⚠️ This Devlog includes very important information about your saves, so please be sure to read through it carefully.
Ahoy, Sky Sailors!
We’re preparing to set sail with our next major Early Access content update, and what better way to reveal what’s on the horizon than with a fresh Devlog?
Our upcoming Fall 2025 update will be our biggest yet, packed with exciting new features along with major technical and gameplay improvements.
PROGRESSION
“When will I learn the loom?” “Where do I find the sawmill?” “Why am I unlocking a lamp?”
Those days are over!
Progression in Aloft has been one of the biggest points of frustration for players so we are overhauling the way you advance and unlock knowledge in the game through tech trees.
And fret not: Knowledge Stones & Lost Anchors (along with the lore they brought) will remain part of the progression loop. Interacting with them will grant you the opportunity to learn technology from their corresponding tech tree. If you prefer, you will be able to save that knowledge and unlock a technology at your own pace later on.
There will be a total of 3 types of tech trees, divided by type: a Knowledge tree for basic machinery, a Sailing tree for sailing equipment, and a Research tree for cure-related technologies.
All 3 trees will feature thresholds, requiring Insight to continue purchasing further technologies.
There are many reasons for and benefits to these changes:
The current system forces a specific order for unlocking technologies. However, a lot of technologies unlock optional systems, like cooking, farming, and animal husbandry. A tech tree, by nature, lets us create optional technological branches that aren't mandatory to unlock. We want to give you the agency to decide which systems you are most interested in and want to unlock first.
There was a lot of confusion about how to obtain certain resources and how to interact with game systems. Stumbling upon stones and learning things you didn't know existed doesn't contribute much to the gameplay loop. By letting you visualise the upcoming technologies, you can now see the answers to your questions coming up in the tech tree and make it a goal to unlock those items.
Sketching a technology will unlock it normally and will allow a player to start learning further technologies from that point on the tree, even if some technologies below remain locked. Additionally, this system encourages exploration to find building pieces & decor, while also allowing you to catch up to your friends who may have progressed further into their technological unlocks.
Fresco technologies will appear on the tree, but cannot be unlocked through knowledge points. Once learned through the corresponding frescoes, they allow further technologies connected to them to be purchased.
ECOSYSTEM RESTORATION
Ecosystem restoration has always been a core and enjoyable part of Aloft, but it needed refinement to feel more engaging and less like simply ticking items off a checklist. No more abandoning your beloved animals or getting lost in confusing critter tasks!
Moving forward, only Life Sapling islands will start out unhealthy, while all other islands will spawn in a healthy state. We’ve also streamlined ecosystem vitality needs to make restoration more immersive and approachable. Islands will only track the quantity of three core requirements: funga, flora, and fauna. Players will still be able to render any island unhealthy by manually removing those elements.
Funga health
Will track the quantity of mushrooms planted.
Players will still be able to inoculate the base of trees, but will also have access to an inoculation log, providing an additional way to fulfill fungal needs and to farm mushrooms.
Flora health
Will track the total number of small plants, non-plotted crops, and trees combined.
Players will be able to plant all types of flora directly into the ground using seed mounds. These will act as temporary farming plots, but will disappear after being watered. This will allow players to plant crops long before they unlock the larger farming plot.
Fauna health
Will track the quantity of small animals and insects both present and hidden on the island (not those in vivariums). Large animals will no longer be counted.
Habitats will be removed from the building menu thanks to better critter generation.
Habitats will only be present as an activity on Life Sapling islands where you’ll get to repair them and populate them with critters from your collection.
LIFE SAPLINGS & LIFE TREES
Life Sapling islands will be in very rough shape when you encounter them. They are complete wastelands, devoid of life, and overflowing with hindrances. To restore them, you will have to complete a series of mini-games and tasks to improve their vitality and get rid of the various hindrances.
As the last step to completely bring the wasteland back to life, players will have the opportunity to conduct the life wind itself – spreading greenery around the island, growing plants on its way, and finally, by restoring the Life Sapling!
Healing a Life Sapling will grant a Dream Fruit and open up all the Wind Lanes connecting that cluster of islands to nearby ones.
Wind Lanes will let you sail faster between island clusters, reaching speeds of around 120 knots for a more fun and engaging journey!
Life Trees are ancient and mystical trees that serve as key gameplay objectives, encouraging the player to restore ecological balance one sector at a time. Life Trees will also enable players to progress deeper into their Tech Trees.
Once a sector’s three LifeSaplings are healed, you’ll be able to channel their life winds by communing with the meditation circle and breathing life back into the Life Tree – cue the cutscene!
With the Life Tree restored, players will be able to descend into its underground chamber and discover the Insight Basin, where they can activate the Orb to obtain Insight. As mentioned earlier, Tech Trees will have thresholds that can only be crossed by earning Insight.
RESET & RESTRUCTURED SAVES
As we continue developing new and exciting features for Aloft during Early Access, it is equally important for us to strengthen the game’s technical foundation. We’ve heard your feedback regarding corrupted save files and while the in-game backup tool has recovered many of your saves, the underlying issue needed a permanent fix.
To address this, our programmers have completely overhauled the save data system in order to achieve long-term stability.
This means your current characters, worlds, personal & shared home islands will no longer be compatible starting with this upcoming update.
This update is an important milestone for Aloft, and we have a window of opportunity to make the game as best as it can be while it is still in Early Access.
To ensure you can still revisit your older saves, we’ll be creating a Steam Beta legacy branch for version 0.3.3.22 of Aloft. You’ll be able to switch to it at any time to continue where you left off. This branch will not receive updates or support, and as always, users must be on the same version of the game in order to play together in multiplayer.
The good news: custom islands already created with the Island Creator will still be compatible with the upcoming update.
If you haven’t already done so, we recommend uploading your custom islands to the Steam Workshop using the Island Creator tool. This will make it easy for you to re-download and spawn them into your new worlds after the update. To be clear: this recommendation does not include personal or shared islands. This is because the data structures for characters and worlds are undergoing major and incompatible changes, while the data structure of Island Creator templates (custom islands) is staying the same.
NEW WORLD GENERATION
The save overhaul also introduces a more stable world generation system. Starting with version 0.3.4, your worlds will be fully compatible with future updates. That means we will be able to seamlessly inject new content into your existing worlds, and you will no longer have to create a new world for each content update.
This new system will also allow our designers to generate worlds in a more curated manner and control the pace of discoveries. It also makes way for more efficient testing of islands for our level designers and QA team.
The new world layout will have fewer sectors overall and denser island positioning to provide a better sense of direction. Island exploration should feel a lot more engaging, meaningful, and less repetitive. Lost Atlas’ will no longer reveal islands within standard clusters. Instead, they will guide the player to hidden, castaway islands outside of standard clusters.
That’s it for now, sailors! Stay tuned for Part 2 of this Devlog, where we’ll dive deeper into combat, corruption, and research.
We also want to take a moment to thank you for all the feedback and bug reports you’ve shared since launch – it’s been invaluable in shaping the future of Aloft. Alongside the core systems covered here, we’re continuing to make improvements across the board to sound effects, visual effects, the user interface, and more.
As always, we’d love to hear your thoughts on these changes. To keep the conversation going, we’re going to host a live Q&A session on our community Discord, where you’ll be able to ask the Aloft developers anything from programming, to design, to art, and whatever else you’d like to know about our largest update yet. Details about the Q&A, including the date and time, will be posted separately soon.
And finally, a reminder: all features in this Devlog are still in development and subject to change as we continue building the game.
See you in the clouds! 🌥️
