The survival crafting genre is crowded with exceptional titles from Sons of the Forest to Satisfactory, but a new contender from Astrolabe Interactive, Aloft, hopes to rise above the pack when it enters Early Access in 2024.
Taking to the skies around a hurricane, Aloft tasks players with restoring an ailing environment plagued with corruption while unraveling a mysterious world of floating islands. Crafting survival games are also hotbeds of player creativity, with base building mechanics being an integral feature in games of the genre. The base in Aloft takes the form of a flying island that players can build sails on and take to the skies with. But according to Astrolabe CEO Manuel Bergeron, that’s just the beginning of what Aloft has to offer. Bergeron spoke to The Best War Games for an interview after launching the game’s first multiplayer test, and he’s confident that when Early Access arrives, it’ll soar above the crowded genre.
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Bergeron explained that in Aloft's genre staple co-op multiplayer, currently being tested, up to eight friends can join together with existing characters, taking their entire island home with them into the shared space. Together they can show off island designs, chase down ways to fly through the hurricane, or take on massive world bosses called Titans.
If eight players join and do the same game on the same server, we can all bring our little island. We now become a village…You will find these creatures that are all corrupted and are a representation of, in some sense, the status of the surrounding environment. It will be a huge challenge to not kill the Titan, but instead work together with friends to actually heal the Titan and remove the corruption on its back.
Titans will be part of the later stages of the game and will be larger than multiple islands put together. They also will not be fought, but cleansed of corruption in a manner reminiscent of games like Haven. This doubles down on the environmental spirit at the core of Aloft’s message and design, but also separates it from the kill-or-be-killed approach taken by many other survival crafting games.
Another feature Bergeron touted is intrinsically tied to the game’s interest in environmental concerns and flight. Weather effects in Aloft are striking, with volumetric clouds, dynamic sound design, and storms that will challenge and impress players. A mechanic the game has is the ability to just lay down and take in the environment, even dangling legs off the edge of one of the flying islands if laying in the right position. This atmosphere and ambiance, he explained, were important during the game’s development given its setting.
You can rest by laying down on the ground. If you're at the edge of an island, you would have like your little feet dangling in the air. It's just a moment where the storms are more present, and you can appreciate the scenery and have a moment of contemplation in the game. I think that the weather effects and the sound effects that we have, and that sound is muffled when you are inside, all contribute to embracing the environment and just appreciating it. Obviously, we're around the hurricane, so it was important that we have some strong weather also at times.
That feeling of quiet contemplation, he argued, helps players feel a connection with the environment Aloft is asking players to restore and protect. Rather than it being a task that players do for immediate benefit–though those immediate benefits do exist–the hope is that a strong environmental design and a focus on taking things at the player’s own pace will help build a deeper bond with the world. Dynamic sound and volumetric fog are more than pretty; in this way, they’re tools to serve the game’s core themes.
To hear Bergeron tell it, it’s working. The Astrolabe team recently celebrated surpassing 100,000 Wishlists on Steam, and their Discord has more than 3,000 members. The demo, which he called “early Early Access” has had 70,000 downloads and, for a relatively short experience, bears an average playtime of three hours. The developers also regularly interact with players, exchanging feedback and fixes.
For any survival crafting game, though, some of the most compelling arguments for success are found in the kinds of creative designs players can make within the confines of a base building system. From sprawling factories to luxurious longhouses, the ability to build in a game unlocks a kind of creativity in players. Aloft’s demo, Bergeron said, does not disappoint in this regard, and that builds anticipation for its eventual Early Access and full release.
We've seen people recreating things that look like the Castle in the Sky from Studio Ghibli. A lot of people are creating ships–massive ships out of wood that hide the little island as they create a massive ship. I think people are so creative.
Continuing to support that creativity is an important point for Astrolabe. Not only in the things that can be built, but in the characters that can be designed as well. Users have praised Aloft’s character creator for allowing players to mix and match body types, hair, facial hair, and other aspects without any constraints imposed by gender selection, and continuing to add features to aid character customization is an important goal for the game’s future.
Aloft has a demo currently available, and enters Early Access on Steam in 2024.