CORSIKA 8 is a novel C++ framework for Monte Carlo simulations of particle cascades in air and other media. It is the designated successor of the well-known, long-standing Fortran version (CORSIKA 7), prepared to serve the astroparticle physics community over the next decades. Designed as a modular and open framework, the possible domains of applicability of CORSIKA 8 reach beyond its predecessor. In this contribution we give a status report of the project and outline some of the first capabilities of CORSIKA 8. We present the particle interaction and physics models already implemented and compare first results obtained from simulations of vertical proton-initiated showers to other codes, CORSIKA 7 and AIRES, focusing on energy spectra of hadrons and muons as well as their lateral and longitudinal distributions.