Existentially terrifying clone management meets survival game The Alters gets a June release date

If I was ever offered the opportunity to clone myself, I’d quite quickly say “no thank you, there’s one too many of me in this world already.” However, in The Alters, the needs must, as it sees its protagonist needing to create clones of himself (the titular “Alters”) so that he can escape a hostile planet he’s crash-landed on. It’s a little bit crafty, a little bit management gamey, and as revealed during its latest trailer during the Triple-I showcase, it now has a release date of June 13th, 2025.

The trailer itself showed another look at the game in action, digging into the different things you’ll be getting up to as the different versions of main character Jan Dolski, and why he needs to do them in the first place. There’s a time limit to Jan’s time on the planet he’s crashed on, specifically three days, as after that point when the sun rises he’ll be burned to a crisp. So, he makes different clones of himself to do things like technician work, mining, botany.

This is all complicated by the fact that as Jan makes more of himself, you need to make sure you have enough space to accommodate every version of him. On top of that, problems might crop up like your botanist still being in love with the original Jan’s ex-wife. Or perhaps your miner cut his arm off! Certainly makes that in-game timer counting down to your imminent doom seem all the more stressful.

It’s an interesting concept, one that I’m curious to learn more about given how systems-heavy it sounds. Maybe it’ll change my mind about cloning myself! Probably not, though.