The Alters Reviews
Check out The Alters Review Scores from trusted Critics below. With 35 reviews on CriticDB, The Alters has a score of:
The Alters may not be a game that I replay straight away, but it occupies a very special place in my mind. I can’t stop thinking about its world and characters, as well as the memories I’ve created with both. It’s absolutely worth picking up, even if you’re only mildly interested in its baseline concept.
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At any given time, it feels as though there are a million resources you’re falling short on, storage that’s quickly reaching capacity, and not enough hands to go around for all the work that needs to be done. Unfortunately, it was occasionally more overwhelming than it was enjoyable, even on an easier difficulty setting. Especially since half of your responsibilities are meeting the basic human needs of your team, which weirdly makes it feel like a sci-fi survival version of The Sims. Overall, the survival gameplay should be commended for feeling authentic and realistic, but I just wish it had...
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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...
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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.
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On a similar note, the game takes a pragmatic approach to time even before you start fooling around with Rapidium. When you hold a button to perform a task, Jan lurches into fast-forward, spinning through the hours with the shriek of a boiling kettle, till the standardised onset of "exhaustion" at 11pm sharp slams his blurring body to a halt. This shortcutting is a necessary convenience for the management sim player who doesn't want to spend minutes watching a dude wield a drill. But again, i...
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The best indie game I've played in a while, The Alters is an ambitious sci-fi tale that successfully marries several game genres with an interesting plot to deliver a standout experience unlike any other. Supporting all the exploration and base management is a beating emotional heart to this game that makes you eager to push forward and see what will happen next.
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The Alters is a surprisingly deep and compelling moral choice simulator, wrapped in a survival-base building game. If you don’t start to question some of your own life choices by the end, you must be the best version of yourself – don’t forget to take care of us other alters who didn’t make as good of choices.
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Harrowing reflection on identity and the shadows of choice, a sci-fi survival tale where your worst enemy might be another you.
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The Alters is an engrossing survival adventure that delicately balances captivating self-reflection and engaging base management
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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.
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Despite some frustrating bugs, The Alters is the most unique and interesting survival-crafting sim I’ve ever played.
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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.
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If parallel timelines actually do exist, how much do your choices (regrettable or not) truly matter in the grand scheme of things? The Alters, the new sci-fi survival-management game from 11bit Studios, explores this question with a charming, hilarious and heartfelt sci-fi tale that's equal parts Death Stranding, Mickey 17 and The Martian to create a unique tale full of friendship and cloned sheep.
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Have you ever played a video game that you could objectively discern was very good, and yet you just didn’t like? That’s The Alters for me, a clearly excellent game, though one I found so unpleasantly stressful I slightly resented playing it.
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Full disclosure here: I’ve had some of the worst weeks of my career at my day job, and as a result my mental health is shockingly unwell. This meant that The Alters came at both the worst and the best time.
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The Alters delivers the most thought-provoking narrative in the survival genre, while also providing an excellent gameplay loop that encourages replayability.
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11 Bit Studios strikes again with a fresh take and setting that borrows from the brilliant mechanics of This War of Mine and sends them into space.
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Wildly unpredictable but always enjoyable, The Alters is a masterclass in high-tension gaming.
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The Alters is both immense in scope and deeply introspective. 11 Bit Studios has once again found the humanist side in a genre rooted in systems and management. It's a fantastic base builder and survival sim, but what makes The Alters truly brilliant is how these systems are underlined with vulnerable, emotional moments – like holes being punctured in your space suit.
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The Alters is more than a fascinating concept, mixing strong characterization and impactful decision-making with an enthralling quest for survival, even if the gameplay doesn't always excite.
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It's hard to go into more detail about why The Alters is so great without spoiling the experience—it truly is a game that is best enjoyed with as few preconceived opinions as possible. What is more or less undeniable is The Alters' ingenuity, its clever and thoughtful narrative structure, and its satisfying, genre-defying gameplay loop. The Alters represents a massive step forward for 11 Bit Studios, positioning its greatest strengths in a new light, and ultimately unfolding into one of the best gaming experiences you're likely to have all year.
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The Alters delivers a gripping, existential survival experience that explores identity, regret, and self-acceptance in a way few games attempt. It's a little longer than it needs to be, but its story, systems, and emotional weight make it hard to forget.
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What if you could live your life again but make a different decision at a pivotal moment that sets you on a new path? Who would you be? Would the resultant person still be you, or would that change have a butterfly effect so strong that you wouldn’t recognize yourself? What if you could talk to yourself about your shared experiences and where things differed? What if you both had to be in the here and now, making room for each other's existence in your lives?
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The Alters is an incredible concept that works by crafting an enticing gameplay hook of cloning yourself and changing the events of your life, while marrying it with a set of engaging and engrossing systems and mechanics to keep your team of alters alive as you traverse an alien world. While there are some performance issues, and the fact that the game only has one main character and personality, it is another strong entry in 11-Bit Studios’ lineup of games.
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The Alters spreads itself thinly, approaching heady subject matter with little imagination and shallow dialogue. Coupled with irritating resource management, cumbersome traversal, and an ever-ticking clock that harms its narrative pacing, 11 Bit's ambitious surival game is only for those who love deadlines and suffering.
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The Alters teaches us that along the non-stop race for survival, sometimes you need to relax with a movie night with the people who know you best.
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If you ever wanted to manage a base on a strange planet as you explore and forge ahead then The Alters is a clever game you should play.
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The Alters is a unique survival base-building game with addictive gameplay and a memorable, engaging and deep storyline. What's more, it's easily replayable for those reaching for completion.
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While The Alters is a narrative success, its survival gameplay is more of a side focus than the core of the title.
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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.
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The Alters plays like a mix of XCOM 2's base building, The Sims' personal needs management, and a third-person survival adventure.
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The Alters is a masterfully crafted sci-fi adventure about survival, self-discovery, and learning to live with the version of yourself who tried a little harder.
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I never thought The Alters, the new sci-fi survival game from developers 11 Bit Studios and behind Frostpunk 2 and This War of Mine, would become my favourite game of 2025 so far. Mainly because I didn’t think that a base-building survival game could weave in themes of grief, and dive into such topics as the butterfly effect and how intergenerational trauma can impact our personalities. It’s not just this element that makes The Alters a stunning game, however; it’s the beauty of the gra...
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