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
- Unique Concept: The combination of city building, RPG elements, and combat in a flying city setting is praised for its originality and engaging gameplay.
- Visuals and Sound Design: Users appreciate the decent graphical quality, charming art style, and soothing music that enhances the overall experience.
- Gameplay Mechanics: The game features smooth building mechanics, intuitive resource gathering, and a low learning curve, making it easy for players to pick up and enjoy.
- Community and Developer Interaction: Positive feedback on the responsive developer team and active community support, with regular updates and bug fixes being highlighted.
- Variety of Gameplay: The game offers a mix of exploration, questing, and combat, providing a well-rounded gameplay experience.
The main cons of the game
- Performance Issues: Many players report framerate drops and high CPU usage, especially on lower-end devices, which affects the overall experience.
- Lack of Depth in Lore and Writing: Some users find the story and character development lacking, with a desire for more engaging lore and plot elements.
- High Price Point: Several reviews mention that the game feels overpriced for its current content, suggesting it might be better to wait for a sale.
- Repetitive Gameplay Elements: Some users feel that certain aspects, like quests and combat, can become repetitive over time.
The features or elements that are missing from the game according to users
- Enhanced Lore and Storytelling: A desire for a more developed narrative and deeper lore to enrich the game world.
- Improved Combat Mechanics: Suggestions for reworking combat systems, including difficulty levels and more strategic options during pirate encounters.
- Quality of Life Improvements: Requests for features like the ability to relocate buildings freely, higher starting capacity, and better camera controls.
- Additional Game Modes: Some players express interest in different operating modes for city management, such as combat or economic modes, to diversify gameplay.
- More Biomes and Content: A call for additional biomes, quests, and varied gameplay elements to enhance replayability and depth.
Summary
- Overall, "Airborne Empire" is generally well-received for its unique gameplay and charming aesthetics but faces criticism regarding performance issues, depth of content, and pricing. Players are hopeful for improvements and expansions as the game continues to develop in 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