most important step: to find a way home. However, some missions can’t be completed by one man alone…

Hey I’m Jan! I’m also Jan! And… we’re.. dysfunctional!

This is where the unique premise of The Alters comes into play. After finding his ship and opening up a communication line with his home base, Jan is informed that due to special technology on his ship, and more importantly, the discovery of an incredibly rare element found on the planet called Repidium, Jan can make a type of clone of himself. Not a true one-for-one copy, but rather, he can use the Quantum Computer to read his life’s path up until this point and select specific points in time to make different decisions. This will create a branching path in his history, allowing for the creation of an Alter.

This map lays out all the possible Alters you can create.

It’s bizarre, wacky science fiction, but it certainly creates a fun premise. By selecting certain events in his life to change, his life takes on an entirely new trajectory, including which job and skills he learned along the way. The first Alter you’ll unlock will be the Technician, which is the only available option initially. Eventually, you’ll be able to unlock up to six Alters out of nine options in each playthrough.

The Technician is a lot gruffer and angrier than our original Jan, but he’s key to survival by repairing the ship when needed. This also brings up another interesting challenge to creating Alters: deciding which types to create. Not only for their job skills, but their personality types, too.

That awkward moment when you have to tell your clone that the love of his life never existed here…

For example, the Scientist is needed to conduct critical research to unlock new technology and progress the story, but he’s solely work-focused. The Botanist is much more friendly and easy-going, but will spend a lot of his time pining over his wife, who never actually existed outside of his created mind. The Miner is excellent for gathering resources much quicker, but is mentally unstable and can get addicted to pain pills. There’s a delicate balancing act in which Alters work best together and provide the most help, and since you won’t be able to unlock them all in one playthrough, The Alters has a lot of replayability.

That said, there’s so much more to The Alters than just picking which versions of yourself to bring into the team. The Alters is also a blending of survival, resource management, crafting, and base management. On paper, smashing all of these genres into a cohesive, thrilling, narrative experience shouldn’t work, but if I’ve learned anything from my time with This War of Mine and INDIKA, 11 bit studios knows how to bring unique ideas to the table.

If you give each Alter a gift that holds special significance for them and max out their happiness, you’ll gain special traits that will unlock different dialogue and quest options.

Along the way, Jan will have to scout for sites around the planet and harvest their materials, which are then used for crafting other areas of the ship, or even new tools to make exploration and resource gathering even easier. Jan will have to be aware of the battery levels of his suit, radiation levels, and the amount of tools needed to get past certain environmental obstacles, among other concerns, such as mysterious anomalies, as you get further into the game.

These anomalies can be beautiful, but deadly.

As if this isn’t enough to juggle, each act of the game has you racing against the clock, because if you can’t manage to move your ship before the sun rises, it’s instant death and game over due to the intense radiation put out by the sun. It should be mentioned that there’s a huge difficulty spike in Act Two, but if you focus on gathering resources very early, then you’ll have a more manageable time with it. The second act has its frustrating moments, but it doesn’t sour the experience from The Alters as a whole.

Visually, The Alters is stunning. The character models for all of the Jan Dolskis are expertly designed, with some fun variances to the hairstyles and facial hair to give each of them a sense of individuality. Each room of the home base is beautiful and packed with details that make each section interesting and visually appealing. The environments can both feel dynamic and desolate, depending on how many anomalies and other obstacles are around.

What if I liked AI-fueled synth jazz instead of hard rock and metal?

In addition, the sound design is absolutely fantastic. The music is mostly subdued and subtle, with grandiose swells when things get really intense. The sound effects also add to the immersion, between the sounds of the mining posts, wind storms, radiation sensors, and the hustle and bustle of life on the ship.  Jan Dolski’s voice actor, Alex Jordan, is clearly having the time of his life voicing all nine Alters.

The Alters is a one-of-kind game that immediately hooked me and didn’t let go. Despite some learning curves and occasional difficulty spikes, the game is ridiculously enthralling and addictive the whole way through. The blending of genres, from survival to base management, to branching narrative paths, shouldn’t work as well as it does, but here we are. The Alters is a remarkable, truly unique game that I can’t recommend highly enough.

The Alters is available now on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S.

Reviewed on PlayStation 5.

A copy of The Alters was provided by the publisher.