Introduction
Raft strands you on a tiny wooden platform in the middle of a seemingly endless ocean. You have a hook, you have a few floating debris, and you have the constant threat of dehydration and starvation. The game blends chill resource-gathering vibes with genuine survival pressure — you must drink, eat, and expand your raft while the ocean current carries you past randomized islands and toward four fixed story locations.
The key to Raft is understanding that the game has two parallel progression tracks. First, you must build up your raft from a 2x2 square into a floating fortress with engines, steering, and defenses. Second, you must navigate to story islands in the correct order, solving environmental puzzles and collecting blueprint items that unlock the final research station. This guide covers both tracks in detail, with exact resource counts and strategies for each island's puzzle mechanics.
Raft Expansion & Navigation
Your raft starts as 4 foundation squares. Every square you add is a permanent platform for storage, crafting, or navigation. Here is the optimal expansion plan:
Phase 1 — Day 1-5 (The Square): Expand your raft to a 4x4 grid (16 total foundations) in the first hour of gameplay. Use the hook to grab every piece of drifting Plastic, Scrap, Palm Leaf, and Plank you see. Build a Simple Purifier (1 scrap + 1 palm leaf + 1 plastic) — without it you die in 3 minutes of dehydration. Build a Simple Grill (2 scrap + 4 palm leaves) to cook raw potatoes and fish. Build 2-3 Storage Nets (6 rope + 4 plastic each) to hold excess materials. Build a Sail (10 palm leaves + 5 rope + 3 scrap) to reduce your reliance on paddles — the sail gives you 2x speed in the wind direction.
Phase 2 — The Rectangle (2+ Decks): Once you have 30+ foundations, build a second floor 1-2 meters above the first. Place your bed, research table, and cooking stations on the second floor where the Shark (Bruc) cannot reach you. The shark cannot jump or climb, so a 1-meter-high second floor is entirely safe. Expand the first floor outward for crop plots (3x3 plots = 9 tiles, water each daily) and collection nets. Place collection nets along the outer edge of your raft — they catch ocean debris automatically while you focus on other tasks. You need at least 6 nets (3 per side on the front two-thirds of the raft) to maintain a steady supply of plastic and scrap.
Phase 3 — Engine Setup (Story Island 3+): To progress past the third story island, you need Engines. Each Engine (10 scrap + 3 ingots + 1 circuit board) requires a Mechanical Component (found in story island crates) and at least 2 Biofuel (from the biofuel refiner, fed with potatoes or honey). You need 2 Engines per Large Raft (100+ foundations) to maintain 30 knots. The Steering Wheel (6 scrap + 3 ingots + 2 plank + 1 rope) lets you navigate manually. Engines consume 1 Biofuel per 5 minutes of full-throttle travel. Build a Biofuel Refiner (8 circuit boards + 6 scrap + 2 metal ingots) and keep it constantly running — 4 raw potatoes = 1 biofuel, and you need at least 10 biofuel per story island journey.
Phase 4 — Advanced Navigation: The Receiver (4 circuit boards + 2 scrap + 1 plastic + 3 ingots) and Antenna (4 scrap + 1 ingot + 1 circuit board each — you need 3) let you locate story islands. Place the Receiver on the second floor with the 3 Antennas directly above it on the roof (2 meters above the receiver, in a triangle pattern, at least 1 meter apart). Turn it on and read the signal frequency — each story island has a unique frequency. The Receiver shows blips: blue dots are optional small islands, red dots are story islands. Steer toward the red dot and keep the receiver on until the island renders.
Resource Management
Raft has a constant resource economy. Here is how to keep yourself supplied at every stage:
Priority Resource List: Scrap is the most important resource in the entire game — it is used in every advanced crafting recipe including the Engine, Receiver, Antenna, Purifier, and Armor Plating. Never stop collecting scrap. The second priority is Plastic — it fuels your early game and is the base material for ropes and nets. Third is Palm Leaves, used for sails, water purifiers, and advanced food recipes. Fourth is Metal Ore, which you dive for — smelt it into Ingots for the Advanced Purifier, Metal Detector, and engine components.
