The Alters – Unlocking All Endings

The Alter’s has a branching story that depends on critical decisions that decide Jan’s fate and the mission’s ultimate outcome. While all but a few major decisions affect gameplay in the short term, the major ones toward the end of the game determine how the story eventually goes. This guide takes a look at those decisions, how they interact with each other, and what each of the resultant conclusions is about.

Rapidium and Its Role in the Ending

One of your earliest and most important decisions is regarding the amount of Rapidium you gather before the rescue ship reaches you. You have the capacity to store up to five Rapidium Arks—one initial Ark and one per each Base Expansion you construct during the campaign. The greater the number of Arks you launch, the greater Project Dolly’s achievement is increased, which can have a better impact on Earth’s life.

But most of this Rapidium ends up in the pockets of Ally Corporation, which keeps it under a monopoly for research. If you return with excess, sanctioned franchisees can develop tech from it to aid in providing relief to the world food crisis. But if Lucas facilitates your escape, he ensures excess Rapidium reaches the hands of independent start-ups, boosting food crisis relief instantly.

Maxwell vs. Agatha: Choosing Your Corporate Ally

The first important branching decision is which faction you join up with in Acts 2 and 3—Maxwell, your first corporate liaison, or Agatha, Ally Corporation COO.

Maxwell is obsessed with keeping the Alters a secret. If you deceive Lena and don’t reveal the truth to her, you have to treat the Alter’s brain rot with his brutal method. Maxwell rewards you by continuing his support of your goal into Act 3.

If you choose to let Lena in on the truth, she creates neural implants that stabilise the Alters. She then reports Maxwell, and he is removed from the project. Agatha becomes your new handler.

Act 3 gameplay is mostly the same regardless of what you did, with one difference: Alters, you defected from the base, will only return if the neural implants were developed, essentially punishing players for being loyal to Maxwell.

Eventually, your handler—Maxwell or Agatha—will threaten consequences if you attempt to save the Alters. You must choose now to surrender the Alters or sabotage the rescue operation.

Maxwell’s Ending: Subjugation and Control

If Maxwell remains in command and you comply with the rescue plan without resistance, he seizes all the Rapidium for his secret neuroscience project, Project Elah. 

Famine spreads as research is emphasised and the Alters are arrested as test subjects. Lucas throws Maxwell’s plans out the window and goes back to Earth to pursue humanitarian endeavours. Jan is given a comfortable life under an assumed name, but is always in Maxwell’s debt.

Agatha’s Ending: Corporate Betrayal

Collaborating with Agatha leads to the promotion of Lena within Ally Corporation, though she breaks with Jan after discovering he sabotaged the Alters. Jan is appointed the face of the Corporation’s latest PR campaign. 

The Alters’ destiny is concealed by design—hinted at as horrific—before a cryptic, ciphered message arrives with Jan as he leaves his apartment complex, implying they could still be alive.

Saving the Alters: Sabotage and Sacrifice

The rescue mission must be sabotaged to free the Alters from corporate domination. Regardless of your true reason, the plan requires you to fake cooperation, which will set up one of three sabotage choices:

1. Make a decoy Rapidium Ark to deceive the rescuers.
2. Choose one of:

• Four Explosive Charges, or
• A Sleeping Gas Canister and Suit Mask Upgrade.

3. Choose your hijacking mode for your ship:

• Autopilot System, or
• Remote Access Terminal (if Lucas is with you).
  

You may strategise all forms of sabotage during the campaign, but you can only swear allegiance to one of them during the final mission. Successfully hijacking the ship enables Jan and the Alters to escape—but Jan will be a criminal on Earth.

Explosives vs. Sleeping Gas: A Tactical Decision

The Explosives Charges are faster and cheaper in resources, but using them adds four additional charges for murder for Jan. The Sleeping Gas is not deadly and slower to make, but it skips extra charges and is a neater, ethical choice.

The only true reason to use explosives is to gain an achievement or trophy. Otherwise, the gas is a more humane and safer choice.

Trusting Lucas: A Risk That Pays Off

Should you have earned the trust of Lucas, he will pilot the rescue ship remotely via the Remote Access Terminal. His help not only redirects the ship to safety, but also delivers the extra Rapidium to ethical startups. To boot, Lucas takes the rap for the hijacking—stealing the concept or scapegoating Maxwell, lessening Jan’s legal woes.

Without Lucas’s help, using the Autopilot System still gets the job done, but Jan must accept full responsibility for the hijacking during his sentencing.

The Botanist: An Unexpected Twist

If you’ve advanced the Botanist’s storyline and are working with Agatha, he proposes a radical plan: he takes Jan’s place for the return trip, allowing Jan Prime to disappear with the Alters.

This is an option. If you choose it, the Botanist is the last Alter to go into cryosleep, in which you can switch between identities. Then you play out the rest of the ending as the Botanist.

He doesn’t have Jan Prime’s “Lessons Learned” choices, but otherwise follows the same rescue chain.

Betrayal: The Botanist’s Ending

If you sabotage the rescue when you play as the Botanist, he takes Jan’s place on Earth. He keeps the switch a secret from all except Lena. Because of her work and his involvement with Agatha, he receives a shortened sentence. Lena later confronts him about Jan’s whereabouts. Although the Botanist tells the truth, the revelation leaves a psychological mark.

Trading Places: A New Beginning

Following the trial, Agatha follows through on her threat and fires Lena for “Jan’s” disobedience. As the Botanist awaits sentencing, he and Lena wonder about their futures—and Jan Prime’s, at last out of the Corporation’s clutches.