The Alters Reddit Verdict: GOTY Contender or Stress Machine?

Apparently, OP modded their game to slow down the time based mechanic and make their experience more enjoyable. Can you really call a game GOTY when you need to mod one of the core mechanics in order to have fun?

"If you enjoyed Frostpunk and This War of Mine" — Well…. I don't know if "enjoyed" is how I'd describe This War of Mine, but I definitely played it a lot.

People are hyping this game up so much... meanwhile i got hardlocked in the TUTORIAL, twice, and after googling my problem i found like 50 results of people getting softlocked and had to repeat several hours of playtime on different points of the game. I just can't waste my limited time on this, no matter how good the rest of the game may be, thats just unacceptable in my eyes.

Glad to see these reviews. Seems like a really interesting idea and it seems like it's successful with what it's trying to do.

Eh I stopped playing in the middle of act 2. I think the gameplay loop has some problems. Fighting the anomalies is frustrating when you need to start doing it. Another problem is that you can fail in many ways and it's not fun to go back 20 days and do the same things, but this time just more efficiently because now you know what you need to do.

Great review scores. It's day 1 on game pass for those who thought about giving it a go. I know I will.

My gripe is the TIME element. I just HATE rushing my ass off to get everything done, and then the static storms happen and I dont have enough time to do everything. F&ck this time thing, it sucks.

The problem with failure in The Alters is it never feels like *you* failed, it's that the game beat you and then you have to go back and slog through story beats you already know, hoping you are better prepared again to avoid the failure state. You can really see the Frostpunk DNA in The Alters with this regard.

This is EXACTLY why I quit. I gave that fucking miner dope and in the beginning of act 2, he relentlessly went to the workshop and died. No matter what I did, he died and they rebelled. I fucking refuse to go back a week or more and have to rebuild everything just to save that asshole. The developers fucked up by making the parameters so narrow that one move can fuck up the whole game.

I love the concept but I'm awful at micro-management games.

Man, between Clair Obscure, Blue Prince, and now The Alters, Game Pass has been hitting the ballpark when it comes to anticipating extraordinarily reviewed games.

Sounds like it's (generally) based on timers. I really, really hate timers and countdown clocks in games. But this does sound intriguing.

I think I must be getting too old for gaming, either that, or I remember what really amazing games played like. Game is OK, story was beige and ultimately the gameplay loop is a chore, and that's being kind. Full disclosure, I did give up towards the end of Act II.

I'm only in Act 1 but it never feels like the game beat you, it's more just that the sensitivity to mistakes is overtuned. I spent one minute too long mining for materials to protect us from radiation, so I ran out of time to cook nice meals, so they revolt and I die. It's never like, I worked them 23 hrs a day on slop rations for a month. It's all micromanaging actions down to the minute each day.

It's kind of the whole point of the game. My first playthrough was flawed, i had to make decisions quickly and with the looming threat of the timer. It's exactly why the game is so great.

It's INCREDIBLY stressful I can only do a day or two at a time before having to take a break lol. Already reloaded a past save too.

It's one of the few developer studios trying to do something new with gameplay. It's great to see them achieve it once again.

Another game, like E33, that usually I don't ever play. But by the end of Act 1 with the Alters I realised I was hooked. Now just began Act 3, got 15hrs play time on it so far, cannot wait to see how it ends.

Played for about 6 or 7 hours and realized that the level of resource management in this game was not for me. I can see myself trying again later as I found the story and concept interesting.

It's a good game but I think it needs more balance/handholding for the base difficulty.

I heard plenty about it. Then the AI thing happened and that just about killed whatever mainstream momentum it had.

It's interesting, but the storage system is driving me up the wall, if you collect too much of certain resources you can essentially soft lock yourself and with limited space for rooms, rooms that vary in size, it's not as simple as just making more storage. I like micro management games but to be able to soft lock yourself so easily feels like a bit of an oversight.

The fact that you can fix rooms before they are broken without a maintenance kit is a total game changer and that toggle is labeled so poorly.

I feel so rushed to be efficient in this game that I don't get to enjoy all the stuff I build or walk around the base and hangout with my alters. Instead everyone is pissed at me all the time while constantly tasked with shit and being reprimanded by literally everyone in the game stresses me the fuck out. Every decision in the game seems like an option between bad and also bad.

Personally it didn't affect me much at all. Finished it, thought it was pretty good, haven't thought about it since. Not even top 3 for my GOTY.

Okay guys so honestly, this game is hard as fuck. Maybe I'm not good at this but it's very hard. The thing is though is that I think that's exactly what kept me engaged. It stressed me out so bad at times that when it did come to the story arc to reenter the game it made the emotional exhaustion that the game is expressing at times so much more real. This game builds you up to let you down in the best ways. This game hurt my heart and made me think more than any other game in recent history.

