Airborne Empire on Steam - User reviews, Price & Information
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Build your sky city while exploring a vast landscape in this Open World RPG City Builder. Combining the methodical construction and management of a city builder; the unique lift, balance, and propulsion needed for a flying city; and the compelling characters, dangers, and adventures of an RPG!
Airborne Empire is a early access, colony sim and strategy rpg game
developed by The Wandering Band LLC
and published by The Wandering Band LLC and Stray Fawn Publishing.
Released on April 17th 2026 is available on Windows and MacOS
in 9 languages: English, German, Simplified Chinese, French, Spanish - Spain, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese - Brazil and Russian.
It has received 477 reviews of which 435 were positive and 42 were negative resulting in a rating of 8.5 out of 10. 😎
The game is currently priced at 14.49€ on Steam with a 50% discount.
The Steam community has classified Airborne Empire into these genres:
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System requirements
These are the minimum specifications needed to play the game. For the best experience, we recommend that you verify them.
Windows
- Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
- OS: Windows 10
- Processor: Intel Core i5-8400 / AMD Ryzen 5 1600
- Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660, 2 GB VRAM / AMD Radeon HD 7870, 2 GB VRAM
MacOS
- Requires an Apple processor
- OS: macOS 14.5
- Processor: Apple M1
- Graphics: Apple M1
User reviews & Ratings
Explore reviews from Steam users sharing their experiences and what they love about the game.
Even though there isn't much difference from the first game (Airborne Kingdom), I still Recommend it if you're a fan of the first one. If you haven't played the first one, and/or you enjoy relaxing city builders without combat just grab the first one for cheaper. It has better music as well. Not that the combat is difficult in any way. More like a wave of mosquitos attacking your kingdom. This one does have actual characters with some story so this one is slightly better in a different way. But i wouldn't call this one part 2 exactly, more like a huge update from the first.
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Vast improvement on the second game. Definitely worth grabbing and playing hours of. Only gripe is they need to let you know one of the guns fires across the city, not below like the other ones. RIP the turret dwellers on that first shot.
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Buy a game. Die after five min. try again. Die again. Leave a bad review. Get contacted by dev. Find out it was a bug. bug gets fixed. Enjoy the absolutely fantastic game. :D
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6/10. For Cultural, economic, and political reasons Airborne Empire (AE) is the best game it could be on Earth in 2025. I recommend without reservation, but If you are short on money, skip this game and grab Airborne Kingdom (AK), the predessesor to this game. It is far superior in all but mechanics. Empire's mechanics are far tighter and brings much needed depth. This ends my recommendation of Airborne Empire, what follows here is lamentation of its shortcomings compared to Airborne Kingdom. TL/DR - They removed the two best aspects of Kingdom, the tile groundwork, and the "World Map" in order (IMO) to save money in visual design. Their replacement is a dull pancake of an ocean. The most damning aspect of Empire is that, the entirely superfluous environmental aspect that no one looks at - the skybox at night- is worse in Empire than Kingdom. I think this should be the entire review, it says it all. The stars are not as beautiful.. ... Where to begin. AK was a certified sleeper hit, it had alot of things to say and said them marvelously. Kingdom is genuinly beautiful. It might be the most humble game you ever play, and it accomplishes all its objectives with luxurious excess to spare. Airborne Empire is far less humble. A solid attempt was made by the developers to recreate the magic of Kingdom, but this never materialized. Worse still, their efforts amount to a shoddy counterfit. Empire throws down some of Kingdom's gorgeous islamic geometry but without understanding how or why it worked so well in the first game. Unlike Kingdom's stable of bangers, Empire has -without hyperbole- the most forgettable music I have ever encountered in a game. Were you to encounter Empire's music in a Walmart restroom you would not even notice. Frankly, just turning off the music and sailing around with only the ambience of wind and machine to accompany you is an improvement over the music. Kingdom was fable to the point of whimsical, but it did not indulge. Empire gives itself entirely to the whimsy, but to what effect. "Birds, hehe. Look at these cute birds" Thats the entire narrative core of Empire. Birds. What do they do with these birds? Nothing. More to the point, what relation does Airborne Empire have to Airborne Kingdom? Aside from the few cases where the cutesy birds say some oblique reference to Kingdom, or a few vaguely Islamic sounding things, Empire has absolutly no relation to Kingdom at all. To be clear - The first game had no birds at all. If you were not directly told "This is in the same world as AK" no one on Earth would even realize they are related. Within a decade, when the AI revolution overtakes video game design, people will be wondering if a poor quality AI wrote both the Music and Character interactions of Airborne Empire. Empire has easily 10 times the amount of text as Kingdom and accomplishes only a fraction of the latter's narrative force. Thank gooddness they found time for a gay wedding this time around. Frankly, though, I did like some of the characters. I had previously wondered if Airborne Kingdom could be described as - for a video game - rather Aristocratic. It muses on what is most important in life in a world in decline. I would characterize the design of Airborne Empire as being spirtually like a Nervous, Diabetic Single Mother. Resources are oppressively present and leave little else visually to be enjoyed. There are very few environental fixtures that are not resources to feed you, and they are of course that purile neon pink or green, like you see in those space exploration games. The land is absolutly terrified you will struggle, or get bored so everything is squeezed together. There is no organic down time between tasks where you given time to breathe or look at the stars. Which might be for the best because Empire's starbox is far less detailed than Kingdom's which is saying alot, frankly. What is there to look at other than coal and fish? The game (Currently?) has one single environmental show piece, a big volcano. But they didn't know what to do with it, so they threw some of Kingdom's geometry on it and called it a day. Perhaps I am being