I know, I know, open-world survival-crafting games are about as played out as Call of Duty by this point, but that just makes it all the more impressive when one manages to break through the noise. I haven't put serious time into one of these since Minecraft, but I have a sinking feeling that's about to change.
It may just be because it looks like Death Stranding at a glance and that game owns my soul, new survival game The Alters has hooked me. It precariously balances exploration, survival, and a more social base-management aspect, but the titular selling point comes from its storytelling: all of your fellow crewmates are alternate versions of you.
When spaceship crash survivor Jan is faced with the task of surviving alone on a hostile planet where the sun roasts you alive, he turns to experimental technology to create alternate versions of himself, each one based on a 'what if' future where he'd made different choices in life. It's this unexpected emotional edge that pushes The Alters ahead of its contemporaries, forcing Jan to explore his own inner world just as much as the alien one outside.
Managing their likes, dislikes and individual quirks adds a mechanical layer to the experience, and, of course, Jan's actor Alex Jordan does an excellent job flexing his range with this literally multifaceted role. It doesn't quite hit the same as I expect Death Stranding 2 to, but it'll do the job of tiding me over until the 26th.