The Alters is a GOTY contender and I love it, but I've definitely had a few "and it's explained nowhere?" moments. No benefit to rapidium arks after collecting five was a big one (I was at 7 when I finally gave in and googled to confirm whether I was wasting my time), and finding out there were nothing but drawbacks to traveling as soon as possible was another.

Captains cabin should be directly next to the kitchen. The Alters gather there each morning and a lot of events happen there. Makes for easy conversations upon waking.

It's really good but there is a bug I keep getting stuck with and it has pushed me back 30 game days all together and I had to stop even though I was loving it I just couldn't keep replaying the same things over and over again.

This game honestly got ridiculously hard in the first act once i got the anchor blueprints. A ton of repairs, not enough resources or time, the anchors are insanely time consuming with refining polymers and crafting the anchors. It takes like half a day just to refine the polymers and build one anchor. And constantly having to go out and spend the whole day just getting resources and you only come back with like 50, its really just kinda fucking irritating. I even put it on the easy setting.

what shocks me is that 11bit is still pricing this so low.

It's not an immensely challenging survival game, but I would not describe it as chill or light. There are limited resources and a timer and choices have to be made. The game is an extremely solid 8/10 for me, if you have an interest in sci-fi stories you can just check it out on gamepass and see if it's up your alley.

This shocked me and is now my game of the year to dethrone. I didn't think anything could beat Expedition 33, but the Alters was phenomenal. I really cared for the characters and story, the decisions had consequences, the game play was engaging. Loved every minute of my 30 hours with it.

Love the game, will probably be a sleeper hit or cult classic given the lore. Sadly, it's kind of a one and done game unlike This War of Mine. It's wildly more fleshed out but for it, very static in how it plays. It could use random scenarios or starting points to survive, making difficulty more spontaneous.

A highly annoying game and stressful making me read the dialogue and press X to skip in frustration. The day timer feels too short. Craft a few things, get resources, explore and the whole day is over already. The Alters wants to talk all the damn time too making you run around the entire ship constantly. They get annoyed and angry very easily as well and the damn rebellions feels so forced.

I think the name and the marketing presentation doomed this one to obscurity. The splash art on steam makes it look more like a dating sim than a thoughtful science fiction game. It's a shame because it is really good.

I wish you could make all alters in a single playthrough or at least be told you'd be limited because that would have changed my choices some. I also wish there was like a NG+ mode that maybe made it harder but you start with all your alters or an efficiency bonus or something.

I really enjoyed the Altars but I don't think I could stomach a second play through. I wish there had been a way to get all of the characters and give them full arcs in a single playthrough. Unfortunately, the actual game maps and meta plot aren't varied enough to justify replaying the game for a few different dialogue options.

I really was having a lot of fun at first. It gets less and less fun as it goes though. I uninstalled it in act 3.

Had to stop playing, I needed more radiation filters but I need resources, I grab resources and my base storage is full, I expand the base storage but now my radiation levels are too high. I reloaded older saves 3 times, I just didn't find that fun.

I only booted it up and played a few hours but it gave that perfect Mass Effect 1, 80s sci vibe. So good. Will get back to it soon.

I couldn't agree more. I saw this game about a week before it released. It sounded like an excellent concept, but I've been wrong about games before. But this turned out to be even better than I was hoping. I'm finishing my second play through now, and will play at least one more time so I can finish all nine Alters' storylines.

I played it, I liked it, and I paid the 40€ with grace. This was an unique experience and this studio prove that difficult decisions paired with survival is their strongest unique selling point.

After reading so many good reviews this week I gave it a try...and.... it's fucking amazing! What a great story. Really enjoying it so far.

Yeah I just started Act 3 a few nights ago. I instantly stopped having fun. Having to reload old saves constantly to try for better outcomes just ruins it for me.

I love it so much. I hardly ever replay games but I'm almost done with my 2nd run and I'm probably going to do at least one more. The Jan's are all so well done. The way the game changes with different difficulties and Jan's is beautifully executed.

I liked it. I didn't like how it made me constantly stressed and how I felt relief when it was over. But it was a net positive game.

This game is so unique. Have it on gamepass but I like to support the developers and bought it on Steam.

Played the demo of it and if they just made it a straightforward story game it could have been really good. But I FUCKING HATE the tedious job simulator/base building shit that has infiltrated games. NO I DON'T WANT TO FUCKING SPEND 30 MINS COLLECTING RESOURCES TO ADD A SMALL SECTION OF A BASE THAT BARELY DOES ANYTHING. It's not fun. It's tedious and it's fucking boring.