Latest news with #TheAlters
Irish Independent
17-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Independent
The Alters review: Surviving a space disaster with a little help from your selves
The Alters is not the first sci-fi game to test the consequences of cloning but it does so in a meaningful, thought-provoking manner as it explores the predicament of a lone astronaut stranded on a barren planet. Warsaw-based 11-Bit Studios has a pedigree in morally challenging survival games that present difficult choices to the player. You never could save everyone in titles such as 2015's This War of Mine or 2019's Frostpunk – the task was as stark as deciding who would live and who would die. In The Alters, you're trying to save yourself, an unremarkable space miner named Jan Dolski – the only one left alive of a mission by a vaguely shady corporation to locate a coveted rare element called rapidium that can speed up organic growth. Alone after his ship's catastrophic crash-landing, he realises there's no way he can survive without help even after finding his way to the crew's empty base on the planet. However, Dolski is also running from his past, and possibly his present and future too. Back on Earth, he left behind an ex-wife, regrets about how he dealt with his drunken father, and guilt about his late mother. If only life could bestow a chance to put things right…? After long-distance conversations with his corporate handler, Dolski learns that his shot at escaping the planet rests on cloning himself using rapidium – but each copy pulls from a different potential outcome in his life. Maybe the one who'd quit university to focus on an apprenticeship. Or the Jan who became at botanist at his wife's suggestion. Or the guy who got a PhD and became a scientist. The Alters layers this character drama with resource-gathering on the planet surface, a task always mindful of the ticking clock of radiation damage and a hazy threat from alien anomalies. You might spend the equivalent of several daytime hours mining rocks for components to build and then pass the evening teasing out the overarching issues with the clones – the alternate versions of Jan with contrasting abilities but not always agreeable viewpoints. It makes for an interesting game loop, overcoming the hostile environments outside and then negotiating with the others inside as you expand the base and draw on their knowledge to solve problems. Although the outside busywork can get a bit tedious, the game hangs together thanks in no small part to the remarkable performance by British actor Alex Jordan who invests Jan and his multiple Alters with distinct personalities. Just like life itself, there are myriad ways in which Dolski's story can branch, depending on which Alters he awakens. This lends an innate replayability to his story that overcomes the repetitiveness of the gameplay. Who could resist a do-over of a second chance in your life story? The Alters artfully balances the time pressures of Dolski's physical tasks with the emotional toll of managing the clones, a responsibility made all the heavier given that you're trying to rescue not just yourself but all your selves. Maybe living one life might easier after all…
Geek Culture
01-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Geek Culture
'The Alters' Game Developer Comes Under Fire For Generative AI Usage, Promises Updates
11 Bit Studios, the Polish developer behind the recently released survival game The Alters , has come under fire for its usage of generative AI text and translation in the game, with the studio promising an update to replace these assets with handcrafted ones. The accusations first started last week, when players spotted what appeared to be AI-generated text on a screen in the game's Command Center. The image in question, which was posted on the game's Reddit thread, featured a line of text on screen which read 'Sure, here's a revised version focusing purely on scientific and astronomical data:', followed by the Captain's log, suggesting that the entire log was generated using prompts and AI, and that the developers forgot to delete the AI's initial response. Source: Reddit This wasn't the only such instance, however, as players of other language versions also pointed out similar occurrences, such as a user on BlueSky named Heitor De Paola, who posted a screenshot of the game in Portuguese, which featured the line 'Sure! Here is the translated text into Brazilian Portuguese.' These incidents definitely suggest that 11 Bit Studios used generative AI to not only produce lines of text for some in-game assets, but also for localisation. To complicate things further, The Alters does not include any disclosure on its Steam game page stating the use of such AI tools, something that Valve has made mandatory on their site. In response, 11 Bit Studios issued a statement on its social media channels, explaining that such assets 'were used strictly as temporary WIPs during the development process'. With regards to the AI-generated localisations, the team further explained that these were 'added at the final stage of development' and that due to time constraints, the team chose to use AI instead of their usual translation partners. To this end, the team also promised a hotfix for the game that is underway to replace the AI-generated lines with professional translations. This latest controversy comes one week after another studio, Frontier Developments, came under fire for AI usage in Jurassic World Evolution 3 , which used generative technology to create certain portraits in the game, leading to the team opting to remove such content after fan backlash. Kevin is a reformed PC Master Race gamer with a penchant for franchise 'duds' like Darksiders III and Dead Space 3 . He has made it his life-long mission to play every single major game release – lest his wallet dies trying. 11 Bit Studios Generative AI The Alters
Engadget
30-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Engadget
11 Bit Studios clarifies its AI use in The Alters after player outcry
11 Bit Studios has drawn the ire of players for the undisclosed use of artificial intelligence in its recent release, The Alters . The new project from the team behind Frostpunk and This War of Mine is a narratively and thematically interesting take on a science fiction survival game. The project contains a lot of dialogue and written text, and some players discovered in-game copy that appeared to be generated by a large language model. The Steam storefront requires that games disclose when they contain material that is either pre-generated or live-generated by artificial intelligence, and The Alters had not been tagged as including AI content. The studio has issued a lengthy statement in response to the complaints. One instance involved AI-generated text in a graphic asset. 11 Bit Studios said this asset was only meant to be used as a placeholder during development. "This was never intended to be part of the final release," the company said. "Unfortunately, due to an internal oversight, this single placeholder text was mistakenly left in the game. We have since conducted a thorough review and confirmed that this was an isolated case, and the asset in question is being updated." The other AI use that players uncovered was in some cases of translations. According to 11 Bit Studios, AI was used for subtitle translations on the licensed movies that can be played in social area of the in-game base, which it said were made by an external source without creative input from its team: "Due to extreme time constraints, we chose not to involve our translation partners and had these videos localized using AI to have them ready on launch. It was always our intention to involve our trusted translation agencies after release as part of our localization hotfix, to ensure those texts would be handled with the same care and quality as the rest of the game. That process is now underway, and updated translations are being implemented." AI is an increasingly delicate subject for creative professionals. Many companies with large language models have either been accused of or admitted to training on copyrighted content, which has made AI an ethical nonstarter for many artists and many players. But when studios are regularly faced with negative working conditions surrounding crunch, it's also understandable why the gaming industry might be inclined to look for ways to speed up the process of shipping a title. The reactions to AI appearing The Alters is likely just the latest in the ongoing conversations about when and how this tech might be a part of game development.
