The Alters is a bizarre, unsettling, and often mind-bending science-fiction adventure filled with serious moments, but it's not above some much-needed levity here and there. In fact, there's a case to be made that The Alters is 11 Bit Studios' most comic and personable game to date, with little of the bleary-eyed pessimism of This War of Mine and Frostpunk. Indeed, it has the potential to be remarkably funny, on top of being moving and thought-provoking.
The most objectively humorous parts of the game, though, come in the form of the many films players can find scattered around its biomes. If one has constructed a Social Room in their mobile base, they can pop in one of these films in an effort to raise their Alters' moods—they can often put a smile on the player's face too, as it happens. But these movies are quite different from the rest of The Alters: they are live action, produced by a duo known as Chris and Jack, who are otherwise absent from the rest of the game. This might raise an obvious question: who are Chris and Jack, and what is their connection to The Alters?
Every movie in The Alters is three in-game hours, but only a few minutes of real-time.
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.
Chris and Jack Have Lent Their Comedic Talents to The Alters
There Are Nine Short Films from YouTube Duo Chris and Jack in The Alters
Chris and Jack is the name of a YouTube channel helmed by Chris Smith and Jack De Sena. The comedy team has been behind a number of viral videos, with The White Room, a sketch about a strange afterlife intake procedure, being perhaps the most easily recognizable. Several other sketches, like The Perfect Wish to Outsmart a Genie and Groundhog Daying, have enjoyed similar levels of recognition, garnering millions of views over the years.
The duo is defined by their off-kilter and witty humor, which generally hinges on the fullest, most absurd execution of a single idea. For instance, Future Ex-Girlfriend, one of the Chris and Jack skits featured in The Alters, is about an awkward encounter between a man and his time-traveling girlfriend from the future, who has long since fallen out of love with him and found a new partner. This silly and disarmingly sad situation is at once hilarious and heartbreaking, which makes it a natural fit for The Alters' hard-to-define tone.
In reality, many of Chris and Jack's skits are well-suited for The Alters, as the duo clearly has a penchant for ridiculous sci-fi premises. This is exemplified by the videos 11 Bit Studios curated for the game, whose subjects run the gamut from far-future intelligent life to Men in Black-style mind-wiping and 80s-era alien monsters ala The Thing. The duo's irreverent comedic stylings and unexpectedly cerebral concepts are likely what attracted 11 Bit Studios to them in the first place.
Did Chris and Jack Make Original Videos for The Alters?
Unfortunately, it doesn't appear that any of the Chris and Jack videos in The Alters are made specifically for the game; some of the in-game movies were published on YouTube several years ago. Of course, many of the films seem tailor-made for The Alters' unique narrative, like how People Who Always Finish Your Sentences leans into the horrors of overfamiliarity, or how Ask Me Something Only I Would Know focuses on duplicates and doppelgängers.
Maybe the future has some extra surprises in store for Chris and Jack and 11 Bit Studios fans: the two entities may find their stylistic similarities too powerful to ignore. But for now, it's enough to know that Chris and Jack's comedy will be introduced to an all-new audience courtesy of The Alters.
The Alters
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OpenCritic Reviews
- Top Critic Avg: 86 /100 Critics Rec: 94%
- Released
- June 13, 2025
- ESRB
- Mature 17+ / Blood and Gore, Strong Language, Use of Drugs and Alcohol, Violence
- Developer(s)
- 11 Bit Studios
- Publisher(s)
- 11 Bit Studios
WHERE TO PLAY
The Alters is an ambitious sci-fi survival game with a unique twist. You play as Jan Dolski, the lone survivor of a crash-landed expedition on a hostile planet. To survive, you must form a new crew for your mobile base.
Using a substance called Rapidium, you create alternative versions of Jan - THE ALTERS - each one shaped by a different crucial decision from the protagonist’s past.
As you navigate through survival and moral dilemmas, you will explore a branching narrative filled with captivating character dynamics and challenging decisions.
- Engine
- Unreal Engine 5
- PC Release Date
- June 13, 2025
- Xbox Series X|S Release Date
- June 13, 2025
- PS5 Release Date
- June 13, 2025
- Genre(s)
- Survival, Strategy, Management
- Platform(s)
- PC, PS5, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S
