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The Alters: Last Variable

The Alters: Last Variable cover art
Developer
11 bit studios
Released
Jul 13, 2026
Steam reviews
77% of players recommend it, from 669 reviews — Steam calls that “Mostly Positive”
Tags
Adventure
View on Steam

About this game

The developer's description, from the game's Steam store page.

This DLC follows the ending where Jan Scientist stays on the planet. Average playtime is estimated at 20 hours.

Jan Scientist can finally pursue his true calling. While other Jans left, he stayed to lead a team of new specialists - assembled by and from himself. Only a scientific crew of perfectly aligned altered Jan Scientists can offer the expertise needed to unravel the Oasis phenomenon.

Studying nature's survival here in space is a life-defining opportunity. However, this goal-oriented plan of the Jan Scientists might not be so apparent to Jan Geologist, Biologist, Chemist, or Physicist.

The Oasis, a lush paradise that shouldn't exist, becomes the mystery you will obsessively try to solve.

Terraforming the nine arenas unlocks it, forcing the landscape to yield answers. But with each seemingly right step on a research path, the planet responds with implacable earthquakes and radiation, hinting at secrets best left undiscovered.

Your biggest hurdle? Years-long planetary cycles of scorching sunrises that force you underground. Setting a functional underground base requires building in varied soils, constructing new components, and researching modules like the Cryosleep Chamber, which buys time to witness your scientific actions' long-term effects.

Still, even in cryo-slumber, increasingly vicious cycles wear down your crew’s readiness to work.

Each planetary cooldown offers a brief window to freely explore a dramatically changed surface.

Terraformed landscape opens new building possibilities, spawns bonus-providing pickables, and lets you evolve your research-essential technology by extracting and refining new planetary resources.  Specialised structures further let you transform, combine, and amplify what you gather.

Field Labs introduce new assignments for alters to continue their work while you cryosleep. But will they change once faced with the vulnerability of ageing?

System requirements

As Steam lists them.

Windows

Minimum

Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
OS
Windows 10 or later, 64-bit
Processor
AMD Ryzen 5 1600, Intel Core i7-6700
Memory
16 GB RAM
Graphics
AMD Radeon RX 570, nVidia GeForce GTX 1060, Intel Arc A570. 6+ GB video memory
DirectX
Version 12

Recommended

Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
OS
Windows 10 or later, 64-bit
Processor
AMD Ryzen 7 5800X, Intel Core i7-8700K
Memory
16 GB RAM
Graphics
AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT, nVidia GeForce RTX 2070, Intel Arc A770. 8+ GB video memory
DirectX
Version 12

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