‘Raft’ is a brilliant castaway from traditional survival games

At its heart, Raft is a fishing game. Starting out on just a tiny four-square raft in the middle of a seemingly endless ocean, you’ll start by tossing a scrap-metal hook out into the water and trying to drag in a piece of wood, some scrap, a few palm leafs. With luck, you’ll find a barrel or crate full of supplies.

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From the start you’ll need water and food, but your tiny raft can’t do much more than float at this point. To make this raft into seaworthy salvation, you’ll have to create a way to purify water, cook food and even add a sail so you can steer your vessel out of certain doom. All of this must be managed while scaring away the ever-present shark, who’s waiting to take a chunk out of anyone that touches the water.

With all of that going on, it’s easier to tackle Raft with a friend. I had three. Sophisticated, Heffery and Manuel were all pitching in to help us turn this small spit of land into something liveable.

In most traditional survival games, you survive until you thrive. Minecraft is the best example. The first night is terrifying, the first couple of days are a struggle for survival, and before you know it you’re strapping on your diamond breastplate and spelunking into the game’s scariest caves with not a single care given.

Raft does not feel like a traditional survival game. Early on there are very few ways for you to influence the raft itself, so you just try to weather the storm as best as you can. Eventually, with a small paddle and in time even a sail, you’ll be able to steer yourself towards little islands or other rafts, rare parcels of land where you can get sand, rocks or even a tree. You can toss an anchor down to stay in one place, but then you’re robbing yourself of the steady flow of waterborne detritus, which is the closest thing you have to a lifeline.

This manifested itself in us desperately lunging for nearby barrels in the hope they would give us the metal or scrap we needed to repair constantly breaking tools. Crafting a spear in a panic to try and use it to dissuade the shark currently chewing away at the foundations of your floating base is a terror that few games can match. Sure, Minecraft’s Creeper might blow up your house, but can it drop you forever into a deep, dark, ocean?

Because you never really feel in control of your environment, it’s a long time before you feel like you’re out of that panicked survival phase. The ocean you’re adventuring across is transitionary at best, and while you can use the aforementioned sails to choose a direction and an anchor to stop yourself, ultimately your survival relies on your ability to keep moving forwards into the flow of rubbish.

It was on one of these islands when we came unstuck. We’d settled into roles. I spent my time building the raft and making sure we were getting items researched, while Sophisticated took care of our food and navigation. Heffery, meanwhile, was our hunter gatherer. He was hunter gathering on the island when we started to drift away. We had no anchor and no sail, so we were desperately paddling back towards the island, until the paddles broke and we were adrift.

Where was Manual during all of this? Well, Manuel is a scarecrow.

We were playing at 4am and all seemed lost, until we saw him jumping across the waves like a dolphin, somehow able to find us while the shark snapped at his heels. The level of pure adulation we felt at the luck of finding each other in a seemingly infinite sea is, so far, one of the finest gaming moments of 2023. We’re only a few days in, but it’s one that I think will stick with me for the rest of the year.

This is Raft’s promise. It’s difficult not because of a slider or enemies with huge HP pools, but because the ocean presented here is completely untameable and unknowable. The fantasy, then, becomes taming ths mystery and shaping a vessel that can weather any storm you throw at it. What other game offers you that?

Raft is available on PC, Xbox and PlayStation. 

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