UPDATED FAQ [03/17/2025]

[Bunny]

GENERAL QUESTIONS

How can I download the demo?
The demo is extremely outdated and not compatible with the released game, it has therefore been taken down for maintenance. It'll be available again when we get the chance to update it.

What platforms is Aloft available on?
Aloft is available on Steam, for PC. Controllers are supported and we hope to port to consoles eventually, probably after 1.0 (full) release.

What languages is Aloft be available in?
Aloft is available in English, French, German, Japanese, Italian, Korean, Polish, Portuguese (Brazil), Russian, Simplified Chinese, Spanish (Spain), and Ukrainian. Some localisation strings are missing but we will patch them when we can!

Where can I follow development progress?
You can follow progress in our Discord server and the Devlogs on Steam.

Does Aloft have a wiki?
Yes! We have an Official Aloft Wiki.[aloft.wiki.gg] The Wiki is community-run, so feel free to contribute by creating new articles or expanding on existing ones. You may discuss the Wiki in our Discord server as well.

Where can I follow Aloft on Social Media?
All social media links can be found on our LinkTree.[linktr.ee]

Does Aloft have a Press Kit?
Yes, in our Press Kit[drive.google.com] you can find downloadable assets such as logos, trailers, key art, and more.

How can I contact the team for business opportunities?
Please reach out to [e-mail] for business opportunities and any other professional inquiries.

EARLY ACCESS QUESTIONS

How does the EA compare to the demo? What has been added?

• Added more islands (from 30 to 500);
• Players can now explore 20 sectors (previously 1);
  
• There is now 3 biomes to explore (previously 1);
  
• Added more animal types (from 1 to 4) and critters;
  
• Added enemy types (from 2 to 3);
  
• A final boss experience has been added;
  
• Building pieces have been added (from 50-ish to 600+);
  
• We added ruins to discover;
  
• A lot more technologies, crafting recipes, and items;
  
• More crops, more plants, more food, more everything.

Will my progress from the demo be transferred to Early Access?
Unfortunately, no. The demo is really outdated and is not compatible with the current version of the game.

HOME ISLAND QUESTIONS

How do I make an island my Home?
To make an island your Home, you need to build a Home Kite on an island that does not currently have one, and interact with it. From there, you’ll have the option to create a Personal Home or a Shared Home. Selecting the type of Home you wish to create and naming it will make it your Home.

How do I spawn/despawn my Personal Home?
In your player menu [TAB], the far right tab is the Personal Home menu. From there, you can spawn and put away your Personal Home.

How do I “unclaim” a Home Island?
Personal Homes: Once an island has been claimed as a Personal Home, it cannot be “unclaimed”. That being said, players can claim more than one Personal Home, but are limited to only having one spawned at the time.

Shared Homes: Shares Homes can be unclaimed in the Share Home tab of the player menu. In multiplayer, only the admin has this permission.

Can I merge/link/connect two islands together?
Not yet. It is something that we would like to explore in the future!

I have to stop playing but I didn’t claim a Home Island or find a bed. How do I make sure I respawn on the island I am currently on?
When loading a game, you will spawn on the last island you saved on. If you save and quit to the main menu, you will respawn on that island when you load back into the game.

I loaded my world and my Home Island is gone.
Personal Homes: When you quit your game, your Personal Home despawns. You can spawn it back from the Personal Home tab (top right) of your player menu [TAB].

MULTIPLAYER QUESTIONS

I hosted a multiplayer game and a friend claimed an island as their home. When I came back later, that island was gone.
When someone claims an island as their own, it despawns with them as they quit a game and can only be spawned by them.

TECHNICAL QUESTIONS

I got stuck. Is there any way to get unstuck?
You can press F1 and enter the command “unstuck”.

Is there a way to change to peaceful after starting a game?
Once a world has been generated, there is no way to change it to Peaceful. That being said, a character can be brought into a new peaceful world, bringing with them everything they have on them AND their Personal Home!

