The London-based independent games designer is pushing technical, logistical and financial boundaries by counting on gamers to build floating islands for their characters to inhabit, which other players can visit via airborne, pirate-like ships.

Henrique Olifiers, one of the company’s three co-founders, said that Worlds Adrift allows you to go into the game and set your objectives and go about the game however you choose.

Bossa was set up in 2010 by veteran game designers who first focused on making social games played on Facebook before switching to PC-based online games. It is best known for “Surgeon Simulator” and “I Am Bread,” which have drawn in millions of users with their physics-based, realistic movements.

Its new multiplayer online game is the first to run on the computational platform of Improbable, a second London firm which enables large cloud-based simulations to be created, without which Worlds Adrift’s complicated, the user-generated landscape would be impossible. It is far more sophisticated than prior Bossa games.

Eight months ago, Bossa Studios raised $10 million in funding in a round led by European venture firm Atomico. It has 82 employees but is expanding rapidly with the recent funding, Olifiers said.

“Unlike any other massively multiplayer online (MMO) game, your actions impact the virtual world - and matter”, said Improbable co-founder Herman Narula.

Gamers will build and develop increasingly complex islands which players can visit and interact with other game participants however they wish.

It is a massive fantasy universe designed to appeal to a younger generation of players looking to build games themselves. During development gamers have created 10,000 islands, 450 of which will feature as the game launches in “early access” mode, meaning that it is still under construction and subject to changes. General release is expected within a year, said Olifiers.

Policing the game is left to players, by design, Olifiers said. Bad behaviour could prompt users to abandon islands where incidents take place, turning them into Robinson Crusoe outposts no one else visits.