The opening hour of The Alters feels like 11 bit's first third-person narrative action game

Calling it now: this is the least intriguing article you will read about 11 bit's The Alters, a blend of Danny Boyle's Sunshine and Duncan Jones's Moon in which (deep breath) you are a marooned space engineer who must spawn different versions of himself by means of backstory-branching gadgetry in order to operate an enormous, rolling base and escape the apocalyptic rays of the local sun.

We're not going to talk about any of that hoity-toity quantum wheeling-and-dealing in this piece, however. We're going to talk about the fact that the opening stretch reminded me of Gears Of War and the many over-the-shoulder adventures it has influenced. I'm sorry. It's been a complicated week involving minimal sleep, and I no longer have the grey cells for branching timelines, though they are certainly the more fascinating aspect of this game.

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