Around sixteen months after the game's original announcement, 11 bit Studios (This War of Mine, Frostpunk) finally revealed more about The Alters in a remote press preview event that Wccftech joined a few weeks ago.
First of all, let's clarify what The Alters really is: a base-building sci-fi survival game with a major twist. Jan Dolski, an ordinary worker, finds himself in a life-or-death scenario when his spaceship crashlands on an unknown planet. Jan is stranded alone, but that's not the worst part of his predicament. He soon discovers that this planet is turning toward a huge sun and will soon be flooded with deadly levels of radiation.
Jan would need many more hands to fix the spaceship and go home. That's when he decides to use an experimental technology developed by his company. Luckily, this planet is rich in Rapidium crystals, which can be harnessed to create the so-called Alters.
These are not simple clones. Instead, the technology can somehow recreate alternate versions of Jan based on the various branching points in his life. The Alters are therefore different Jans with diverse skill sets, such as engineer, scientist, and so on. Needlessly to say, this is critical not only for the end goal of fixing the spaceship and going home but also for daily tasks like cooking, crafting tools for surface exploration, and gathering essential resources. Each Jan has a key role to play and teamwork is essential.
That's easier said than done, though. While every version of the protagonist shares the ultimate objective of leaving that forsaken planet, each Jan has different emotions, problems, and immediate goals. The presentation showed some Jans complaining because only the 'original' had a proper bed, so the developer handling the demo promised to build full-fledged sleeping quarters. Just like in Frostpunk 2, promises must be kept, or there will be consequences.
Later in the presentation, another issue arose to the developer's attention. The engineer suffered from a weird case of reverse phantom pain in one of his limbs and requested drugs to keep working through that pain. The developer initially granted the request, but the following day, the engineer had a work accident likely due to the drugs' opioids. The choice then became to let it slide or to withdraw the medication to prevent more accidents. The latter was picked, but the engineer then protested that he wouldn't work without access to the drugs. Ultimately, this Jan became quite crazed and sawed his own limb off in a dramatic fashion.
After this telling glimpse of The Alters, 11 bit Studios was on hand to answer a few questions in a roundtable format. The game will launch next year on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series S|X.
What kind of topics did you want to explore when you envisioned The Alters?
The biggest question we wanted to ask and analyze in this game is what if? What would happen if I made a different choice in my life? What kind of a person would I become, what would I believe in, who would be my friends, what would be my values? Would they differ from those that I have right now? And if I would become a different person or not.
Many people think about their decisions in their lives and wonder what would have happened if they made a different decision. We don't want to spoil too much, and we don't want to deliver any answers in the game because we don't know everything.
We just wanted to create an interesting picture that would allow you to think about those things yourself.
Will players mostly be just mining when they exit the base or are there other things to do while exploring?
The exploration part of the game is quite big and quite an important part. I would say it's as important as the base management. When you are out of the base, you will explore. You can find resources as you saw in the presentation.
But that will not be the only thing you can find while exploring. There will be other things to find, like the wreckage of the crash landing containing some personal items, for example, that you could grab and then use in the base. Then there are other things that are connected with the story, so they are best left unspoiled. Other than that, while exploring there will be obstacles that you meet with multiple ways of approaching them and let's say defeating them.
It will really tie into this strategy the player will take. It's not a linear progression. In the exploration part, the player will have not much choice regarding how they 'conquer' the planet. The player also wouldn't be able to do everything because of the time pressure. You will have to make choices.
We wanted to avoid arcade gameplay or any agility requiring gameplay on the exploration side of The Alters. The way that the planet is built is such that the player has to think strategically in order to figure out how to deal with the problem, how to use the resources and tools that he has, and how to build the infrastructure outside the base in order to explore and tame the planet.
While there are no aliens outside (the planet is desolated), it is very dangerous because of the burning sun and because of the radiation. The whole radiation thing is also an important part of the gameplay inside and outside because the player has to manage it.
It's not like something that can kill you instantly, but you have to take care of it all the time and make sure that you clear yourself after you get irradiated too much.
Where did the initial inspiration for the game come from? Were there any sources of science fiction that you looked at to craft this world?
In general, it was a long process to figure out what The Alters is about. There were many brainstorming sessions where we had different ideas. There was this one idea about the guy creating his copies in order to run the base in space. It looked like an interesting gameplay idea, but we lacked the story in it.
On the other hand, we had those brainstorms when we were thinking about what kind of story we would like to talk about. We had a lot of thoughts about decisions and how they may change your life. Some of us were thinking about our own decisions and we thought that we could combine those two and create a game about it.
That was the main process behind that idea. As to the rest, all the mechanics and story, everything in the game is focused on delivering those two parts. As for inspirations, when we had this idea, we had many of them, of course. Gameplay-wise, I think Satisfactory.
It looks like there's a deep focus on character growth in The Alters and it's cool to see that embedded with the base resource management game. What do you feel is the aspect that adds to the flow and gameplay loop of the base management game?
When we are creating games, we often like to say we have this meaningful layer, which of course is in this case, this exploration of the topic of our life decisions.
But also, we are very focused on creating a very good game, we hope, that it is fun to play. We were trying to achieve something not seen in many games. We were joking that it's either the most narrative-driven management game or the most management-focused title in a narrative game, or something like that. It's a blend of genres.
About the best addition to the gameplay loop, you're playing a game that is about management, but also about those decisions that influence the story. It's very rewarding to have both of these. Often you are switching what you're doing in a game, you're focused only on the narrative or only on the base management side, but you can switch between them, and one influences the other, which is very nice.
You could say if you've had your fill with one of the topics, then you can move on to the other topic. It doesn't get boring this way. The narrative and the storytelling tie into the base mechanics of the game. We're telling the story about those different versions of your life, but also that ties into the skills they have that you can use in the base, in the emotional system.
It's all intertwined. It's not like two different games in one; this is what's special about it.
Could you talk about the process of creating the various alters?
We tried to build these life paths so that they are relatable to the player. We wanted to make a game about life choices that we hope maybe each player could relate to at least one of them.
Those are not choices uh taken out of an action-packed movie. Rather, it's what if I stayed in my hometown? What if I maintained the relationship instead of ending it? What if I took that job opportunity?
That was very important in the process of creating the Alters because we are exploring different ways your life could have gone, but also what kind of person you would become. Each Alter has a very carefully prepared personality and story that the player can interact with while playing.
It's not a given that you will learn everything about it. We tried to create a situation in which these Alters interact with each other and tell the story from different perspectives. This is interesting because, as a player, you cannot create them all.
You have to choose only a couple of them because you have some capacity limit. That slowly gets bigger throughout the game, but you still can't have them all. You can also choose which ones you are the most interested in, not only because of their own story but also because of the interaction with the others.
Thank you for your time.
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