Steam Gaming: A Return to Raft
Posted on Month 00, 2022 by Aywren
Two years ago, Syn and I (and eventually the Posse) picked up a fun little survival game called Raft. At the time, we made it to the second story point, and I think that might have been all the story the game had to offer at the time as it was in development.
I’ve been keeping my eye on Raft over the years, and saw that the story was finally finished a few weeks back! Not only that, but they’ve added voice acting and they’ve gone back and overhauled the older story so that all the pieces fit better together.
Somewhere down the line, I mentioned this to Syn and we decided to give it another try. Back when we left off playing, we enjoyed it, but the screecher birds were a big turn-off to our team. We even hoped there was a way of turning them off (aside from going into completely peaceful mode), but there wasn’t.
While the screechers are still there, for some reason they feel a lot more manageable than they used to be. They seem to stick around the mountain area of islands, for one, rather than bombarding everyone all over the island. And if you time a jump correctly, you can often avoid the rocks they drop. So, that’s far better than before.
New Things to Raft
Some of these may not be absolutely new to Raft seeing we haven’t played the game since May of 2020. So they are all new to us. We did start over in order to see the story from the start and re-learn the game. We’re currently to the third story point and moving right along!
Notes are voice acted. This is nice because as you pick them up, you can hear the story and keep doing stuff rather than stopping and having to read it in your book. If one person in the group picks up a note, everyone hears the voice over.
New furniture and decorations. A whole new furniture system where you find the item recipes from decoration packages in crates, just like you do other rare items. There’s everything from tables and chairs to fairy lights – which I like very much! You can really do a lot to customize your raft.
New ways to cook. Not sure if the juicer and cooking station were in the game before, but they are new to me. They make some awesomely filling food and drink and I have fun using them.
New trader system. Eventually you unlock a new trader system (though you can see the traders before you can trade with them) where you can catch special fish to earn reputation and unlock new things to buy. As fishing is one of my favorite things, I enjoy this.
New animals for resources. I was able to capture a llama, ram, and chicken in order to get wool, eggs, and milk. They’re super cute and very useful!
Lots of new locations. It feels like there’s a greater variety in islands and a lot more large ones to be found.
New creatures to fight. Boars and bears are new to me, but I know we’ll see a lot more than just that in the future. Also, making armor from leather and wool parts. I just wish the equipment quality didn’t run down and break so fast.
New ambient wildlife. It’s great to see dolphins, whales, sea turtles, rays and jellyfish out there in the sea with you. (Bruce the shark doesn’t count!)
There’s probably a bunch of other things I’m not thinking about that I could add to this list. Overall, Raft is quite a fun survival-story experience. We’re playing bit-by-bit on the weekends, moving through the story as we can. If all you want to do is sail around, survive and build up a massive raft, you can do that.
But if you also want a game with a neat post-apocalypse (I think?) story that isn’t about zombies (I think?), Raft has that for you, too! There’s certainly some unsettling things to find in a world where water has covered almost everything except islands.
What do you think about playing a sea survial game? Does it look fun to you?