I have not been this obsessed with a game in years. Years.
It’s the kind of obsession where you brush your teeth while mentally rearranging your base layout.
The kind where you tell yourself you’ll only play for an hour, and then the sun rises both in-game and in real life, and you’ve apparently survived an entire night on caffeine and clone-related guilt.
Let me be blunt: The Alters isn’t just good. It’s unreasonably good.
And frankly, it has no business being this good for under R400.
I’ve spent more money on pizza that didn’t make me feel this many things.
And yet here we are. Halfway through the year, and I’m calling it:
The Alters is the best game I’ve played and probably will play in 2025 – and I say that with my whole chest, plus three emotional support clones to back me up.
Welcome to the Clone Zone
At first glance, The Alters is a sci-fi base-building survival sim. But describing it that way is like calling The Sims a real estate management tool.
Technically accurate. Totally misleading.
You play as Jan Dolski, a lone engineer stranded on a planet that looks like Mordor got a sunburn.
Everyone else on the mission? Toast. The sun? Actively trying to barbecue you. Your solution? Clone yourself. Over and over.
Because nothing says “healthy coping mechanism” like populating your base with deeply traumatised alternate versions of yourself.
Using a miracle material called rapidium (basically space unobtainium – just nod and accept it) and a quantum computer, you create alters: diverging Jans based on the life choices you didn’t make.
Jan, the Botanist, married his partner and moved to a cottage. Jan, the Technician, stood up to his abusive dad and now wants to stab you with a wrench. Jan, the Scientist, stayed in academia and judges everyone silently.
Each alter is perfectly voiced by Alex Jordan, who turns every single Jan into a fully realised person.
Not just a different skin or job spec. A person with opinions, regrets, and sometimes a grudge against you, the original Jan.
And here’s where The Alters takes your brain, heart, and moral compass and throws them into a blender: every clone is you.
Every choice is a choice you didn’t make. Every interaction? A mirror held up to your own regrets.
It’s less about “managing your workforce” and more about “therapy sessions with extra solar flares.”
Build, Survive, Reflect, Repeat
At the mechanical level, The Alters is a feast. You manage a giant rotating wheel base that crawls away from the killer sunrise like a metal hamster escaping divine punishment.
You gather resources, expand rooms, assign jobs, and try to avoid being vaporised.
The loop is so tight and satisfying it should be illegal. Want more food? Send out a clone to mine organics. Need another clone? Better go rapidium hunting.
Feeling emotionally fragile? Good luck; there’s no mining rig for that.
Exploration is a dangerous joy. You leave your cosy death wheel to scan jagged alien landscapes, zap radioactive blobs with a Ghostbusters-esque gun and climb ledges that feel one slip away from tragedy.
It’s tactile, risky, and constantly rewarding, and The Alters wants you to earn every inch of progress.
And when everything inevitably goes to hell, because this is an 11 Bit Studios game, and they specialise in elegant despair, you’ll juggle crises like a burnt-out interstellar project manager: magnetic storms knocking out power, solar flares frying your shields, Jan Botanist spiral-crashing because no one remembered to make dinner.
But thanks to the game’s brilliant terminal system, you can automate production, reassign tasks, rebuild rooms, and play 4D chess against your own collapsing sanity.
The Existential Engine
But The Alters’ genius isn’t just in its base-building or survival mechanics; it’s in its soul.
This is a game about identity. About regret. About who we become when life goes differently.
The cloning mechanic is driven by a branching memory system, where you literally select different past decisions to create a new version of Jan.
It’s not stats – it’s stories. It’s pain. It’s “What if I’d stayed?” or “What if I’d walked away?”
Your alters have needs, flaws, and trauma.
They watch movies with you. They play games. Sometimes, they argue. Sometimes, they bond. Sometimes, they break your heart.
One of mine missed his wife so much that he asked if he could pretend to be me and call her.
What do you say to that? What can you say?
I was unprepared for how deeply The Alters would get under my skin.
I thought I was here for a smart, slick base-builder. And I was. But I also got a layered, soulful, beautifully acted game that asks real questions about life, choice, and the terrifying reality that your worst enemy… might be you.
A Love Letter to the Clone I’ve Become
I’m not exaggerating when I say The Alters wrecked me – in the best possible way.
It’s a playable identity crisis wrapped in a sci-fi thriller wrapped in a spreadsheet I can’t stop optimising.
It made me laugh. It made me think. It made me cry in the same way a late-night phone call with an old friend might – painful, honest, and healing.
Mechanically, it’s tight. Narratively, it’s masterful. Emotionally? Devastating.
It’s Frostpunk with heart. This War of Mine with clones. The Sims, if your roommates all need therapy because they are you.
And somehow, it costs less than a AAA game that thinks “checklist open world” counts as innovation.
If you play one game this year, make it The Alters. You won’t just love it; you’ll feel changed by it. Haunted, maybe. But better for having played it.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, Jan Botanist is crying for me again, and I think Jan Technician just locked himself in the control room.