Has the game been tested for Steam Deck?
Valve’s testing indicates that Aloft is Playable on Steam Deck:

• All functionalities are accessible when using the default controller configuration
  
• The game shows Steam Deck controller icons

But it is not fully compatible yet because:

• Some in-game texts might be too small or may be difficult to read
  
• Some graphics settings might need to be adjusted in order for the game to run smoothly
  
• Cloud saves aren't currently working on Steam Deck.

Please note that we are not actively supporting the Steam Deck experience. If you encounter any bugs or issues on that platform, you’re welcome to report them, but be aware that we won’t be able to address them in the near future.

Can I change the character name later?
No, you cannot change your character name.

Will there be a Mac Version?
Maybe in the future, but not right now.

GAMEPLAY QUESTIONS

There are four ways to unlock new things in Aloft.

• The Frescoes (big marble slate with engravings) hold key progression elements. They are marked by a question mark (?) on your table map.
  
• The Anchors (big wooden anchors) hold knowledge that is related to sailing.
  
• The Knowledge Stones (glowing rocks with a ribbon attached to them) hold everything else (machinery, building pieces, decor) that is unlockable in Aloft.
  
• Using the Sketchbook you can sketch most items that you did not previously learn. If you’re looking for something specific, try finding it and sketching it!

I am stuck and cannot progress
Some players feel stuck because they are met with an “unsailable” storm on the western side of the starting sector and a jetstream on the northern one. In order to find the required sailing equipment to pass the jet stream, players have to first sail East (counterclockwise). Also, key progression elements are found on Frescoes Islands, which are marked on the Table-Map. In order to progress, players should explore these islands thoroughly.

What are reishi?
Reishi is a type of red mushroom that can spawn at the base of trees.

What are the six symbols located on the top right corner of the Table-Map interface?
These icons are used to filter the various beacons you built in the world. Beacons are unlocked through Anchors. They come in 5 symbols, and you build them yourself on the islands you explore to keep track of them in case you want to revisit them later.

The 6th symbol is for the Lost Beacon. Lost Beacons are found throughout the world of Aloft and mark the presence of pretty good loot! They can be tracked by spending Lost Atlases on the Table-Map.

ANIMAL QUESTIONS

I found an animal. How do I bring it to my island?
To send animals to other islands, you need to build an Animal Pad on the island you want to send them to. When you find an animal you want to send to your island, you first have to feed it to tame it. After the animal is tamed, you can pick it up and hold [E] to send it home. This will open the landing pads interface where you can select which Animal Pad you wish to send the animal too. Keep in mind that Animal Pads have a limited reach. If your pad does not appear in the landing pads interface, the island it is on is too far away.

Can I breed my animals?
Animal breeding is not in the game yet, but we are working on adding it as a feature!

SERVER QUESTIONS

How do I set up a server?
For information concerning setting a server up, you can consult this page[aloft.wiki.gg] from our Wiki.

Does the game have an official server?
No, Aloft does not have an official server.

How can I put a password on my Gportal server?
You can't put passwords on servers, but they can be hidden.

I’m having problems setting up my server with a server provider.
Any issue related to server providers should be reported to their customer support.

KNOWN ISSUES (and workarounds)

Characters, animals, and other objects can sometimes clip and get stuck inside terrain

• Open console using F1, enter “noclip on 3”, enter terrain area/perform needed action, F1: “noclip off” after exiting terrain
  
• If animals get stuck inside terrain, you can teleport them to you by building an Animal Bell and ringing the “Emergency Call”

Sick trees can appear outside of an island
The level designers will patch these issues, but for now you can build a bridge to reach the tree and cut it.

