Copyright Wccftech
Aloft is a cozy-looking cooperative sandbox survival game from developer Astrolabe Interactive and publisher Funcom that’s been out in early access since January 15, 2025. While its v1.0 release isn’t on deck (at least based on what Astrolabe told me), the studio is getting ready to deliver a significant update with its Bloom & Blight expansion. Ahead of Bloom & Blight’s release today, I got the chance to check out a short presentation from Astrolabe going over everything that’s new in this update and to see just how much of the game is being overhauled and revamped. Seemingly, it’s a lot. To start, the highlights: a new world generation system, an entirely revamped progression system, a reworked restoration system, new tool and weapon tiers, two new corruption strains, and the addition of wind tunnels to help you travel faster across the sky. It's all together the biggest update that developer Astrolabe Interactive has pushed out to Aloft, with the top three highlights listed in the graphic above being the three biggest game-changers for players. The new, revamped progression system adds research points to player progression and lets players spend earned research points however they like for their playstyle. The knowledge tree also now works with the points system, which overall gives you more freedom in the kind of survival experience you're building for yourself in Aloft. The reworked restoration of corrupted islands and Life Trees makes removing corruption more rewarding than before, particularly because when you've restored an island and removed all signs of corruption you now get access to the inner basin of Life Trees. They're essentially mini underground areas for you to explore and gather more resources from, and add plenty of depth to the visual experience of Aloft as these great-looking underground areas to explore. The reworked restoration system also comes with improvements to the combat and additions to the kinds of corruption you can face, and the ability to better study the corruption so you can be better prepared to fight against it. Studying and collecting samples from corruption anomalies, lost anchors, and knowledge stones all play into the new progression system and advance their various tech trees, which then lets you craft more complex contraptions to improve your islands and thrive instead of just survive in Aloft. Collecting them and more research and knowledge points also leads to better tools, which now have new tiers in the Bloom and Blight update. Windstone and Serrated Bone tools do more damage and have larger areas of effect, with Serrated Bone tools now being the top tier for all tools, doing more damage than Windstone variants, while Windstone variants fall in between Serrated and regular stone tools. The two new kinds of corrupted enemies (shown in the third photo above) are Sportox and Floglade, which add new challenges for players, including spores that disable your glider for a short period of time, grounding you and forcing you to engage more directly with the combat. And speaking of gliders, the last major highlight in this update is the inclusion of wind tunnels, which help you travel faster across the sky as you turn any island you want into a ship. You can try using your glider in wind tunnels, but your glider isn't built for it and you'll get much farther, much faster, by using them when piloting your island ships. Overall, Aloft has changed a lot since it released in early access at the start of this year, and its Bloom and Blight update is the biggest one yet. Its changes feel foundational, like the early access period has taken a turn and more than a few strides towards its eventual v1.0 release. Even though that release isn't on the immediate horizon, the roadmap shared by Astrolabe Interactive shows how Aloft will continue going through big changes, so big that, beginning with this update, it's a whole new version of the game. You can still access the version of the game that Aloft was before this update, but the fact that it is now dubbed the 'Legacy' version is just another sign of how much has changed. While it won't be this year, hopefully, we'll have a better idea as to when v1.0 is on its way by this time next year, if it hasn't already arrived.
