Ever wondered what it’s like to be lost in the middle of the ocean?

Raft, a sandbox survival game developed by Redbeet Interactive is one of the new sandbox survival games that we happen to stumble upon, roughly 2 years since its early access release, as with most early access titles. Now sandbox survival games are easily time sinks and when it’s good you pour thousands of hours into it without realizing it but when it’s bad you play maybe an hour before dropping it completely for being an utter waste of time. Raft, at least from our experience, falls into the former, with its own approach to the sandbox survival formula that easily offers a proper and good solo play experience (and multi-play too!)

You’re trapped in the middle of the ocean in a raft.

Just like many sandbox survival titles, the premise is Raft is that you, an unnamed protagonist, is trapped in the middle of somewhere, this time, the ocean, but not on an island or some stationary device but rather on a makeshift raft (hence the name of the game). You’re not fully naked and alone though as you have your trusty hook with you (which breaks so you need to create a new one every once in a while) and a ton of junk floating around the ocean waiting for you to collect and craft into various tools and raft add-ons.

It’s like fishing, but for litter.

Suddenly, an island!

Now living alone in a raft that’s drifting in an endless ocean isn’t the only thing that you will be doing in the game for as you progress you will get to encounter islands of various shapes and sizes. These islands offer more materials. importantly food, to help you expand your living space and survive, and expansion can be costly especially when you have Bruce constantly stalking you and eating up parts of your shelter.

That’s Bruce, say “Hi Bruce!”

Islands also offer a very temporary reprieve from the brutal ocean waves, and the seafloor offers more materials not usually found from within the numerous debris floating on the ocean. Just don’t overstay your welcome though and make sure to have your makeshift anchors at the ready.

And oh, you can’t build stuff on islands.

Along the way, you will also then be introduced to blueprints which then offer new, more high-tech add-ons for your journey and “unlocks” the start of the game’s story where you get to find out the mystery behind your whole experience.

Aye, aye cap’n!

Adding story elements to sandbox survival games isn’t an entirely new concept with the element trying to give more meaning to why you’re in the predicament that you’re in and how it rewards your sense of discovery urging you to uncover more of the world’s mystery. Raft does a really good job of incorporating this into the gameplay, as, despite having a proper path towards the next section of the story, it still allows you to play the game at your own phase, albeit story-wise there is only one path to follow.

Now the fun begins

As an early access game Raft is still incomplete but following its great community reception Redbeet Interactive has been pushing update after update with the next chapter already in the works. Additionally, a dedicated modding community with a modest number of custom add-ons has also been working to push community content into the game, adding more materials, stuff to craft, quality of life improvements, and of course, crazy stuff because why not.

Raft is available for the PC via Steam for PHP 499.00 / ~USD 10.00