You and your ragtag band wander from island to island on your cobbled-together airship, scouring for lost technology and scavenging for resources. You are constantly trying to improve your ship, keep it fueled, and keep it repaired. Sky predators, storms, and other travelling bands—all of which could be a threat to your ship—will dominate your thoughts. But in the back of your mind, you still ask yourself questions: How did your world become this way? What calamity, a thousand years ago, could have shattered the world into a thousand pieces? Deep down you know that the world was not always this way, and your questions are what drive you onward and upward, towards the endless skyline.

First, Worlds Adrift is set in a persistent, shared multiplayer environment. That means anyone who plays the game will be in the same enormous world. (Due to the increased importance of low latency in a game with physics, however, the current plan is to have separate servers for different geographic regions—we can’t overcome the speed of light, I’m afraid).

This update (Phase 1 of 3) introduces the first wave of gameplay features expanding on the customization options available to players in creating their own floating islands such as non-grappable surfaces, turrets, deadly spikes and barbed wire plus much more.

Players have created hundreds of islands that have appeared in-game since the Island Creator tool first launched in April 2016, but this release marks the first opportunity they have to add specific gameplay elements to their creations. Today’s Phase 1 update will enable the Worlds Adrift community to act as game designers, as they can now add non-climbable materials as well as spikes and barbed wire to their island designs, creating new platform puzzles adventures, dangers, challenges, and surprises for players worldwide to discover and explore. For those wishing to add a more explosive element, a trio of turrets are now also available: Light Turrets will ping away at players, Explosive Turrets will also target ships, and the Tether Turret offers a ‘reel in and shock’ option for the most inventive of island creators.

“With Worlds Adrift we are creating a new game where we give the opportunity to the players and our community to craft the world, in its entirety, the way they want it,” said Bossa Studios CEO and Co-Founder Henrique Olifiers. “We’re proud of two very different things that have helped us to break with the norm: the first one is that the content for Worlds Adrift will be created before its launch; the second, not so obvious, is that Steam Workshop content will be integral to the game, rather than an optional additional. The game world will be made by the players, voted upon by the players, and its quality will be as good as we could make it with an internal team.”

This Island Creator update is Phase 1 of a trio of updates for the closed beta of Worlds Adrift to be rolled out this year, with a new lost civilisation waiting to be discovered, and even more ways for players to test the skill and ingenuity of their peers with tricks being added to the world building tool in Phases 2 and 3.

Secondly, the world will live and breathe. Worlds Adrift will not be an MMORPG as we know them. There are no quest hubs and no NPCs standing around forever, waiting to give you tasks. There are no low-level zones and high-level zones, because there will be no levels. There are no static, choreographed environments and events that replay for every new player.

Instead, there will be creatures that eat and live and die, and trees that grow, and ruins that hold secrets, and wreckage that rusts and rots, all inside a world that doesn’t revolve around you, but that can be permanently affected by your actions. You are a part of the world, and it’s up to you to decide which part that is, and how it relates to all the other parts.

Lastly, the world will behave according to believable physics. Ships are constructed of pieces — each of which can be snapped off if there’s a strong enough impact. Much of the world will also behave like this: creatures, wreckage, loose objects on the ground. And of course there will be plenty of rope physics involved in player movement.

To become a founder, those interested in the Worlds Adrift closed beta can purchase a Founder’s Pack. In addition to a game key and immediate closed beta access, each Founder’s Pack contains several exclusive in-game items, a digital copy of the game's original soundtrack, access to the future test server and in-game currency. Backers can choose between the Wanderer tier for £26.99 / €31.99 / $34.99, Explorer tier for £39.99 / 50.99 / $54.99, and Captain tier for £49.99 / €59.99 / $64.99, each with varying levels of exclusive content. In addition to a game key and immediate closed beta access, each Founder’s Pack contains several exclusive in-game items, a digital copy of the game's original soundtrack, access to the future test server and in-game currency.