The Alters occupied an unusual space among the nominees at The Game Awards this year. Listed alongside more conventional strategy and simulation titles, 11-Bit Studio's sci-fi management game didn't quite fit into the Best Sim/Strategy Game category, and that tug of war between expectation and execution has always defined it.
The game ultimately didn't win, but the nomination itself recognized a project whose most ambitious mechanics aren't about efficiency or systems, but about narrative depth and performance.
I spoke with Alex Jordan, who voices all versions of Jan Dolski in The Alters, about the challenge of executing a game built around identity and uncertainty: an experience that reflects the project's refusal to fit into a genre.
A management game built on identity, not optimization
The Alters revolves around the aforementioned Jan Dolski, a stranded worker who is forced to survive on a hostile planet by creating alternate versions of himself, “Alters”, with the help of a quantum computer. Each Alter represents a life Jan could have lived, shaped by a single decision made differently. All eleven versions are voiced by Jordan, whose performance carries the emotional weight of the game's premise.
Looking back at The Game Awards, Jordan is pragmatic rather than disappointed. For him, visibility mattered more than results.
while “[the nomination] was really cool,” he says The Alters is hard to pin down precisely because “there's no way to clearly genre-define this game.” It's, he says, “in strategy, it's in resource and base building, it's in story.” That breadth can make it difficult for players to know what they're signing up for. “I'm just hoping that some people might have seen its name on that list and say, 'Okay, so it got on… I might just actually try it.'”
That uncertainty about genre, tone, even intent, is intentional. Many players come to The Alters expecting a management game, only to discover something much more intimate beneath the surface. What begins as a logistical challenge gradually becomes a psychological one, shaped by conversations between Jan and his Alters that are restrained and often unsettling.
In front of eleven lives that all belong to one man
For Jordan, that balance of mechanical challenge and emotional authenticity made the role unlike anything he had done before. “There's the obvious challenge,” he says. “These are many, many roles. And they're all the same person, so how does it feel like this is a tree trunk with multiple branches?” Each Alter had to feel distinct without ever breaking the illusion that they all came from the same source.
But the technical difficulty, he says, was only part of the equation. “There's the other challenge with it,” Jordan continues, “which is a lot of the subject matter.” Beyond the mechanics, the game asks players to engage with deeply personal themes. “We're dealing with this abusive household that he grew up in, this sort of sense of remorse, this sense of 'what if.'
Jordan recalls attending a hands-on event in Warsaw where the emotional weight became impossible to ignore. “There was a content creator out there playing the game […] and he was crying,” he says. “He was like, 'This is extremely close to home. I feel like I'm literally playing through part of my life.'”
Such moments represent the responsibility behind the performance. “We're not just dealing with a technical challenge,” adds Jordan, “but we're also dealing with this topic in a way that feels to people reflective of their own experiences and accurate to their own experiences, but also sensitively handled.”
That sensibility is reflected in Jan himself, who stands in stark contrast to the power fantasies that dominate many games. Jan is haunted, insecure and deeply unsure of his own worth. Even after learning that the quantum computer actively chose him, he struggles to understand why.
His strength, Jordan explains, comes from an unusual place. “Jan's strength is his ability to face his lack of strength over time.” Although doubt is common among protagonists, “because it's the fundamental core of who they are. It was a completely unique experience.”
Ethics without answers and an achievement that lingers
That vulnerability extends outward to the Alters themselves, who often question Jan's decisions and authority. The game forces players to confront the ethics of creation: is it justifiable to create sentient beings solely to increase your own chances of survival?
To Jordan, these questions felt uncomfortably relevant. “You know what's really interesting?” he says. “It feels like bringing a child into the world at the moment.”
He draws a parallel between the game's premise and the anxieties of modern life. “There are people talking about potential wars. There are people talking about climate change, a million different things that make you say, 'Why would you put a person into the world right now, other than for your own personal love and satisfaction?'”
The Alters refuse to give purely moral answers. The Alters challenge Jan's choices, but they also depend on him. Their desires often conflict, forcing compromises that benefit neither completely. “There is no black and white,” says Jordan. “There is no right answer. There are just different degrees of personal benefit.”
Some of the game's most powerful moments emerge not during its biggest crises, but during its quietest conversations. Despite the sci-fi spectacle and looming planetary collapse, the exchanges between Jan and his Alter feel intimate rather than theatrical.
Jordan attributes that intimacy in part to his own attitude in the recording booth. “A lot of times, when I want to react in an authentic way, I almost empty my head of everything,” he says. “I have a moment of silence and then I go on stage.” That stillness, combined with isolation in the booth, helped ground the performance. “It's just going into it with a really genuine willingness to just talk to the other person.”
Meanwhile, he's quick to praise the rest of the development team for shaping those moments. “I think a big part of it is to give the design team credit,” he says, pointing to how conversations visually draw focus inward. “It felt like the world around you fades into black, and you're just focused on this person here now and this conversation.”
Behind the scenes, performance was further complicated by the non-linear structure of the game. A scene that plays late in the story for one player may appear near the beginning for another. Emotional continuity must remain flexible.
“You can take an Alter in a conversation where they're experiencing this great rush,” says Jordan, “and at the end of that conversation it can feed into another dialogue tree where he's suddenly really sad. I could never quite commit to a completely happier euphoric moment.” The constant recalibration, he says, “keeps a constant thread between every single line of the game.”
It's the kind of work that rarely translates cleanly into awards, precisely because it resists spectacle. Still, Jordan believes The Game Awards nomination played a role as a recognition of experimentation.
“I really think there are things that happen in this game that will make people go, 'I've never—ugh, this feels new,'” he says. “I don't think there's another game where one person plays multiple versions of the same person.”
In five years, Jordan doesn't hope The Alters will be remembered for the award they didn't win. Instead, he hopes it will be remembered for what it changed. “What I'm hoping is that we'll see games down the road where you'll go, 'Oh, this has a flavor of The Alters about it,'” he says. “That's always, I think, the coolest thing.”
He suspects the game will continue to find its audience slowly, through word of mouth rather than awards. “I think it's a game that's going to be one that has a continued slow life,” Jordan says. “I don't think it's going to go away. I think it's just going to flow away.”
In that sense, The Alters didn't lose at The Game Awards. It simply revealed how much more gaming can still do, and how quietly some of the most meaningful innovations are already coming.
The Alters
- Released
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June 13, 2025
- ESRB
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Mature 17+ / Blood and Gore, Strong Language, Use of Drugs and Alcohol, Violence
- Developer
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11 Bit Studios
- Publisher
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11 Bit Studios
