I reviewed 11Bit Studios’ The Alters a few weeks ago, and even though I hit credits, I’ve been replaying it to make different Alters and try different choices. I’ll be honest: I’m totally addicted to this game.
I’m super efficient with how I harvest resources. I utilize each of my Alters’ expertise, constantly min-maxing the perfect combination of assignments. I remember where the exact deep deposit locations are and even some of the harmful anomalies, making it easy to sprint around and find what I need. I’ve sourced each of the three maps multiple times — and that’s why I was so surprised by the Easter egg I discovered last Thursday.
In The Alters, players can find some of protagonist Jan Dolski’s belongings scattered around the planet. In a wink-at-the-player moment to explain the random collectibles, Jan explains to another Alter that the corporation had encouraged him to bring a lot of personal items that remind him of home to help with his mental status. These items help build relationships with the Alters — a lava lamp that might’ve been a lazy apartment decoration for Captain Jan can be a surprisingly poignant decoration for Technician Jan, and so on. Along with these items, players can find some of Jan’s favorite movies.
The films are genuinely entertaining short live-action sketches by American comedians Chris & Jack, most of which are appropriately sci-fi themed for the space exploration game. Players can build a Social Room on the base to build camaraderie for the Alters and host movie nights to increase everyone’s mood. You can skip the sketches without watching them, but I’ve seen all the skits, I’ve even rewatched my favorites (like “Future Ex-Girlfriend,” above) along with the Alters a few times. But when on my most recent playthrough, I found a new movie disc in Act 3, I was super curious to get back to my base and watch it.
This film had a peculiar title — “Secret Message from Earth” — and, unlike the other films’ short synopses, had a description that it was “not approved by AllyCorp.” Furthermore, I certainly had not found this film before when I first played the game for the review, before the embargo and later release date.
Back at base, all the Jans popped the movie in and settled onto the couch. This time, there was no “Chris & Jack” credit opener. While it was real people and they were speaking English, they had distinctly Polish accents. I realized that this was 11 Bit Studios in their office, someone having fun with a camera. The cameraman runs around, asking his colleagues various questions about what people do on the game.
It was instantly charming, especially when the cameraman reveals that he’s filming this just before embargo — the time when journalists and influencers are allowed to post their reviews, including with scores! He asks a coworker if they’re nervous, and the person shrugs — they’re just having fun testing their own game.
The video then got surprisingly deep when the cameraman, who’s never named, starts asking people about a big decision they’ve made, perhaps something they regret or aren’t sure about. It’s reflective of the big themes in The Alters, this idea that we could be drastically different people if we’d made a different choice at a crucial fork in the road. Developers, writers, and designers get reflective, musing about moving to Warsaw for their dreams of making video games or major break-ups.
Energy picks back up again as it appears to be a launch party for The Alters. Someone busts out a limited edition Project Dolly jacket (which one-time developer ZA/UM of Disco Elysium is producing along with their Atelier clothing line; I want one!!! It’s just €399… brb sobbing), and employees take turns trying it on. Someone lumbers clunkily down the hallway, imitating how Jan sometimes runs in the base. When asked who their favorite Alters are, employees answer differently. My favorite is a young femme developer who laughs, saying, “I love animating The Botanists, because he’s always crying.”
This surprise short film reminded me of something similar at the end of Danish studio Triple Topping’s 2022 Welcome to Elk and the 2007 documentary The Pixar Story. All of these pieces pull back the curtain on the development process by introducing audiences to the real people who made the content and where they worked. I love seeing where creatives make their magic happen — what they pin up by their desk, the way the hallways feel, how they interact with each other. It’s a reminder that this game was made by real people which, in turn, inspires me that I too can make things.
Video games in particular are a unique artistic medium in that we interact with other people’s work, spending time and making choices within their creation. When the developers share their hopes and dreams for the game, you can practically feel their anxiety about the game’s impending launch. I couldn’t help but smile — I wanted to reassure them that they made something awesome, something that’s worthy of deep engagement. Case in point: while The Alters only takes about 30 hours to play through, I’ve reached over 100 hours of gameplay as I replay.
This Easter egg short film is an incredibly touching and thoughtful gesture. Like the game, it is imperfect — handheld cameras, off-the-cuff answers, quick cuts — but that makes it feel all the more earnest and real. In The Alters, players are tasked with impressively complex (yet still manageable) logistics combined with genuinely complicated moral quandaries about what it means to be human. By including this Easter egg, 11 Bit Studios acknowledges that they, too, are human.
If you haven’t played The Alters yet, you really should. And, if you look close enough, you might just find the best secret video on a dangerous planet.
The Alters, developed and published by 11 Bit Studios, released on June 13, 2025, for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S. MSRP: $34.99.
Editor’s note: This piece was written right before news broke about the use of generative AI in certain areas of The Alters, including an environmental texture and subtitles for several in-game videos.
In a statement, 11 Bit Studios explained that the texture was “never intended to be part of the final release.” Regarding the videos, the studio admitted that, “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.” The studio added that updated translations are currently being worked on as a hotfix.
It remains unclear whether the use of AI extended to subtitles for all videos — such as the one covered in this Easter egg article. That said, it’s worth noting that the video itself (e.g., the actors, the native dialogue, the cinematography) are all authentic based on the studio’s statement. Of course, it’s regrettable that in today’s age, we even have to ask ourselves that question.
Our team at The Punished Backlog does not condone the use of AI in games, in writing, or in any other forms of media.
Amanda Tien (she/her or they) loves video games where she can pet dogs, punch bad guys, make friends, and have a good cry. She started writing for the site in 2020, and became an editor in 2022. She enjoys writing about mystery games, indies, and strong femme protagonists. Her work has also been published in Unwinnable Monthly (click here to read her cover feature on Nancy Drew games), Salt Hill Journal, Poets.org, Litro Magazine, Public Books, and more. She was the Co-Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Columbia University's Culinarian Magazine, and served for two years as the Managing Editor of Aster(ix) Literary Journal. She recently graduated with a MFA (Master of Fine Arts) in Creative Writing from the University of Pittsburgh. Her writing, art, graphic design, and marketing work can be viewed at www.amandatien.com. She does not post a lot on social, but you can find her on X and on Instagram.
