Beat the initial game. Had a great time. Never playing through it again.
Don't get me wrong--I enjoyed myself, but I do not like playing base/resource management games. That's where my bias comes from. I was interested in The Alters purely based on the interactions I saw being featured between the main character and his clones. Lemme break it down for ya.
Jan Dolski is a man who solves his problems by running as far away as he can from them--In this case, by signing up for an intergalactic space mission funded by a corporation to locate a rare resource in a distant galaxy: Rapidium. Unfortunately, he ends up being the only member of the Project Dolly crew that survives the mission. After stumbling to the base they were expected to use, and also stumbling upon the Rapidium that was only assumed to be on this planet, Jan is given only one choice to survive by his mysterious benefactors: Make clones of himself with altered life paths that give them professions and skills to help the mission succeed. Hence the name, The Alters.
Two things made me play this game to the end: First, I will admit that the Devs made it mostly fairly simple to establish your resource supplies. Granted, I was playing on the easiest difficulty, but I doubt the maps are different. The hardest part of this was using survey equipment to locate exactly where to set up your machines to eternally mine deep veins of necessary resources. I swear, there is RNG there, because I would look at pictures of other people's setups, and where my survey finally found a working vein was completely different.
Then there's the challenge of getting the resources TO the base, done by networking pylons and cables from Point A to Point B. Not too big a deal on most maps, but on the final map, they ramped it up from a 2 to a 10 in difficulty. I wasted so much time trying to figure it out, I ended up starting the chapter over and using someone else's screenshot for speed and efficiency. But once you get the resources going, it's no trouble keeping them going. You can assign Alters to work the stations or use upgrades to eventually automate them. It's no big deal either way.
The second reason I finished the game was the Alters themselves. Each one is a separate branch in Jan's life path where a Quantum Computer simulates him going "left" instead of "right" in a life choice he made. It continues that simulation with how he grew up, what other life choices he made, etc., to the point where all his Alters not only style themselves differently, they also speak with different cadences. Kudos to the single voice actor who had to come up with a unique way for each of them to speak. Despite sounding the same at the base level, you always knew you were talking to someone with a different personality and world view.
And that's the true hook of the game: These Alters may be clones of Jan but their manufactured perspectives give them all different life paths that are maintained well after they wake up from the cloning process. That means they all have their own preferences and opinions on what's happening, despite ultimately coming together to make the mission successful. There are many side quests and decisions to make when dealing with each Alter, and how you deal with them will determine just how cooperative they are.
Seriously. I literally had to put one Alter on a timeout because everything I chose to say or do kept pissing him off. I just sucked at communicating with him, I guess.
The main game is only three chapters, a prologue, and an epilogue long, but as of writing this it did take me 39 hours to beat. And as a result, I have invested in the DLC because the way one moment played out has made me want to see what happens next. Honestly, there are a lot of interesting moments to be had in the game--Watching movies with your crew, for example. The movies themselves are too good to be missed. Then there's the heart of the matter: Jan getting his life together and learning to be a real leader for his Alters. All of which, you do have an opportunity to fail if you're not careful, or just want to sow some chaos.
My recommendation is for anyone who lives for a game with a good story. Base building and management wasn't terrible but it was annoying enough that I don't plan to deal with it again just to choose different crew members (there's a total of 11 but you only get to have 6 at a time). Your only real enemy is the environment, but you'll quickly learn to handle that and it will rarely be an issue. I got it on a whim when it went on sale, but I do think it is worth the full price.
