Can you imagine what it would be like to be lost and alone on an alien planet? The isolation and constant fear of death are truly unimaginable. Now imagine if you had to survive without your rubber ducky. I shudder at the thought.
Sadly, this is the exact situation our hero, Jan, finds himself in throughout The Alters. Thankfully, for his sake, the developers at 11 Bit Studios were kind enough to scatter his personal items around the planet in order to ease his suffering, including his prized rubber duck. Phew.
Along with these items that you can gift to specific alters to raise their moods, Jan can also come across movies to watch with the whole crew, as well as some prized damaged chips.
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If you want more Alters, you’ll need Qubit Chips
These chips specifically are your most important targets, as they can be repaired to become Qubit chips, the exact things you need to raise your Qubit level, create more alters, and earn more research topics.
These cargo crops are found in the Prologue, and Acts One, Two, and Three. Below, you’ll find where to find every last one of these items to improve crew morale and bring some more team members to the party.
You’ll never find any of these cargo drops during any of the “Journey” sections of The Alters.
Prologue
During the intro sequence of The Alters, there are two locations to be found that are home to some cargo drops.
In the picture galleries below, you’ll see the map location, followed by the item(s) you’ll find at this spot. There are no damaged chips to be found in the Prologue, so you’ll just walk away with some personal items that you can eventually give to their respective owners once you create them, and a movie for a group bonding night.
If you miss these items in the Prologue, it’s not the end of the world. From my playthrough experience, these items were included with cargo drops in Act 1 as well.
Movie
There’s one lone movie to be found in the Prologue. You can’t even use it until you eventually craft the Social Room, and it’s not really worth watching until you have two or three alters on board with you.
Still, it’s nice to get the collection started, I suppose.
Personal Items
This is your first group of personal items. Sadly, you can’t actually do anything with them yourself or use them to do anything cool around the base. As stated above, you’ll simply keep these on your person for whenever you need to boost a specific alter’s mood.
You’re free to give an item to the corresponding alter whenever you get the dialogue prompt to do so, but it’s much wiser to hang onto it until the particular alter is upset about something.
Act 1
Act 1 opens up The Alters a lot, and this includes giving you many more cargo drops full of goodies to track down. These aren’t incredibly hard to locate on your own if you’re someone like me who always needs to fully clear out a map in a game before moving on.
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Still, if you want to confirm that you’ve grabbed everything you can before moving onto Act 2, I’ve got everything collected for you below. If you don’t get anything else, at least make sure you grab the damaged chip in this act to raise that handy, dandy Qubit level.
Damaged Chip
This is your first damaged chip you’ll find in the game, and the only one in Act 1. These are, without a doubt, the most important items you’ll come across in The Alters, so do not skip this cargo drop.
Once repaired for a small resource fee in the Workshop, damaged chips turn into Qubit chips. Take these to the Quantum Computer, and you’ll now be able to clone one additional alter each time you rise to the next Qubit level.
These also unlock new research tiers, with the best upgrades in the game locked behind Qubit level four. You’re going to want all of these.
Movie
Act 1 also only comes with one movie, just like in the Prologue. That’s mostly okay, because your alters in general shouldn’t typically be getting into bad moods this early if you’re doing everything optimally.
You only ever have the option to watch a movie with the entire crew, and the mood-boosting ability of a movie night goes down after you’ve already viewed it once. Because of this, it’s recommended you save movies till you have at least four or so alters in the group, and multiple are in a bad mood at once.
Personal Items
There are three different locations in Act 1 to grab a few personal items. Once again, hold onto these until you see a conversation option pop up next to an alter’s icon.
There’s no need to really try to figure out whose items are whose, but it can be fun to guess as you pick them up. For example, the Refiner is a gym rat. Of course, the skipping rope belongs to him.
Act 2
As far as cargo drops go, Act 2 is the most important section of the game. This is largely due to the fact that there are two damaged chips to find in this area.
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Aside from that, however, there are a couple of other key items to keep an eye out for as well. Let’s take a look.
Damaged Chips
The second and third damaged chips are the last two in the game. If you miss these, it’s impossible to max out your Qubit level, which is highly unadvisable.
Grab both of these, repair them, and reap the rewards of being able to clone the max number of alters and research the best upgrades. Take a look at that Free Climbing research subject ASAP.
Holo Chip
At this point in the map, you’ll find a projection of a forest in the middle of this barren, deserted wasteland. Turns out, the projection is coming from one of your cargo drops. Loot it, and the forest will disappear.
The holo chip unlocks the Park With Bench base module, which allows you to build a peaceful room for your alters to chill out in. It’s not a necessary module by any means, but the alters being able to use it automatically whenever they need a little pick-me-up is a nice thing.
Movies
Act 2 is where the crew gets to start to really flex their film-buff muscles. You have three separate movies to find here.
This is good, because you’re also going to be making some tough choices in Act 2 that aren’t always going to make your alters happy. Having so many more movies in your back pocket to throw a watch party whenever you need it is definitely a good thing.
Personal Items
This is also by far the act with the most personal items to scrounge around for. There are seven items in total spread throughout four different cargo drops.
You already know you should hang onto these until you really need to make an alter happy, but that goes doubly in Act 2.
Act 3
In the final act of the game, you’ll just have movies and personal items to track down. The damaged chips aren’t found here, so you don’t necessarily need to invest time in finding every other cargo drop in the game from here.
Still, it’s never a bad idea to have another movie or two on board, and personal items really can make an alter’s day if something particularly bad has just happened aboard the base.
Movies
It becomes pretty crucial in Act 3 to keep the team happy, especially if you’re able to get the rebels to come back home with you. Yeah, you convinced them to return, but they’re still not necessarily your biggest fans yet.
Because of this, it’s nice to get two more movies in order to raise the base’s morale back up as quickly as possible.
Personal Items
Four more personal items are waiting for you in Act 3. Take extra precautions while venturing after them, as some are pretty heavily guarded by extra-aggressive anomalies.
With these last few items, you have everything you need to try to keep the team happy as you work towards your eventual rescue.
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The Alters
- Released
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June 13, 2025
- ESRB
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m
- Engine
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Unreal Engine 5
- PC Release Date
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June 13, 2025
- Xbox Series X|S Release Date
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June 13, 2025