Diving Strategy: The shark (Bruce) patrols within 30 meters of your raft at all times. To dive safely: anchor your raft (press B to drop the anchor within sight of a reef or island). Equip the Flippers (20 plastic + 4 scrap + 2 palm leaves — doubles swim speed) from the research table. Jump in and immediately swim downward — Bruce takes 4-5 seconds to reach you. Grab Metal Ore (round brown rocks on the seafloor), Sand (white patches), and Scrap (shiny metal pieces on the surface of the reef). Surface when you hear the shark music intensify. Build a Shark Bait (1 scrap + 10 raw fish/meat) to distract Bruce for 30 seconds — deploy it at the surface before diving to buy safe harvesting time.
Collection Net Placement: Nets placed on the outer edges of your raft facing forward catch the most debris. The ocean current flows from the front of your raft toward the back (relative to your sail direction). Place nets along the front 3 rows of your raft on both sides, extending 2 blocks outward from the foundation edge. Each net catches 1-3 items per minute. With 8 nets, you passively collect about 100 items per hour — enough to sustain crafting without active hooking after the mid-game.
Bottle Farming: Empty bottles are needed for water purifiers. You find them in barrels floating in the ocean. After you have 20+ bottles, you can stop actively collecting them — the purifier gives you back an empty bottle when you drink from it, creating a closed loop. However, if you are making a long journey between islands, craft 3-4 extra empty bottles from Scrap (2 scrap = 1 bottle) to keep your water supply buffer full.
Food, Water & Health
You always need food and water. Here is the full system breakdown:
Water: The Simple Purifier produces 1 water per 30 seconds, consuming 1 Plank per cycle. It takes salt water from the ocean (obtained by holding an empty bottle in your hand and pressing E in the ocean). Always carry 3+ filled bottles of fresh water. Upgrade to the Electric Purifier (10 circuit boards + 4 scrap + 2 ingots) once you have a battery-powered grid — it produces 2 water every 15 seconds. Water is the single biggest killer of new players — you die from dehydration in 3 minutes without a drink. Make the Purifier your first research table recipe.
Food: Catching fish with a Fishing Rod (4 rope + 2 scrap + 1 plank) is your primary food source for the first 15 days. The best early fish trap: the Fish Net (2 rope + 4 palm leaf) placed on the ocean floor of a reef. Collect cod and mackerel from it every 2 minutes. Cook fish on a grill for 12 hunger points each. After day 15, transition to crop farming — 3x3 plots of potatoes and beets provide sustainable food without requiring active hunting. Cook Potatoes (3 hunger) are weak but renewable. Vegetable Soup (2 potatoes + 2 beets + 1 mushroom in the Cooking Pot) gives 25 hunger and 5 hydration — the most efficient food recipe in the game. Eat 2 Vegetable Soups daily.
Health: You have 100 HP. Damage from the shark (60 HP per bite), falls from high structures (10-40 HP), and drowning (10 HP per second after breath runs out) deplete it quickly. Craft Bandages (4 palm leaf + 1 scrap) for 20 HP instant heal. Craft Aloe Bandages (4 palm leaf + 1 scrap + 2 aloe) for 40 HP heal over time. Find aloe vera on small island reefs (green cactus-like plants underwater). Always carry 5 bandages before attempting any story island — the puzzles have climbing sections where one slip drops you 20+ meters.
Thirst and Hunger Meters: Thirst depletes at 1 point every 8 seconds. Hunger depletes at 1 point every 16 seconds (sleeping or being stationary halves depletion). Both meters have a hidden multiplier: if you are at 0 thirst, your health drains at 5 HP per second. If you are at 0 hunger, your stamina regenerates 50% slower — directly affecting your ability to swim away from Bruce. You must check your meters every 5 minutes minimum. A full water bottle lasts about 4 minutes of active gameplay. A full cooked fish meal lasts about 8 minutes.
Story Island Walkthrough
There are four story islands, and you must visit them in order. Each contains a blueprint item that unlocks the next tier of crafting:
Story Island 1 — Radio Tower: Signal frequency: 1111. Your first story stop. A partially flooded tower with four floors. Climb the exterior scaffolding to reach the upper floors. Solve the simple electrical puzzle on floor 3 (connect four wires by matching colors — the blueprint is on the table). On the roof, flip the switch to lower the bridge to the main building. Inside, collect the Headlight (blueprint — helmet attachment that lights dark areas, essential for deep sea exploration) and the first journal entry explaining the pandemic backstory. The puzzle takes about 20 minutes. Bring 2 bandages and 2 full water bottles.
