Wired’s Nate Ralph got to play an early build of Dante’s Inferno, an Electronic Arts video game that’s at least a year away from release.

EA’s take still features Dante as the protagonist, but the poet-philosopher is now a hulking veteran of the Crusades. He returns home from war to find Beatrice, the subject of his love and admiration, murdered. When her soul is “kidnapped” by Lucifer himself, Dante dives down to the very depths of hell, armed with Death’s scythe, to win her back.

Hell, as described in The Divine Comedy, is a nasty place. The development team at EA, fresh off their last game, Dead Space, is hard at work re-creating the nine circles in all their glory. The backgrounds are teeming with life (of sorts). Countless souls spew from demonic fountains, or shuffle about through Limbo, waiting to be judged.

Much of the concept art and monster designs are the work of Wayne Barlowe, who is credited with working on the Hellboy and Harry Potter movies. An unannounced Academy Award–winning writer will assist in penning the game’s script, and many of the lines and characters — including cameo appearances by Pontius Pilate and Pope Celestine V — will be lifted directly from The Divine Comedy.