To make the game playable by people of all skill levels and interests, RAFT has released 5 modes: creative, peaceful, easy, normal, and hard. This way, whether you like to focus on building, fighting RAFT enemies or surviving more, you’ll always find a happy medium. In particular, one mode that takes a little more effort to play is RAFT hard mode.
Differences Between Modes
For all modes, the thirst and hunger levels deteriorate faster with the incline of difficulty. Referring to the RAFT crockpot recipes list will make managing the sustainability levels much easier. Enemies will also do much more damage in a higher difficulty like RAFT hard mode vs. easy.
Creative
- No islands
- No materials floating in the ocean
- Unlimited building materials
- No animals
- No story
- No thirst or hunger deterioration
Peaceful
- Islands and materials floating in ocean available
- Enemies are passive
- Story
Easy
- Islands and materials floating in ocean available
- Respawns from death let you keep everything in your inventory
- Enemies are hostile
- Story
Normal
- Islands and materials floating in ocean available
- Loss o items when respawning
- Enemies are hostile
- Story
Hard
- Islands and materials floating in ocean available
- No respawning unless another player places you on a bed
- Enemies are hostile
- Story
- Killing Bruce will have a chance to spawn 2 sharks
RAFT Hard Mode Survival Guide
This is how I personally like to organize and start my RAFT hard mode files. Depending on your play style, how you prefer to start your raft is up to you.
Number of players: 2-3
RAFT is a great online co-op game perfect for long distance relationships and can support an infinite amount of players. However, how well the game runs will depend heavily on the hosts’s internet and PC capabilities.
To not be overwhelmed by the water and hunger sustain when starting off, a healthy number of players is 2-3. It’s enough to collect materials within a reasonable time and setup the essentials comfortably.
Player Roles– Chef, Life support, Constructor
Everyone will collect items in their free time between crafting or cooking. In the beginning, use the plastic hook to reel in what you need, then switch to saving the durability for barrels that float by.
Chef– focus on catching fish and grilling it to feed the group. This person should also be picking up items floating in the ocean as they get close to the raft. Create the necessary fishing rods, then pass on any materials you don’t need to the other members. Once you feel like there is a sufficient amount of food, use the raw herring and raw pomfrets to make shark bait to avoid having to fight Bruce while prepping the RAFT and diving down.
Life Support– needs to work on creating the essential items, starting with 2 simple purifiers, 1 cup for each person, 2 grills, research table, and throwable anchor. Create 2-3 smelters whenever possible and begin smelting.
Constructor– focus on expanding the raft and reinforcing the foundations with things built or placed on top. Try to build up and keep the foundation relatively small to conserve materials.
Quality of Life
Once some foundations are reinforced and the food and water are sufficient, your team can work on creating more quality of life items like improved purifiers, grills, water bottles, flippers, etc. At that point, you’ve conquered the basic essentials in RAFT hard mode.