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24

Mission Critical

June 18, 2025 by Tim

We’re only halfway through the year, and I can tell The Alters is going to end up on my top 10 list for 2025.

It’s hard to believe it’s been 3 years since it was announced, but this is a game I’ve been interested in since the reveal trailer, and the finished product delivers for me. It’s a survival game in the vein of This War Of Mine (also from these developers), with a bunch of additional emotional baggage to tangle with as a result of the core premise.

The lone survivor of a crash on a hostile planet, your only hope for survival is to use your resources to create clones of yourself to share the workload. But not direct clones; instead you go in and artificially tinker with their memories, making different choices that would have led you down a different path, to a different career.

So when the clone pops out, believing they’ve lived this alternate life, their skills and personalities differ from your own, even if they look just like you. It opens up all sorts of nature vs nurture question on top of the morality of it all, and has you tangling with these problems at the same time you need to handle some science to keep your base keeping you alive.

Choosing which alters to generate is interesting (you can only have a few), akin to picking “classes” for certain bonuses and aptitudes, but also balancing their personality quirks with their statistical benefits.

I love it when a game shows me something I haven’t really seen before, and The Alters does that wonderfully.


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AppleNorris
AppleNorris
20 days ago

Jimmy?

Lily
Lily
20 days ago

It seems like a pretty cool game, so I kind of wonder why I never heard anything about it until now.

MasterofBalance
MasterofBalance
20 days ago

As it should…uh be

GeorgeV
GeorgeV
20 days ago

These definitely embody all the critical skills for the mission;

-Refined elegance, professionalism.
-Ability to keep silent, and wear disguises.
-Capacity to endure pain, and expertise with gadgets.

Truly, the perfect team for a suave spy operation in a high society setting. That is what the game is about, right?

NatKayz
NatKayz
20 days ago
Reply to  GeorgeV

Well, now I sorta want a spy thriller where the main spy is called upon due to their BDSM skills.

Robert 'CockRoach' Archer
Robert 'CockRoach' Archer
19 days ago
Reply to  NatKayz

James Bond: Kinky Edition

TK2187
TK2187
17 days ago
Reply to  NatKayz

It’s not a thriller, but the premise of Kushiel’s Dart by Jacqueline Carey is basically that.

404
404
17 days ago
Reply to  NatKayz

The name’s Bondage, James Bondage.

Phaet
Phaet
20 days ago

It seemed like another game with similar premise (straded in space, running a space station) which title I forgot but it was a strategy I think, but then there was branching (cloning) and I was like “whaaaaaa??” in a positive way 😀

Meatballs21
Meatballs21
18 days ago
Reply to  Phaet

The Swapper?

Dave
Dave
20 days ago

You can already tell it’s going to be one of your games of the year???

How many times have we been excited by a trailer for a game that doesn’t pay off?? Called shots like that are just not a good idea.

It might work out for you… or it might not.

NatKayz
NatKayz
20 days ago
Reply to  Dave

The game is already out, so he’s likely been playing it for almost a week at this point.

Rudfud
Rudfud
19 days ago
Reply to  Dave

The game is out, he’s been playing it for days.

TrumpIsAPedo
TrumpIsAPedo
20 days ago

This just looks like Mickey 17 but with a beard

PhobosRising
PhobosRising
19 days ago
Reply to  TrumpIsAPedo

Love the name, tell it as it is.

Figgly
Figgly
20 days ago

just finished it last night, good stuff!

A few decisions i made had some unexpected reactions. What i liked though is that when you go from one chapter to the next, the saves in that previous chapter are locked, preventing you from going back to change anything. This means that each chapter is a point of no return, forcing you to live with any consequences that may have happened.

Miner is a Bro.

Figgly
Figgly
20 days ago
Reply to  Tim

He’s got some troubles yeah, but once he works through them, he’s as loyal as they come, at least in my playthrough.

Dude never caused trouble or got in a fight after that, he was ride or die till the end.

foducool
foducool
20 days ago

oohh, got a “remember me” kinda vibe with the memory tinkering, gonna add this to my wishlist I think ^^

Craash420
Craash420
19 days ago
Reply to  foducool

That’s the first thing I thought of, but if it’s from the makers of This War of Mine it might be too much for me.

PhobosRising
PhobosRising
19 days ago

Game overall concept honestly looks like if a Fallout player’s Load Saves accidentally overlapped. That impending cluster.

Last edited 19 days ago by PhobosRising
Pulse
Pulse
19 days ago

one for relaxing, one for relaxing, and one for “relaxing”

John
John
19 days ago

Dang it. You do well at suckering me into wanting to buy games.