Survival on Raft

The ocean has no business being this generous.

In Survival on Raft, you begin your journey the way all great survival tales do: plummeting out of the sky in a fiery wreck, landing in a suspiciously well-stocked sea of garbage. You wake up dazed on a glorified pallet with a hook in your hand, a shark in the water, and a strong suspicion you’re being punked by Poseidon. What follows is a scavenger’s fever dream, equal parts fishing sim, IKEA sim, and existential horror. And somehow, it works.

This is Megame’s Switch port of a low-budget survival game that cribs almost everything from Steam’s Raft, but honestly? It pulls it off. Yes, it’s rough around the edges, the menus feel like an off-brand mobile game, and you’ll never know what happened to the child you apparently lost in the crash. But five hours later, you’ll have a multi-story raft complete with a rooftop garden, reinforced hull, and probably a bathroom. Why? Because you can.

Your day-to-day loop in Survival on Raft is simple but satisfying: toss your hook to snag drifting barrels and planks, purify some water, roast a fish, slap together another platform. The crafting tree is deeper than it has any right to be, bolstered by a traveling Merchant who shows up just often enough to feel exciting. He barters in seashells, naturally, and selling him garbage to buy blueprints for a computer you’ll eventually build on your raft is somehow… thrilling?

It helps that the game nails the escalating tension. You’re constantly juggling hunger, thirst, and the looming fin of an ever-present shark who treats your floating shack like an all-you-can-eat buffet. Even small upgrades feel meaningful. That moment you unlock a water collector or finally craft a spear? Pure elation.

Multiplayer sweetens the deal, too. Co-op turns the monotony of raft life into chaos in the best way, especially when someone forgets to cook the fish and everyone dies of thirst while arguing over raft aesthetics.

Sure, the islands are lackluster (hostile deer? really?), and there’s no narrative to cling to, but none of that really matters. Survival on Raft is about the grind, the build, and the satisfaction of turning flotsam into something that floats.

It’s goofy, unpolished, and probably legally actionable, but Survival on Raft is weirdly compelling. A low-rent survival sim that punches above its weight… and drags you along for the ride.