Drift

The ice melted for sixty years. Then the water stopped rising, and what was left was sea.

You wake on a few lashed-together planks with a hook, a paddle and a hammer. Everything else you'll have to pull out of the water yourself.

Fish, salvage, build. Hook driftwood as it floats past, haul in crates, dive wrecks and drowned towers. Build your raft out sideways and upwards: storeys, stairs, sails, a furnace, a cooking pot, beds and lanterns. Take an island for your own and turn it into a settlement, with survivors you rescue living on it and working it.

The sea is not empty. Sharks bite at your deck. Pirates come over the side with spears and firebombs, and a ghost ship sails on the worst nights. Whirlpools drag you down into caves where the Crab King is waiting. A kraken lives out in the deep, and a satellite might come down out of the sky in front of you.

There's a signal. A voice on the radio says there's still land above the tide, and buoys across the sea that lead to it. Follow them far enough, take the key off a boss that swallowed it, and you'll find the Ark: a mountain 230 m above the water, with a harbour town on its shore, a forge at the top of the world, and a lighthouse you can light so everyone else can find it too.

Then go further. Forge armour and blades out of what the monsters leave behind. Build machines that salvage for you while you sleep. And when your raft is big enough, strap balloons to it, light the burners, and take the whole thing into the sky.

Play with other people. Everyone gets their own raft. Voice chat carries as far as your voice would, and echoes in the caves. New arrivals are marked, so the rest of the server can spot them and hand over a few planks — which is how the game is meant to be played. If you die out here you lose what you were carrying, but never your island or your home.