How The Alters’ Base-Building Mechanics Complement Its Social Simulation

Thanks to strong survival fundamentals, satisfying progression, and a clever, nuanced story, The Alters is arguably 11 Bit Studios’ best game to date. At the very least, it’s the studio’s most interesting, taking massive narrative and mechanical swings that promise to pay dividends when audiences look back at it; The Alters is poised to age exceptionally well.

At least some of the game’s future-proofing can be chalked up to its melding of disparate genres, specifically management, survival, and social-simulation. The so-called “cozy” genre, composed of casual RPGs like Stardew Valley and Disney Dreamlight Valley, is often associated with low-stakes stories and easily digestible writing, but the unsettling and often somber The Alters actually leverages many of the same tricks. Nowhere is this parallel clearer than in The Alters‘ base-building systems, which fill a similar role as the player’s farm in Stardew Valley, serving as both a base of operations and a chance at personalization. But the second half of that equation—the expressive, city-building-adjacent half—might be hard to get a handle on when first starting The Alters. At least, it’s easy to overlook just how impactful base-building is for the role-playing side of the equation.

Xbox Game Pass Means More and More for Every Alters Playthrough

With 11 Bit Studios’ The Alters landing on Game Pass, its community will hopefully continue to illuminate its many distinct choices.

Structure Is the Name of The Alters’ Base-Building Game

Rather than allowing players to run wild with their HQ, The Alters provides some key restrictions. At first, there are stringent size maximums that players must adhere to, alongside weight limits that threaten to halt mission progress once exceeded. But even once these restrictions are transcended, players still need to be cognizant of Tetris-like building guidelines, which dictate the degree of freedom one has over their in-game base. In other words, making the best base layout in The Alters is an experience defined by structure and rules—a far cry from the open-ended personalization of Stardew Valley and Animal Crossing.

But these restrictions help make base-building in The Alters a far more enjoyable and robust experience, if only for the unexpected Sims-like gameplay dynamics they engender. For instance, players will regularly encounter Jan Dolski’s Alters in the hallways and various facilities of the mobile base, going about their business in their usual fashion, thereby elevating the game’s bizarre social fantasy. These sorts of encounters wouldn’t be as common if players could simply arrange their bases however they pleased, placing all Alters-relevant modules in a sequestered area, for example.

Aesthetics aren’t totally thrown out the window in The Alters‘ base-building, but they take a backseat to practicality. When players themselves are moving throughout the base, they’ll be thankful for well-reasoned module organization, as this serves the end of efficiency—an all-important tenet in the survival genre. This increases immersion in an unexpected way, as the Jan Dolskis of the mission are directly aligned with the player’s interests during the base-building process. The game encourages sensible base organization—like the social room being connected to the dormitory, as this makes talking with Alters a much smoother process. Of course, by leaning into this facet of the gameplay loop, The Alters players will inadvertently create a more realistic and plausible custom base.

It’s this interplay between gameplay practicalities and social-sim-RPG systems that makes The Alters‘s base-building so rewarding. In a sense, such features are emblematic of the broader Alters experience, as they perfectly balance micromanaging-style survival gameplay with nuanced, unexpectedly quaint storytelling moments. Bonding with Alters and handling their myriad complaints and requests becomes melded with keeping them alive and handling in-game crises; the line between these halves of the game’s design becomes blurred, which is precisely what makes The Alters such an interesting experience.