Watery survival hit Raft splashes out of Early Access with its largest update ever

Soon after launching in 2018, cooperative survival adventure Raft got real popular real fast. It came as a surprise to the three-person development team at the time, who were really just making a game for their university course, but they shook that off and parlayed their unexpected success into a whole development career as Redbeet Interactive.

Raft is a survival game that has you and some friends struggling to survive in a flooded world. Drifting from island to island, your job is to upgrade and rebuild your titular raft into a floating home slash fortress of sorts.

Now, four years later, Raft is a much bigger game with a more to offer than when it first won some hearts: It's even finished! Launching today with the largest update in Raft's history, Version 1.0: The Final Chapter adds the last pieces of Raft's slowly-evolving storyline spread across three new locations to explore. One's a highrise building poking above the waves, another an arctic research station, and the third is a secret until you find it. To make all the new pieces fit, the developers have overhauled the existing story to be sure it's smoother than it was. 

Of course, the update has all kinds of new things as well. New enemies, like polar bears and giant anglerfish, will show up. There are also new Rafters to play as, with four new character models to unlock and new outfits for both the old and new folks. That's alongside a literal boatload of new parts, tools, and things to tinker with.

You can check out Raft on Steam or on its official website.

Jon Bolding is a games writer and critic with an extensive background in strategy games. When he's not on his PC, he can be found playing every tabletop game under the sun.