While the survival crafting genre has certainly been overplayed lately…okay, well, it would probably be more accurate to say that the genre has been roughly ground into the dirt under the bootheel of modern gaming. Either way, if there is anything that has a hope in hell’s chance of breathing some life back into the genre, it’s some interesting navigation mechanics. Enter Aloft, a game where you do normal survival/crafting stuff, but this time, you’re living on a bunch of floating islands and get to basically freely glide around. Will that be enough? Let’s find out.
Waking Up on an Island…with No Pants
As is almost par for the course in an Early Access survival crafting games, you sort of just wake up in the wilderness with no idea where you are or why you’re there. Unlike other games, you actually wake up in a cave, specifically, and soon discover some strange monuments that beam crafting knowledge into your brain, Skyrim-Word-of-Power style. With the usual business of hoovering up rocks and sticks from the ground taken care of, you venture out to discover you’re on an island in a sunny, blue-skied void.
The actual crafting system being used in Aloft is pretty interesting. You can sort of stuff random ingredients into the crafting menu to figure out how to construct stuff. So, a stick and a rock make a hammer, for obvious reasons, but if you sharpen a rock on another rock and then tie that to a hammer, you get an axe, add another regular rock to the stick/sharp rock combo and you get a pickaxe; you get the idea. It’s great for promoting experimentation, especially since you can elect to not use up resources and only unlock the recipe for whatever you’ve guessed jams together.
Believe It or Not, I’m Walking on Air
It should probably go without saying that another unique feature of Aloft is the air traversal. Almost as soon as you get out into the world, you construct a glider to help you make your way around. However, this isn’t some weedy little Breath of the Wild glider that obeys the laws of physics, this is the PCP of gliders. This thing will shoot you in pretty much any direction you want at almost any speed you want, meaning you have pretty much total freedom of movement in the 3D space of the floating field of islands.
It gets even better. Not long into the tutorial, I unlocked the ability to attach giant rudders, sails and levitation devices to an actual floating island and claim it as my own. Full disclosure, I went into this preview without much idea of what would happen outside of flying around floating islands, so I was hyped. This basically turns you into a sky pirate but with a giant boulder instead of a ship, and honestly, for at least the first few minutes I was doing this, I was just enjoying flying around something heavier than my entire street.
What’s the Point?
So, outside of running around survival/crafting and flying either on or between giant rocks, what does Aloft have to offer? Well, currently the main gameplay loop appears to be constantly exploring new islands, attacking corruption wherever you find it, and helping the ecology of islands whenever you can. Beyond that, there’s not much of a story yet, though a lot of clues towards where things are going can be found lying around the place.
Whether or not this is a game for you to check out will depend on a couple of things. While the crafting system is a bit more unique than normal, this is still a survival crafter, so if you’ve been feeling burned out on the genre, this probably won’t change your mind. However, if you’ve been looking for a survival crafter with a specific twist, and the train/steampunk/underground versions didn’t float your boat, maybe over-the-top flying island crafting will.
The Last Word
When all is said and done, Aloft is a survival crafting game. While it does a few interesting things that could help it to stand out, there’s not much proof of how well it’s going to turn out yet, considering how much of the game is actually available to try out so far. Let’s be clear: The game looks and sounds great, and it has a decent level of polish and some interesting mechanics. If you’re still into the genre or just like the unique selling point it’s offering, there’s not much danger in trying it out. However, we’re not going to know if this game has found a way of reinventing the wheel or not until it hits the full release, so until then, there’s just not enough content to make this a full recommendation in its current state.