Somewhere between the endless, empty oblivion below, and the untouched expanse sky in front, I was engulfed by the potential of Worlds Adrift . London-based developer Bossa Studios, best known for the humorous I Am Bread, where maneuvering a piece of bread is a daunting task, has built upon this excellent physics-based framework. But Worlds Adrift, ditches the family kitchen for a fractured world of floating islands, populated by nomadic sky pirates -- players whose only aim is to build a ship, recruit a crew, and own the skies.

Worlds Adrift Screenshot Gallery 40 IMAGES

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Worlds Adrift Concept Art 16 IMAGES

Worlds Adrift is one of the most ambitious physics games I’ve ever seen.When I sat down with the developers of Worlds Adrift, they told me stories of floating battleships raining cannon fire upon one another. Players who take flight, board enemy ships, and sabotage them by disabling the hovering devices that keep them aloft, then fly away as the lumbering giants crash into the dots of land that take up such little space in the endless sky.Worlds Adrift is a massively multiplayer sandbox, of sorts. You’ll swing from point to point via a wrist-mounted grappling hook, like Spiderman. You’ll glide through the air with homemade wings. And it’s completely physics-based. If part of your ship begins to roll down hill, it picks up speed, and force, and becomes a difficult task to slow down. Mass, and velocity, and momentum rule the world of Worlds Adrift. And it’s awesome.Of course, the world itself flies in the face of that. Players begin their journey on a never-ending supply of floating islands, suspended in the air as if by some supernatural force. From there, they’ll harvest the resources that grow and strike out to other islands, harvesting more until they can eventually craft a ship. Your ship is your base of operations, and your home, and your only real anchor in the world.Ship crafting is a detailed and personal trade in Worlds Adrift. Each piece of your ship is carefully placed. For example, you can mount the levitation drive on the deck of your ship, but if it’s destroyed, your ship’s going down. Instead, you can bury it deep inside, and reinforce the hull with metal plating.There’s no goal other than gathering a crew and exploring the world, discovering ancient relics and historical structures from the time before the cataclysm. And with this acquired knowledge, you’ll craft bigger and stronger and better ships in order to brave the walls of storms that stand between you and new areas.And though Worlds Adrift is less about survival and more about exploration and interaction, other players are both your best chance for accomplishment, and your most dangerous enemies. I was told stories of players who would make friends with a crew, earn a place on board, and then destroy each crew member’s personal respawning machine, before commandeering the vessel and flying off into the sunset.Worlds Adrift is about telling stories that emerge from player interaction. Sabotaging a vessel, helping a stranger gather wood, or building a floating fortress and sailing through the world.And those stories will last forever. Worlds Adrift is persistent. Meaning every tree that’s cut down for resources, every ship that crashes on an island, and every piece of debris that’s left out to rust -- all these remain exactly in place. The world remains exactly in place, forever. Sifting through the rubble of a crashed ship, you might find a picture the crew took the day they finished their first vessel and embarked. What could have happened to them? Where are they now? That snapshot will live on forever. And the scrap you salvage from their crushed effort will fuel your ship and your story. These are the kinds of tales Worlds Adrift is capable of telling, and though there's much work left to be done, it’s incredibly exciting.Worlds Adrift is flying toward a closed PC beta at a future date. You can follow its development by visiting the official Worlds Adrift site

Brandin Tyrrel is an Associate Editor at IGN. You can follow him on Twitter at @BrandinTyrrel