The Verge
30-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Verge
We totally used gen-AI, but you weren't supposed to notice.
Posted Jun 30, 2025 at 6:55 PM UTC We totally used gen-AI, but you weren't supposed to notice. 11 Bit Studios has taken to social media to explain how gen-AI wound up in its survival base-builder The Alters. According to the company's explanation, gen-AI was used for placeholder text for a single graphical asset and to translate in-game movies into languages other than English. Fans found out because in some places, bits of the AI-prompt remained in the final text. 11 Bit says it's working on updating the assets in question.
The Guardian
28-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
The Alters: unintentionally the realest game about parenting I've ever played
Other than during that golden period when they were old enough to play games and watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer but hadn't yet become evil teenagers, I don't think I'm very good at parenting. When my kids were babies I felt unnecessary and useless, a feeling I have been reminded of most days since. That's OK. We can't be good at everything. I can read words backwards and upside down but I can never find my house keys. I am brilliant at dancing to the Cure's The Lovecats on Dancing Stage MegaMix but terrible at DIY. Don't get me wrong: I love my children. I like hanging out with them socially as young adults because they are smart, funny and entertaining, but then they remember I am their dad, and everything is ruined as they ask me to do stuff then blame me for everything wrong in their lives. So I took advantage of the fact that they all went away on the same weekend to have some uninterrupted dad time and sink my teeth into a game with depth, without disturbance. That game was The Alters. I loved the concept. You are stuck on a planet and have to clone different versions of yourself to operate the base and survive. That's really clever. Even better: you create the clones by looking at your life path and picking moments when you made certain decisions that led to you becoming the Jan Dolski that you are. For example, if you select the path where you went off to study rather than entering the mines like your dad did, then you clone Jan the Scientist, an ace researcher. If you went to work on oil rigs, you create Jan Worker, a load-lightener. If you decide that all you want to do is sit on your backside all day playing with words, you become Jan Writer. (Except you don't. There is no Jan Writer option, which shows how useless I would be in a survival situation.) It's a compelling game mechanic because you are not only exploring, resource building and problem solving, you are questioning the whole nature of decision making. It makes you go back through your own life, wondering at the choices you made and what could have been different. This is horribly depressing though and I wouldn't recommend it. Stick to the game's story, not your own. The problem is that the more clones you have in The Alters, the more you have to work to keep them fed, healthy and entertained. And they are needy little bastards whose first language is Whine. It didn't matter about the fresh food I gave them, the movies I sat through or the games of beer pong I deliberately lost – the Jan Miner character was determined to be grumpy and confrontational, and Jan Scientist was constantly punchably irritating. Whenever I thought I was triumphing at managing the base – helped by a system that allows you to set up automatic production of important things like radiation filters to keep you safe, and allotting different clones to regularly do specific shifts – I would have to drop what I was doing and run around doing something else for my dependants to keep them happy. You see where I am going with this? Sign up to Pushing Buttons Keza MacDonald's weekly look at the world of gaming after newsletter promotion The Alters may be pitched as a sci-fi survival game, but really? It's a parenting sim. The very last thing I want to do with my free time. My failures in the game (and there are many) are accompanied by me screaming at the needy sods to give me a break for five minutes. My neighbours probably still think my kids are still at home. I have never felt so strongly that I am the wrong person to play a game that is so right. The script and story are strong, almost like an interactive version of Andy Weir's The Martian. Philosophical concepts are bandied around, such as Camus's idea that heroism is easy, and it's doing the normal things that is the real challenge in life. And the graphics are so distinctive and mesmerising they are works of art. The space base moves around like a futuristic take on Howl's Moving Castle. The game questions the very meaning of existence and what we're supposed to do with it, and it is moving to witness the clones react to their new reality. Some hate you, others are fascinated, but all at points bond with you over shared memories of everything from Mom's pierogies and beloved lava lamps to how you dealt with your abusive father. There is imagination and intelligence in abundance. It would make an incredible novel or animated movie. And 1990s Dominik, who had no kids or responsibilities, would have found marshalling a load of interesting, talented but whiny dependants a fun novelty. It's like The Game of Life, which was a fun board game to play as kids, but hell when we had two in the back seat of our car. Maybe The Alters is the perfect game for you to play if you are thinking about having kids. In fact I urge anyone of child-bearing or rearing age to play it immediately, to see if you are up to the task in real life or if, like me, it all turns out to be too much hard work.
