The Alters: Last Variable

Man, I hate how the scientist ends. And yet I love it, as always. That was a great DLC, well worth even the full price!

Very good DLC* I had some really annoying performance issues. not sure why, but I'd get random hitching that was so bad it was unplayable. by the end of the DLC I had to close and reopen my game a dozen times in the last 10 hours of gameplay.

As far as expansion DLC goes, Last Variable is pretty good for my money. To preface, i played both the base game and the DLC on max difficulty. I have alot of thoughts, but TLDR: I found the DLC really worth buying and playing. It took me about 14 hours, so weight that in if playtime matters to you. While I can't deny that it get a bit repetitive (especially near the end) the dlc delivered on the things i wanted and cared about from the original game; Fun exploration that opens up to some very pretty environments. The DLC is also pretty clever in making re-exploring the same areas worthwhile, by hiding collectible upgrade material that only spawn after set points. Which also doubles as incentive to go and see how the environment has changed (as it will throughout the playthrough). Speaking of being pretty, the lighting and skybox changing as you get near the end of each cycle is a real visual treat. Especially from some of the higher vantage points. Alters interactions that while quite a bit more shallow than the base game, i found very entertaining. The management mechanics were expanded upon with some almost Satisfactory style resource extraction and processing, which is one of the things i felt ended up becoming trivial in the original game (especially on my second playthrough), where here the extra mechanics help in needing to analyze and keep building on the map as you expand. Also on the management side; since all the Alters are versions of the scientist, every alter can research with bonuses to their speciality, which is very nice for filling out workspaces and keeping all your altars busy on various tasks as needed, instead of having one always relegated to the research station (since you now can also do the research). Combat wise i was hoping for atleast one new enemy type, but sadly the DLC stagnates in that regard. While enemy pressure does escalate throughout, it doesn't bring any new ideas to the table. Luckily, i quite enjoy clearing out anomalies, but if anyone was buying this hoping for more enemy variety they will be disappointed. I'm a sucker for some high concept scifi and the original game did leave a little of that to be desired, the DLC i feel, is a natural expansion of the ideas presented in the base game. It focuses less so on being a character study, which i can understand as a reason for others to dislike it, but i find the mysteries and questions a bit more engaging. The sound and music has been reused from the base game. With one expection, no licensed tracks carried over, now luckily, the games original soundtrack and sound effects are quite nice, and the sound effects especially are still fantastic. But i can't help but feel like playing beer pong lost some of the charm when the only background track is an instrumental of a song from the base game. Also while it makes sense that you just have all the videos from the base game, there not being any new skits was a bit disappointing. So to sum it up, i loved the gameplay loop, i liked the new Altars, and most of what was good from the base game is still here. If what you liked from the first game was the setting and management gameplay, this does not disappoint, but if you had hoped for a deeper character study or an expansion of Jan's story, you won't find that here. Worth the money in my book.