The Alters: Last Variable

It took me two attempts to appreciate the main story, because I lost almost all my Alters during my first playthrough to the rebell faction. But at least the first part had a somewhat pleasant story, interesting character "branches", personalities, which all tied back to the story itself. The story itself had a satisfying, rewarding set of endings available, that ultimately made me feel like it was worth it (in my second playthrough). This DLC has none of that. Last Variable doubles down on the base building. Base building becomes the grind. In itself this isn't necessarily bad. But grind for what? The new Alters feel like a doubling down of the first part's challenges, to an artificial extent. It feels old, tiring, boring to listen to the new Alters. Not because they are poorly written in themselves, but because we've been through this at length in the main story. It's cliche at this point. So there's no reward from the character interactions. There's no reward from external characters anymore, no Lena, nobody else to care about. Caring about people is one of the key drivers that keeps humans engaged. But fine, you'd think, it's just a DLC. At least the ending will reward you, but nope. The ending validates a certain undertone that is hinted throughout the story (if you want to call it a story). I appreciate movies with this specific genre/theme, and there are certain components that you need to make such a theme satisfying, not depressing. This story doesn't adopt these components. Unless there's a hidden ending nobody has discovered afaik, the main ending is depressing, not satisfying, not rewarding. It's a net zero impact you have for all the grind. There's no philosophical insight gained, which could be some worst case excuse for this ending. That is because all philosophy and physics mentioned ingame is superficial and/or inaccurate. So nobody gains anything from this DLC. Neither player nor characters gain knowledge, insight, or have any impact on anything. It's a unclimactic grind that ends in a huge void. The ending also makes implausible assumptions, pitches possibilities that then can't be pursued (like destroying the QC or not lying to a significant Alter). It forces the player into two choices when I as a player would immediately have picked a third choice that the game doesn't offer. And there would be tons of other plausible options to bring this to a satisfying ending, with or without the themes they tried to incorporate. Overall, the developers have failed to learn from what has made their first part interesting. The game feels like a grind, without any thrill to it. I had to push myself to get to the ending just because I was curious about the ending itself, but then the ending isn't rewarding either. There are no characters to care about much, partially because character dialogues are reintroduced/repeated as part of the regular gameplay. The base building is actually fun at first, but then the challenges stop and the new tasks are more like alterations and repetitions of previous tasks. It's a boring grind without reward.

5/10 Под конец уже заставлял себя доигрывать. Нового мало, а ковыряться со всем этим ещё часов 20. Трогать только если очень не хватило основного сюжета.

DLC испортило впечатление от оригинальной игры. Оно слишком затянутое, слишком скучное, альтеры-ученые получились куда менее выразительные чем альтеры из оригинала (хотя я думал что хуже чем в оригинале уже некуда). В DLC практически невозможно проиграть, нет смысла исследовать технологии кроме парочки базовых, ресурсов в избытке, даже базу не нужно перемещать. В итоге геймплейный цикл: криосон -> скрафтил квестовый айтем или постройку -> пачка псевдонаучных и псевдофилософских диалогов -> беготня и фарм ресурсов перед криосном. Повторять в течение 16ч (на оригинал у меня ушло 21). Ну и да, ужасная концовка. Можно было бы сделать сюжет куда интереснее и куда логичнее, но нет, игра предлагает просто рассусоливать вопросы из серии: "Что есть жизнь" и "Что есть наука". В общем, останавливайтесь на оригинале, на это DLC нет смысла тратить время.

Хуже основной игры - немного затянуто, новая механика труб душная, а сюжет стал менее психологичным и более фантастическим. Концовка впрочем лихо закручена. Кому понравилась основная игра - можно брать, но наверное через небольшой перерыв

The Alters, но симулятор трубопроводчика.

Ana oyunu çok sevdiğim için dlcye de büyük bir heyecanla başladım ve bitirdiğimde yine fazlasıyla memnun kaldım. Uzun zamandır beni bu kadar içine çeken, bitirdiğimde bile aklımda kalan çok fazla oyun olmamıştı. Hikayesi, atmosferi, karakterleri ve verdiğin kararların ağırlığı benim için oyunu çok özel bir yere koymuştu. dlc ile Oyunun dünyasına tekrar dönmek ve o atmosferi tekrar yaşamak gerçekten çok güzeldi. Normalde bir oyunu bitirdikten sonra dlcsine geçtiğimde aynı heyecanı bulamamaktan korkarım ama bunda öyle olmadı başından sonuna kadar yine severek oynadım. Ana oyunu sevdiyseniz dlcyi kesinlikle es geçmeyin.

loved the base game, DLC - not so much. i haven't finished it yet, so will probably edit it later if i figure the megafluid production out. my main issue is that basically the alters here are very bland and uninteresting, they don't really have their own arcs - and if they do, they feel lackluster, short and unfinished - or relationships with each other. they are mainly there to push the main quest forward, and even that is done very poorly, because the story feels underwhelming so far and doesn't add anything of substance to the base game. the dialogues are full of pseudoscientific jargon and i wasn't very interested in them overall, as they are mainly focused at the task and lack any real emotional punch. the base game didn't have these kind of issues. the story is also very linear with very few choices that don't seem to matter at all. quests are bugged and i was forced to load a previous save a few times, as they were not progressing properly. I think that the only reason why the DLC is so long is not the story and side quests, but the gameplay, that has been made artificially difficult, and thus time-consuming and annoying. the new resources are a mess. i hate the fact that some things can only be placed on geysers, forcing you to create a spaghetti of pipes all over the map, especially since you can't put two extractors on the same deposit area. the map is huge and hard to read, and the geysers feel like they're deliberately put in locations where it wouldn't get too easy for the player. megafluid production is overcomplicated and underexplained, and requires you to dismantle the network you made earlier for the previously unlocked resources. felt like playing satisfactory, and not in a good way. i also don't really get why so much of the research has to be repeated instead of carrying over from the main game. it just doesn't make sense to me narratively, given the DLC background. there are some good parts. the game is still beautiful (though it runs in 30-60 FPS after some time of playing on a PC that a year ago was able to reach 80-90 FPS on the same settings). the world and its lore are interesing, so it's great to see more of that. also the DLC doesn't have that looming deadline and you can actually take your time which i like very much. base building in the DLC was more enjoyable for me too. there were some rare highlights in the story and dialogues, but everytime i think that something more interesting, more emotional, more unexpected would happen... it just abruptly stops.

If you enjoyed the story of the Base Game then you'll enjoy this extension of it that covers more in detail of the Oasis. Sadly, some of the new mechanics added into the game is pretty buggy so it did cause some frustrations through the playthrough but nothing you can't work around in the end. The story has a very scientific theme so if you get bored listening to a bunch of nerds geek out over time and space physics then you are in for a bad time. Lastly, the ending... WOW