Raft is one of those survival-games you see on steam and think: do I need another iteration of this? Is there enough distinction to the billion other versions in this genre? But then you fall in love with the idea of building a house on the motherfucking ocean like it was nothing and you go for it.
Despite it's limitations in direct comparison with other more popular survival games, Raft has a lot going for it. The main differentiator for me, was the chill pace and atmosphere of the game. Much like why Valheim was such a pleasure to play, Raft is a getaway and doesn't really put a lot of pressure on you and is less punishing then we've come to expect from the genre. There are some game design decisions however, where I would have liked a similar approach as in Valheim - especially the amount of food and water you need to just survive. At some point in the game it doesn't really matter anymore, but up until then you are basically in a constant loop of providing food and water which artificially extends the time for you to do the real fun stuff in the game. That is building a fully furnitured multi-story raft that defies the laws of physics and also traversing the ocean to uncover a mystery that is nothing superb, but still gives enough incentive to spend roughly 25-30 hrs in the game.
I can recommend this game to anyone who doesn't get enough of survival games and wants to have some chill hang-out sessions with friends.

Manche Dinge sind nicht nachvollziehbar, die Welt ist abseits der Inseln echt leer.

Aber zu viert macht es einfach Bock.

Dass wir nach 30 Stunden nur 2x Delfine gesehen haben, macht es zu etwas besonderem, auch wenn sie wirklich nichts bringen.

Die Musik ist nett.

Alles in allem aufgrund dem riesen Mangel an guten Survival-Spielen tatsächlich in meiner Top 3 nach The Forrest und Subnautica.

If you wanna have the best experience with this game, play it with someone you like. Trying it alone is not that fun, trust me.

The survival experience is fun indeed, but the combat could be better, mainly when you're trying to fight a shark under water... The story is also nothing that special

There are some weirds bugs and solutions for those bugs. For example: at Varuna Point, I was running and jumping and suddenly I was stuck on the roof. I was desperate cause I couldn't get out, and my necessities were dropping, so I started dropping all my stuff so my friends could get it, even if I was dead. We googled it and found nothing, but, when I pressed "esc", I found the "unstuck" button. Literally, an UNSTUCK button. They know the bug exist, they don't fix it and they create an "unbug" button...

My conclusion: It has a minecraft vibe, It's boring as fuck on your own, but SO FUN with other people. Not a GOTY, but yeah, good besides the stuff I said

I have a lot of good memories of this one, mostly through playing with my fiancee before we were ever dating. Fun and slightly cringey fact - I first told her I thought I was going to marry her someday while we were playing this together.

Aside from that, it's just an oddly satisfying game. Admittedly, I spend most of my time on Raft catching fish and then cooking everything I catch and acting like it's the height of fun, but I maintain that it's useful so I'm allowed. The storyline was surprisingly interesting to slowly uncover, and the general gameplay is pretty engaging - it's always fun to find new islands, and you can make some seriously impressive-looking rafts with the building mechanics. Me and my fiancee ended up with a super cozy floating home with a fireplace - not sure how good of an idea that is when your entire living space is made of wood, but at least we're surrounded by water.

Raft is a game that banks alot on its central premise being captivating. Fortunately, it kinda is, making a strange fortress on the sea is an exciting prospect. However, all the cool base-building is regrettably held back by those pesky survival elements. Having to constantly micromanage the different stations and mechanisms is tedious and just prolongs the time spent before you get to the fun part. The game does get more and more free as you move along, and there is enjoyment to be found in reaching various milestones, but the moment-to-moment gameplay is somewhat repetetive and uninteresting.

Only played for a couple of hours with pals, dipping in and out for a steam refund. I've enjoyed crafting and survival games so I get the overall appeal, but after two hours we just felt kind of exhausted. It was an endless grind of fishing to scrape together enough food not to starve, hovering between three water purifiers trying to manage thirst, and then shoveling plastic out of the sea of garbage to build another fishing rod. Things that ought to be fun, like exploring unknown islands, instead felt tense and frustrating as we staggered around, famished, and got eaten by sharks on the way back to the raft. Even as we started to get on top of the resource game, there was still no view to automating anything. Progress would be hours and hours of necessary chores, with only a much smaller amount of time and resources available for luxuries like building a bigger raft or 'having fun'.

Maybe it's better single player (or just without five people crowded onto one 2x2 raft), or maybe it evens out later on.

There was one transcendental moment of humour in the game. We were adrift at sea, trying desperately to boil salt water so that we could get something to drink, watching our raft get swallowed up piece by piece by a shark, and then my friend announced "I've built a research table". Ah, perfect. We might be starving to death, but at least the march of science continues.

Its not close from beeing perfect, but we had a great journey with this game. The game is quite boring on its own, but with 4 people in a coop session it's definitely fun.
The soundtrack is nice and special things stay special, like seeing some kind of creatures just once or two times in the whole game.
The story is obviously not the core of this game. But it's fun to build the raft and discover the different islands.
And since there aren't any good alternatives in this genre (besides the forest and subnautica for example) this game definitely should be played, if you are searching for a good survival game.

Incredibly entertaining with a group of friends because everyone manages to find something they are individually good at. Raft manages to really capture an apocalyptic atmosphere that is still bright despite being so bleak within the story. What holds Raft back is the clunky ranged combat. With some of the most difficult enemies being the ones that fly simply due to the bow and arrow mechanics having a massive delay.

The Raft building is simple in the beginning but mechanics ramp up quickly when more electronics and machines are added to the mixed, allowing for some truly great builds.