Motion sickness issues
We added a motion sickness graphical preset to help alleviate its symptoms. The preset:

• Puts the game in 3rd person
  
• Increases the Field of View
  
• Turns off Camera Shake
  
• Turns off Depth of Field
  
• Moves the camera further away from the player

All these options can be adjusted individually to allow players to tailor them to their needs

KNOWN CRITICAL ISSUES (No workarounds, to be resolved in a future patch)

• Reishi and animals disappearing from player’s Personal Homes
  
• Crashes / file corruption
  
• The title has a memory leak that persists through sessions
  
• Some actions are not triggering the achievement
  
• Sometimes Personal Homes are not properly loading when spawning or reverting to previous state
  
• Sometimes corruption nodes do not descend after killing weak points
  
• Inconsistency between host and client field guides & symbiosis percentages
  
• Steam Cloud is not syncing properly between multiple devices

Steam Cloud Syncing Tips
Launching the game before the Steam Cloud has finished its syncing process can interrupt the transfer of character saves across devices. To help prevent progress loss when switching devices, we recommend you to:

• Wait for Steam Cloud to finish syncing after closing the game before launching another instance.
  
• Avoid force closing the game on another machine, as this can interrupt the cloud sync process.
  
• Manually back up your save files by locating Aloft’s save folder in the app data and copying it to a safe location. This way, you can restore your progress if needed.
  
• Restart Steam before launching the game on a different device to force a fresh cloud sync. (This only applies if you stay logged in on multiple devices.)
  
• Note: Not all of these steps are necessary every time. The most effective solution is to restart Steam before launching the game on a different device to ensure a fresh cloud sync.

BACKING UP SAVES (WORLDS, CHARACTERS, PERSONAL HOMES)

We are aware of a bug that may cause Characters, Personal Homes, and World files to become corrupted. While we work on a fix, we’ve added an in-game backup restoration feature to help mitigate the issue.

Alternatively, you can also back up your files manually, here are the steps to do so:

Step 1: Copy and paste the following path into your windows explorer :

%appdata%\..\LocalLow\Astrolabe interactive\Aloft\data01

This will lead you to the folder where we save the game’s information.

Step 2: Open the “Characters” (Or the “Saves” for the worlds) folder. This is where the data from your characters is stored. There is a folder for each of your characters.

Step 3: Open the folder of the character you wish to do a back up for. This file will be named as follow : c_YourCharacterName.

Step 4: Each of the files in your “c_YourCharacterName” folder represents a moment when the game has been saved. Each of them hold the data of both your Character and Personal Home at that time. These files are named as follow : 00_00 00_00_backup$

Open the file you want to back up to.

Step 5: COPY the files from this folder.

Step 6: PASTE them in the previous folder (c_YourCharacterName). It will ask you if you want to replace the files in the destination folder. Replace the files. This will overwrite your current character and Home Island and replace them with the ones from the backup file.

Step 7: Launch Aloft, select and load your character!

[Bunny]

Originally posted by Max_Mschief:

Hiii
How do I release ladybugs and beetles onto an island?

For now, ladybugs and beetles can't be placed, only collected. In the future, you'll be able to place them to help restore island ecosystems.

[Bunny]

Originally posted by splatterpop:

demo is lovely, but the super aggressive depth of field effect is enough to give me eye strain headaches. hope that'll be something we can disable in the full version. also hoping for first-person gliding (and the ability to turn off auto-camera while gliding as others have said). other than that though it's great and as long as the DoF is fixed i'll definitely be picking this up

You can adjust the depth of field effect in the settings menu.

[Bunny]

Originally posted by Marodir:

Originally posted by Kalnaur:

And separate post for a separate question: is the game set, or are the islands generated randomly? Basically I'm trying to deduce if it's worth rolling the dice and making another world to play more since I've cleared all the islands once, but if they're the same exact islands I'm probably just going to let it go at that until the full game comes out (which can't be soon enough, I have 30+ NextFest demos installed and this is all I played all day).

Having made several different 'worlds', the islands are pretty much all the same, regardless of restarting a new world. It's mostly useful for learning more item construction, and rare materials, since they transfer with your character between different worlds.

In the first map sector, the islands are all the same in terms of design and position. Outside the first sector (at EA), islands will be hand-designed but mostly randomly placed in the world.

[Kalnaur]

Originally posted by Bunny:

Originally posted by Marodir:

Having made several different 'worlds', the islands are pretty much all the same, regardless of restarting a new world. It's mostly useful for learning more item construction, and rare materials, since they transfer with your character between different worlds.