over critical there, I gushed when I saw the titan animals. Chasing them were my favorite moments of the game. Lastly here, I almost want to call the police on the Dev team. They threw out the "World Map" of Airborne Kingdom. I just do not understand how they could have decided to do this. Its like if Bungie ditched Cortana after Halo 1, or Blizzard got rid of Tauren. Its such an easy inclusion that I feel it is borderline criminal. My praise would be that the mechanics of Airborne Empire are far superior, and I suspect the omissions from AK will be reintroduced in later patches. There were a few beats where the "Naval" combat returned me to my time in the Navy, only this time I was the Captain, and we were all birds. The combat is well done. The city building is clean and enjoyable. The new systems provide alot of much needed depth which is pleasing. Here are my suggestions for the dev team: 1. (Semi-Ironic) Remove 40%+ of text. 2. Unironically either remove the music entirely or bring back AK's composer to work again. But it wouldn't work because AK's narrative dynamo is not present so the music would be more bland this time. Hard not to be an improvement regardless. 3. Just expand the map. Increase space between tasks. Give time to breathe. Increase space between islands, remove 50% of resources to create scarcity. 4. Give things to look at. Improve skybox. 5. Most serious statement - dramatically lower prices or fix economy. I assiduously gather coins from ruins and bolder ruins and the economy is the biggest friciton of the game. Its just too much. 6. Return the "World Map" or I am calling the police. 7. You need to better highlight the balloon vendor. These techs were hard to find. I know you talked about it in the text, but you have waterfalls of text and it gets lost. Perhaps directly include "We need to find the balloon merchants" either directly on the tech tree, or in an side quest. 8. I want more play time with the characters. You spend alot of time with them, perhaps make them "relics" than can be attached to homes or something to include them more. Why cant the fighter pilot ace character we meet be like a "relic" attachable to the hanger or something? I think this is fertile ground. 9. Can't be done, but, remove the dead pancake ocean and return the ceramic tile groundwork and world map. 10. Remove all cutesy bird ♥♥♥♥ and return Islamic fable please.
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Speaking as someone who played Airborne Kingdom and now Airborne Empire - I freaking LOVE this game! The setting, the narrative, the characters, the music, the art - it's such a total mood. Calm music, a city floating above various lands helping folks out AND blasting pirates out of the air - what's not to like! It's like being a benevolent sky god with anger management issues. The highlights: - Your floating city has more personality than most people I know - Combat that doesn't make you want to throw your mouse out the window - Music so chill it could put a caffeinated squirrel to sleep - Art style that's prettier than a sunset made of cotton candy A note on the weapons; they feel like such a natural extension of the narrative and also what the Airborne Kingdom experience was like - all without getting in the way of needing micromanaging. The devs somehow managed to make combat feel as smooth as butter on a hot pancake, which is honestly impressive considering most city builders make warfare feel like trying to perform surgery with oven mitts. The developers clearly poured their hearts (and probably several gallons of coffee) into this masterpiece. They took everything great about Airborne Kingdom and somehow made it even better without breaking what already worked. That's like successfully adding rocket boosters to a bicycle - it shouldn't work, but here we are, soaring through the clouds having the time of our lives. Bottom Line: If you enjoyed the first game, this is a no-brainer. If you didn't play the first game, go fix that immediately. These devs deserve all the support for creating something this genuinely delightful. 10/10 would recommend to anyone who enjoys floating cities, helping people, and occasionally reminding pirates why the sky belongs to you.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Airborne Empire is currently priced at 14.49€ on Steam.
Airborne Empire is currently available at a 50% discount. You can purchase it for 14.49€ on Steam.
Airborne Empire received 435 positive votes out of a total of 477 achieving a rating of 8.48.
😎
Airborne Empire was developed by The Wandering Band LLC and published by The Wandering Band LLC and Stray Fawn Publishing.
Airborne Empire is playable and fully supported on Windows.
Airborne Empire is playable and fully supported on MacOS.
Airborne Empire is not playable on Linux.
Airborne Empire is a single-player game.
Airborne Empire does not currently offer any DLC.
Airborne Empire does not support mods via Steam Workshop.
Airborne Empire does not support Steam Remote Play.
Airborne Empire is enabled for Steam Family Sharing. This means you can share the game with authorized users from your Steam Library, allowing them to play it on their own accounts. For more details on how the feature works, you can read the original Steam Family Sharing announcement or visit the Steam Family Sharing user guide and FAQ page.
You can find solutions or submit a support ticket by visiting the Steam Support page for Airborne Empire.
Data sources
The information presented on this page is sourced from reliable APIs to ensure accuracy and relevance. We utilize the Steam API to gather data on game details, including titles, descriptions, prices, and user reviews. This allows us to provide you with the most up-to-date information directly from the Steam platform.
Additionally, we incorporate data from the SteamSpy API, which offers insights into game sales and player statistics. This helps us present a comprehensive view of each game's popularity and performance within the gaming community.
Last Updates| Steam data | 29 April 2026 03:20 |
|---|---|
| SteamSpy data | 28 April 2026 16:10 |
| Steam price | 29 April 2026 04:49 |
| Steam reviews | 28 April 2026 12:00 |
If you'd like to dive deeper into the details about Airborne Empire, we invite you to check out a few dedicated websites that offer extensive information and insights. These platforms provide valuable data, analysis, and user-generated reports to enhance your understanding of the game and its performance.
- SteamDB - A comprehensive database of everything on Steam about Airborne Empire
- SteamCharts - Analysis of Airborne Empire concurrent players on Steam
- ProtonDB - Crowdsourced reports on Linux and Steam Deck Airborne Empire compatibility
Game modes
Features
Online players
116
Developer
The Wandering Band LLC
Publisher
The Wandering Band LLC,
Stray Fawn Publishing
Release
17 Apr 2026
Platforms
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