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).

Worlds Adrift will launch publicly on Steam Early Access for the first time on 17th May, 2018. Worlds Adrift will be available worldwide for PC on the Steam Store for £19.49 / $24.99 / €22.99.

As part of a presentation at London Games Festival today, where the singer, Freja Frances, performed live with Worlds Adrift’s OST composer Murugan Thiruchelvam, backed by a string quartet, Bossa Studios have exclusively unveiled a new trailer revealing the Early Access launch date.

“When we went into Closed Beta in May last year, we couldn’t have envisioned the sheer amount of quality feedback we would receive from our inspiring community,” commented Henrique Olifiers, CEO and co-founder of Bossa Studios. “At times, this completely shifted our production’s scope, and as a result, helped us truly hone Worlds Adrift’s vision, and has got it to this unique place. We now feel ready to take the game to a much wider audience, and work even more closely with the players to ensure we continue to learn and improve it. This is another reason why we label Worlds Adrift as the first Community-Crafted MMO.”

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.