What makes a BioShock game a BioShock game? “It should be a world like nothing you’ve seen before,” declared Ken Levine, creative director at Irrational Games, in a statement accompanying the first public demo of BioShock Infinite. Those are bold words for any studio — even one that made the wildly innovative initial chapter in this beloved saga. But in describing the series’ third game, Levine projected the passion and experience of a team that’s determined to wow the industry once more.

At the very least, the next BioShock promises to be something the franchise has never seen before. Goodbye, water; hello, clouds. Instead of 1950s Rapture, you’re in Columbia, circa 1912 — and this fictional city is floating in the sky. Built as a symbol of American ideals and ingenuity, it evolved into a flying fortress, and after getting entangled in a violent international incident, it vanished to an unknown location. Columbia’s buildings — a curious mix of old Victorian stylings and pseudo-steampunk pipeiness — rise into the heavens, circled by blimps, platforms, railways, and birds. And as the early trailer suggests, one faulty step might send you plummeting to the bone-shattering earth below.

You, this time around, are a clearly defined character — a big change from the vague ciphers you controlled in earlier BioShocks. As Booker DeWitt, a former agent of Pinkerton (the real-life security agency established in 1850) who left in disgrace and now operates alone, you’ve been hired to infiltrate Columbia and find Elizabeth — a 20-year-old who’s been imprisoned there since she was 5. Once you arrive, you realize that a citywide conflict’s brewing…and Elizabeth’s at the heart of it. Working together, you need to survive Columbia’s many perils and find a way to escape.

So you have a companion; does that mean co-op play? It doesn’t, Levine told us, but as our demo showed, she’s not just an NPC tagalong who pecks away at your foes. In fact, she won’t kill anyone by herself. Instead, she adds her unique powers to yours, giving you new ways to eradicate nemeses. So when a group of enemy Columbians rushed us, for example, Elizabeth summoned a storm cloud over their heads, drenching them in rain — a perfect conductor for our Electro Bolt–like ability. Elsewhere, she crumpled a bunch of metal into a molten ball, which we then hurled with some sort of telekinesis. In scenarios like these, joining your powers with Elizabeth’s is totally optional, as Levine noted: you can use her or ignore her as you wish.

We’re pretty sure you’ll want her help, though, even with your already formidable plasmid-like powers and various weapons, which during our first look at Infinite include at least a sniper rifle and some type of flintlock rifle. In our brief demo, we were attacked by a guy in a giant, helmetless suit of armor — a Big Daddy analogue, maybe? Levine has stated that he’s definitely not a Big Daddy, per se, so what is he? — and were bombarded by several massive cannons. (Awesomely, Booker used his telekinesis-like power to snag a projectile a few feet from his face, then fling it back at the cannon for instant kablooey.) Not all Columbians will react to you in the same way, fortunately. In one sequence, Booker strolled into a bar and watched several men drink a toast; only after he used his telekinesis-equivalent to grab a man’s rifle out of his hands and then shoot him with it did the group rush us ferociously.

Two more things we can’t wait to experience for ourselves: skylines and birds. The former are the railways like those in the screenshot directly above; in our demo, Booker zip-lined down one at breakneck speed, dropped to a lower skyline, and used his free arm to knock an enemy out of the way and into a nearby building, leaving a crimson smear. As for our feathery friends, crows play a somewhat mysterious role here. An enemy hit us with Murder of Crows — an assault by a flock of birds — and Booker used the same ability against the gents in the bar. Meanwhile, the final shot of the demo was an adversary who seemed to be wearing an enormous bird-like suit of armor. That may sound goofy, but trust us: it was pure, beady-eyed menace.