Story Island 2 — Vasagatan (Ship): Signal frequency: 2222. A massive ocean liner wreck. Park your raft at the stern (back of the ship) and anchor. Enter through the hole in the hull. The ship has 5 decks with progressively harder environmental hazards. On Deck 2, you find the Metal Detector blueprint — this lets you dig for treasure on small islands. On Deck 4, solve the cogwheel puzzle: find 4 cogs in the rooms around the central shaft, place them on the correct axles (each cog matches one axle diameter). On Deck 5, the Bridge, collect the Engine Controls (blueprint — enables Engine crafting). The ship is infested with rats that deal 5 damage per bite — use the headlight to spot them before they leap. Jumping puzzles on the tilted deck sections are the real danger; save before any long jump.
Story Island 3 — Balboa Island: Signal frequency: 3333. The first island you can walk on. A dense forest with hostile bears, boars, and poisonous swamp sections. Build a Bow (8 rope + 5 scrap + 4 palm leaf + 2 plank) before arriving — you need it for bear defense. The objective is finding 4 antennas scattered across the island. Antenna 1 is on the beach near a dead body. Antenna 2 is on a hilltop surrounded by bears (kill them from range with 10+ stone arrows). Antenna 3 is on a frozen lake (craft the Machete — 5 scrap + 2 ingots — to cut through jungle brush to reach it). Antenna 4 is in an underground bunker near the island center, locked behind a keypad (code is found in the journal on the crashed plane wing). Return all 4 antennas to the central relay station and activate the broadcast. This unlocks coordinates for the next island. Bring 20+ food items and 5+ bandages — Balboa takes 2-3 hours to fully explore.
Story Island 4 — Tangaroa: Signal frequency: 4444. A floating city built on platforms above the ocean. The most complex puzzle in the game. Park your raft on the water platform at the base and climb the central tower. On the Residential Level, find the Circuit Board blueprint and 4 Mechanical Components (rare — save these). On the Commercial Level, solve the water management puzzle: redirect water flow using the control panels in the maintenance corridor to open the main gate. On the Command Level (top), flip the master switch to activate the city's defense systems. Collect the Blueprint Set for the Biofuel Refiner and Advanced Battery from the CEO's office. Tangaroa also has the highest concentration of Loot Crates — 15+ crates containing titanium (rare material for final-tier upgrades), circuit boards, and metal ingots. The puzzle takes about 3 hours. This is the final destination before the credits roll. After completing Tangaroa, you get the ending cutscene: the raft drifts into the sunrise, implying rescue.
Advanced Tips
- Armor Your Raft: Bruce attacks unprotected raft foundations every 5 minutes. Each bite breaks a foundation (it disappears if you do not repair it). Craft Armor Plating (8 scrap + 2 ingots + 4 palm leaves) for each foundation on the outer edge of your raft — armored foundations cannot be broken by the shark. Prioritize arming the 4 front corners and both sides nearest the waterline — Bruce targets these most frequently.
- Paddle Board as an Island Scout: Build a second, small 1x1 raft foundation with a sail and a single storage chest. Park it near story island shorelines as a "dinghy" while keeping your main raft anchored at sea. Bruce ignores small rafts most of the time, and you avoid the risk of your entire raft drifting into rocks while you explore.
- Battery Management: Batteries (6 scrap + 2 plastic + 1 circuit board) power the Receiver, Electric Purifier, and Headlight. They drain in 30-40 minutes of continuous use. Build a Battery Charger (10 circuit boards + 6 scrap + 4 ingots) at the research table and keep 4 batteries always charging. One empty battery charges to full in about 15 minutes with a connected Engine or Wind Turbine power source.
- Small Island Farming: Small islands respawn resources after about 30 in-game minutes. If you need large amounts of Sand (for glass windows, used in advanced greenhouse building) or Metal Ore, anchor near a small island and dive repeatedly. The resources refresh when you sail away and come back. This is the only renewable source of Metal Ore in the game — prioritize it over all other diving targets.
- Building Paint Strategy: You can paint foundations with Paint Brushes and 1-3 berries of the same color. Paint a colored stripe along the front edge of your raft to differentiate it from the back — this matters for navigation during fog and storms. Storm waves wash 50% of paint off, so repaint after each storm. Red berries (from small island bushes) are the most visible paint option.