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Worlds Adrift isn’t your typical MMO. London-based studio Bossa—famed for games like Surgeon Simulator and I Am Bread—is ditching common systems around character growth, exploration, and combat, and replacing them with fresh takes on player progress, interaction, and accomplishment in the online world. Most interesting of all, it hopes to create the MMO holy grail: a truly persistent world where every player on every server can change the world in ways every other player will see, right down to the placement of rocks. For a team with no prior experience in the genre, this is ambitious. After all, there’s a reason so many games have stuck to the conventions that have been around since World of Warcraft.

This is what makes MMOs such a conservative genre: because the business model relies on attracting large numbers of players and retaining them over a long period, it’s much easier if you can show potential players something recognisable—and because WoW was the first MMO experience for so many gamers, many MMOs have ended up looking very similar. Worlds Adrift does at least share some similarities with Bossa’s previous work, though. Players interact with complex systems of physics, just like Surgeon Simulator and I Am Bread. A grappling hook and tether allows players to swing across gaps, abseil cliff faces, and clamber over walls. Performing Spider-Man-like sequences of seamless swings is difficult given that the system is entirely unassisted, but the lack of automation gives you more freedom.

Worlds Adrift takes place on islands floating in the sky, each procedurally generated with their own unique geometry, colours, and evidence of civilisations past in the form of dilapidated structures. There will be some player-designed islands too, courtesy of the free Island Creator tool currently available on Steam, while Bossa has promised to put its favourites into the final game. Players are simply tasked with exploring this fractured environment. Think of it as No Man’s Sky, only with exploration on a more local, relatable scale. Travelling between these islands requires building airships, whose motion and strength is determined by your design. Place the engines unevenly, for instance, and power efficiency will suffer. Want to use light armour plating in order to maintain a high speed? Don’t expect to last long in battle.