Raft is a fun survival experience where you are tasked with building a raft to basically live your life on as you find new islands and any dredges of society. You have to deal with the practical matters of hunger, thirst, health, and finding resources to build throughout your journey.

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If we’re being honest, it’s pretty unheard of to dive into this game expecting pure realism. After all, you are dropped in the middle of the ocean in a small raft made of four-by-four planks held together solely by, who knows, audacity? Despite the epic setting (and all too real threat of rising sea levels,) there are a few things about Raft that really don’t make much sense.

10 Where Is All This Junk Coming From?

flotsam floating around the ocean

Flotsam is a lifesaver in this game, especially early on when you don’t have a lot of materials on hand. The seemingly endless wave of plastic, barrels, planks, and leaves is something to be grateful for, but it begs the question of how there’s always more where they came from. There are no structures to be found, aside from a few core locations, stray rafts, and islands here and there.

The “normal” world has largely been destroyed by the time your character becomes a Forward Scout and embarks on their journey, so you’d think all the stuff left behind would be largely unusable. A world engulfed in water would result in planks rotted, scrap rusted, and barrels sunken. Luckily for players, everything is in startlingly stellar condition.

9 Sharks And Their Relentless Hate For Your Raft

a shark bites the edge of a raft

Why do sharks hate your raft so much? They will circle your raft relentlessly and chomp on those edges whenever they feel like it. There’s really nothing that differentiates your planks of wood from the others in the vast waters, so it just feels like the sharks have a vendetta against you.

Related: Best Sharks In Games

Interestingly, your raft will only suffer attacks from one shark at a time. They may be persistent but at least they fall in line.

8 The Mystery Of Those Abandoned Trading Posts

an unmanned trading post on an island

It’s always great to find a trading post when you’re running low on supplies or simply want some fun knick-knacks to make your raft feel homier. Every trading post you go to is fully-stocked and ready to accept your offerings to provide currency.

That said, who is running these posts? It seems like everyone has fled or is preoccupied with the, ahem, main story, and yet you still have access to this bustling trade system. Best not to question good tidings, though.

7 Everything Will Work Despite Getting Wet

The entire first floor and engines of a multi-story raft gets wet because of high tides

Let’s face it. Salt and water are no friends of electronics, mechanical parts, and fire. Despite that, all of these things will still work in perfect condition despite constantly being beaten by the waves of the ocean.

Even if it’s high tide and you’re caught in a storm, those circuit boards and cooking flames are going to be just fine. This is a mystery we can leave unsolved since it could be extremely annoying if water damage became a mechanic in this game, anyway.

6 Rock-Throwing Birds

Player aims their bow and arrow at a Screecher that is flying with a rock in its talons

Screechers are some of the most annoying creatures you can encounter in the game. These angry birds will hound you if you linger on their territory and even follow you to your raft if you don’t leave. Even worse, they somehow have the ability to get huge rocks that they can and will drop on you from a height like you’re a pig with some stolen eggs in your hideout.

Related: The Best Birds In Video Game History

Small rocks seem reasonable, but screechers can comfortably carry huge rocks that significantly dink your HP and even have splash damage.

5 Yes, You Can Paddle In The Middle

Tala paddles in the middle of the Raft's wooden flooring

It should need no further explanation to say that paddling requires you to actually make contact with water. In Raft, however, you can simply paddle wherever you please as long as you’re on the first floor. Yes, you can paddle in the middle of the floor of your completely secure raft and still effectively move forward.

It shouldn’t work but it’s very convenient. If only the same trick worked with just tapping your spoon on your plate to eat.

4 Some Things Truly Serve No Purpose

A painted wooden toilet in a corner of a raft's interiors

Everybody loves decorative items. Who cares if it’s not functional? If it looks good, it’s worth it. If players didn’t believe in that, there would be no market for skins in some of the most popular games.

In a game like Raft, though, it’s weird to see things like a toilet serve no real purpose. You can interact with it, but it doesn’t give any buffs or other effects.

3 You Can Build To Infinity

A seemingly endless wooden ladder extends extremely high into the sky

If you’ve ever wanted to reach for the skies, you can definitely attempt that here. Sure, your raft will get weighed down and run slower. That still won’t stop you from building, though, because there are no limits imposed.

Should you be able to create an endless ladder to the sky? Who cares? There’s a shark stalking you!

2 You Can Eat And Drink Underwater

player holds onto cooked shark meat to eat while exploring sunked buildings underwater, a school of fish swim in the backroom

Underage drinking is bad, but underwater eating should simply be impossible. Sure, you can take a dip and try to get a few quick bites while holding your breath. What you can’t do is bring a bowl of soup and expect it to stay in the bowl when you’re twenty feet down the ocean with no diving gear and still comfortably take spoonfuls.

Related: The Best Underwater Games, Ranked

Inexplicably, you can do exactly that and more in Raft. With all the rules of survival this game imposes, it’s a pretty funny thing that you can bring all manner of meals and smoothies to nourish yourself while you explore the depths. At least this means you don’t have to miss out on some cool underwater secrets just because you didn’t eat before diving.

1 Separated Sections Will Stay With The Raft

A player stands on a separated section of a Raft

To build more flooring, you need to connect it to existing floors. Reasonable enough, so far. If you break down an area of the floor and so happen to create a separate floating section, though, it won’t drift away.

Items you accidentally drop will literally get ripped away by the waters, and yet those stray plank floors will magically stay right on track with the rest of your raft no matter which way the wind blows. We’ll chalk it up to nature healing.

Next: Best Survival Games For Beginners