Airborne Empire
Release Date: January 13, 2025 Early Access
Strategy, fantasy, economic, RPG elements, indie games, city builder, singleplayer
Steam
A spin-off of Airborne Kingdom and a cross between a strategy game and an RPG. Airbore Empire tasks us with governing a floating city, completing quests for other settlements and fighting off invaders and plunderers.
Videos and Screens
[1:30] Airborne Empire Airborne Empire - Trailer
[1:25] Airborne Empire Airborne Empire - Gameplay Trailer
The main pros of the game
- Gameplay Quality: Many users praised the gameplay as addictive and engaging, with a unique blend of city-building and RPG elements. The building mechanics and resource management received specific commendations for being smooth and intuitive.
- Visuals and Sound Design: The game features decent graphical quality and sound design, with a charming art style and a well-composed soundtrack that enhances the overall experience.
- Innovative Concept: The idea of managing a flying city and balancing lift, balance, and propulsion was highlighted as a standout feature, making it a refreshing addition to the city-building genre.
- Community and Support: Users noted positive interactions with the developers and community support through forums and Discord.
The main cons of the game
- Performance Issues: Several reviews mentioned framerate drops and optimization problems, particularly on lower-end systems, which hindered the gameplay experience.
- Lack of Lore and Depth: Some players felt the game lacked depth in storytelling, lore, and writing, with a desire for more engaging narratives and quest variety.
- High Price Tag: A common sentiment was that the game's price felt steep for the amount of content currently available, suggesting it might be better to wait for discounts.
The features or elements that are missing from the game according to users
- Improved Combat Mechanics: Users expressed a desire for better combat systems, including difficulty settings and more intuitive controls for managing defenses and attacks.
- Enhanced Quest Variety: A call for more diverse quests and engaging storylines was noted, as some players found the current quest structure lacking.
- User Interface Improvements: Some reviewers mentioned that the camera controls and UI felt unintuitive, and suggested enhancements for better navigation and management of larger cities.
- Additional Gameplay Modes: Suggestions included the introduction of different operational modes for the city (e.g., combat or economic modes) and more biomes to explore.
Summary
- Overall, while Airborne Empire has received many positive reviews for its innovative gameplay and charming design, it also faces criticism regarding performance issues, storytelling depth, and some gameplay mechanics that could use refinement. Players are optimistic about future updates and improvements as the game progresses through early access.
Summary generated on:
Airborne Empire Description
Airborne Empire is a spin-off of a 2020 city builder, Airborne Kingdom. It was developed by The Wandering Band, emphasizing RPG elements and combat. The game was published by Stray Fawn Publishing.
Plot
Airborne Empire is set in the same fantasy world of Airborne Kingdom. We play as the governor of a flying city, tasked with turning it into an empire. The player must establish relationships with other cities, both flying and grounded ones, and defend their land from sky pirates and hostile settlements.
Mechanics
Airborne Kingdom makes use of the top-down perspective. We'll spend most of the game taking care of our floating city as it traverses the vast open world.
We'll encounter many friendly settlements we can visit and talk to their people. This unlocks various quests, completing which grants valuable, unique rewards.
While traversing the world we gather resources to unlock better city defenses, weapons, more advanced tools, buildings and various upgrades, such as elevators and stronger engines. The latter are especially important, as we must pay attention to our city's weight, making sure the engines can keep it in the air.
Aside from economic aspects we must also successfully defend the city from danger. As we expand, we draw the attention of pirates and hostile cities. To survive aerial battles we must fortify our city with towers, cannons and assault ships.
These aren't the only threats we'll face - we must also deal with fires, illness and the people's dropping morale. Overcoming these problems will gradually turn our fortress into the capital of an airborne empire.
Technical aspects
Airborne Empire retains the first game's low poly artstyle.
Airborne Empire Summary
Game Series: Airborne Kingdom
Platforms:
PC / Windows
Developer: The Wandering Band
Publisher: Stray Fawn
Age restrictions: none
Airborne Empire System Requirements
PC / Windows
Minimum: Intel Core i7-3770 3.4 GHz / AMD FX-8350 4.0 GHz, 8 GB RAM, graphic card 2 GB GeForce GTX 660 / Radeon HD 7870 or better, 2 GB HDD, Windows 10
Recommended: Intel Core i7-8700 3.2 GHz / AMD Ryzen 7 1800X 3.6 GHz, 8 GB RAM, graphic card 3 GB GeForce GTX 1060 / 4 GB Radeon RX 580 or better, 2 GB HDD, Windows 11