In the first map sector, the islands are all the same in terms of design and position. Outside the first sector (at EA), islands will be hand-designed but mostly randomly placed in the world.

That makes sense, having the first area be the same for everyone helps ease everyone into the game. I do have a separate question after further play: there are ruined crates and wreckage on some islands that can't be removed, which makes those islands less appealing to take as flying islands. Will there be some way to take those items off of islands to clear space? There's even a few items that can't otherwise be destroyed that sit on pre-built buildings that stay floating in mid air, which can make it really difficult to build around them.

Basically, I'm hoping that things like the broken crates, shells, etc will be removable in the release.

[Traltwin]

Originally posted by Kalnaur:

Originally posted by Bunny:

In the first map sector, the islands are all the same in terms of design and position. Outside the first sector (at EA), islands will be hand-designed but mostly randomly placed in the world.

That makes sense, having the first area be the same for everyone helps ease everyone into the game. I do have a separate question after further play: there are ruined crates and wreckage on some islands that can't be removed, which makes those islands less appealing to take as flying islands. Will there be some way to take those items off of islands to clear space? There's even a few items that can't otherwise be destroyed that sit on pre-built buildings that stay floating in mid air, which can make it really difficult to build around them.

Basically, I'm hoping that things like the broken crates, shells, etc will be removable in the release.

I'd imagine with the Island Editor you could, yes.

[Nydilius]

Originally posted by Bunny:

Originally posted by Marodir:

Having made several different 'worlds', the islands are pretty much all the same, regardless of restarting a new world. It's mostly useful for learning more item construction, and rare materials, since they transfer with your character between different worlds.

In the first map sector, the islands are all the same in terms of design and position. Outside the first sector (at EA), islands will be hand-designed but mostly randomly placed in the world.

Once people start making and posting custom islands in the workshop, when we subscribe to them do they get added to the pool of islands that the game randomly places? or do custom islands have to be manually spawned in the game?

[jonjon_polisson]

Will we be able to host our own dedicated servers, via steamcmd?

[Bunny]

Originally posted by Nydilius:

Originally posted by Bunny:

In the first map sector, the islands are all the same in terms of design and position. Outside the first sector (at EA), islands will be hand-designed but mostly randomly placed in the world.

Once people start making and posting custom islands in the workshop, when we subscribe to them do they get added to the pool of islands that the game randomly places? or do custom islands have to be manually spawned in the game?

I think both options are planned but it's not fully fleshed out yet, so TBD! :)

[BlackHope]

Hear me out! "Will there be PVP?
Nope, Aloft will always be a PVE game."
There is no 100+ hours players be in the game if no PVP.
At first its looks like Worlds Adrift, but without PVP - fanbase from that closed game will not come to that project.

[Niranth]

Is there a sync options to sync worls between computers?

[Сонная акула]

How to reach another sector of map? Or is it not avaliable in the demo?

[Mandrake]

Originally posted by Сонная акула:

How to reach another sector of map? Or is it not avaliable in the demo?

The demo only has the one section with something like 22 islands I think it is. It's just a test demo before the Early Access comes out this fall.

[Сонная акула]

Originally posted by Mandrake:

Originally posted by Сонная акула:

How to reach another sector of map? Or is it not avaliable in the demo?

The demo only has the one section with something like 22 islands I think it is. It's just a test demo before the Early Access comes out this fall.

Okay, thank you!

[Marodir]

Originally posted by BlackHope:

Hear me out! "Will there be PVP?
Nope, Aloft will always be a PVE game."
There is no 100+ hours players be in the game if no PVP.
At first its looks like Worlds Adrift, but without PVP - fanbase from that closed game will not come to that project.

You mean like there are no players with 100+ hours in WoW or any other PvE game...? This isn't meant to be a Worlds Adrift replacement, but an independent thing.

[falfagur]

How do I give an item to another player? It should be simple and intuitive, but I couldn't find it out.