Once you craft the slightly out-of-place research desk (which looks like it should be nestled in the corner of a wizard’s study rather than lilting from side-to-side on your raft), you’ll gain access to a wider range of equipment, from nets you can hang from the side of your raft to catch passing detritus, to more advanced tools like axes and binoculars, and even totally unfeasible projects like a piano.Įlaborate musical instruments aside, the raft-building mechanic is also neatly thought out. Initially, your concerns will be expanding your raft enough to build basic survival equipment, such as grill for cooking fish and a water purifier so you don’t turn into a big meat raisin. Only instead of winning a bag of sweets or a giant stuffed toy, your prize is that you get to avoid death.Ĭollected resources can be combined to craft a wide array of useful items. It’s a bit like playing hook-a-duck at a county fair, back before the pandemic obliterated the concept of fun. Similarly, you’ll kick yourself when a misjudged throw means a resource-filled crate drifts beyond your reach. When you judge your throw just right and snatch a barrel full of goodies out of the water, it feels amazing. Instead of seeking out resources, the resources come to you, and all you have to do is fish them out of the water. It’s an intriguing reversal of the base survivalist loop. In an additional stroke of luck, you have a hook and a rope with which you can harvest all this flotsam and jetsam.

Fortunately, Raft‘s virtual oceans are littered with the detritus of humanity, from planks of wood to bits of plastic to floating crates and barrels. Hence, you need to find ways to stay alive without leaving your raft. While it may not be as big or flashy as Icarus, Raft has got ideas by the bucketful. It turns out there’s good reason for that.

READ MORE: ‘A Total War Saga: Troy – Rhesus and Memnon’ review: a slightly bored hordeĮventually, I drifted across Raft, which has been floating in Steam Early Access for several years now, but remains more popular than a cup of fresh water in a lifeboat.I want survival games to bring me new experiences and challenges, not regurgitate the same Speedtree-powered forests where I wander around naked for a bit before being eaten by wolves. I’ve been a fan of survival games ever since first punching a tree in Minecraft, but there are only so many trees you can punch before your knuckles start to fall off. This week, Rick Lane sails the oceans of an apocalyptic world in Raft.Īfter feeling deflated by the deeply uninspired Icarus last week, I was compelled to seek out a survival sim that makes a proper effort to do something different with the genre. Unfinished Business is NME’s column about the weird and wonderful world of Early Access Games.

Raft survival game sand