Airborne Empire

About

Airborne Empire is a single player open world role playing game with a fantasy theme. It was developed by The Wandering Band LLC and was released on January 13, 2025. It received very positive reviews from players.

Build, manage, and grow your unique city in the skies. Traverse a vast and rich open world full of exotic technologies, relentless dangers, and many hidden treasures. Defend your inhabitants – and the kingdoms below! – from destructive attacks. Only daring leaders can reforge the Airborne Empire!

Genres & Tags

Play Modes

Single-Player

Skip User Reviews

92%

Audience ScoreBased on 418 reviews

story35 positive mentions

replayability3 negative mentions

Unique and engaging city builder with a mobile flying city concept that blends exploration, resource management, RPG-style quests, and combat.
Relaxing and charming atmosphere with beautiful art, a soothing soundtrack, and well-designed gameplay pacing suitable for casual and hardcore players alike.
Active and responsive developers providing frequent updates, bug fixes, and community engagement, enhancing the game experience over time.

Combat mechanics feel clunky or basic to some players, with controls and aiming being frustrating and occasionally damaging own city.
Performance issues and optimization problems reported by some users, including crashes and high hardware requirements, especially on less powerful devices.
Game can become repetitive or slow-paced late in playthrough, with fetch quests and resource management loops that may feel tedious; some features like city reorganization and automation need improvement.

story
121 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
29%
69%
2%
The story offers a charming, light RPG-style narrative with simple, engaging quests that provide enough motivation without overwhelming the city-building gameplay. While generally well-written and immersive, some users find the story short, incomplete, or occasionally uneven, with a desire for more variety and expansion in quests and plot. The mix of exploration, combat, and questing creates a pleasant, adventure-driven experience, though some critique the writing and thematic choices.
- “The story and side quests are thought through, but are simple.”
- “It looks gorgeous and plays well, with an interesting questing and story system that will help you move forward, encouraging exploration to unlock new buildings and upgrades.”
- “The game balances engaging quests with just enough combat to keep things interesting without overwhelming the experience.”
- “There are other small areas where the game can use improvement like the story, which ends pretty abruptly.”
- “My only gripe when I finished it was how short it was, and how the story seemed unfinished, so finding out that it is literally still in development was great!”
- “One area where the game does not hold up to the prequel's standard is the storytelling.”
gameplay
64 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
53%
42%
5%
The gameplay is a relaxed yet engaging city builder that adds new combat and lift/tilt mechanics to enrich its core loop of exploration, resource gathering, and questing. While some find the pacing slow and the combat rudimentary, the mechanics are generally well-received for their depth and innovation, maintaining addictive and intuitive city management with room for further development. Overall, it builds on its predecessor with expanded features, though some players note a repetitive loop and simplicity in certain aspects.
- “The balance, lift mechanics, and combat all add interesting quirks to the core gameplay loop of exploring the map, doing quests, and collecting resources.”
- “It's super-addictive, has a great gameplay loop, and I love the RPG city-building aspects of it.”
- “Lift and propulsion mechanics are also a really cool touch and give a whole new aspect to the city building.”
- “Pirates pose little threat, and the gameplay can start to feel a bit dull.”
- “I would not have bought this game if I knew 90% of the gameplay is hidden item fetch quests.”
- “Due to the nature of this game, access to resources, and the 'tilt' mechanic, you can go hours before being able to add a new component to the city.”
graphics
55 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
42%
53%
5%
The game features a charming, colorful, and adorable art style that enhances its relaxed and cozy atmosphere, with improved visuals and a larger, more varied world map compared to its predecessor. While the visuals are pleasant and unique, some find them slightly less polished or varied than in the first game, and performance issues like frame drops and limited graphics settings can detract from the experience. Overall, the graphics contribute positively to the game's appeal but could benefit from further refinement and optimization.
- “The graphics are unique and colorful.”
- “Airborne empire improves on airborne kingdom with a fleshed out combat system, new buildings, upgraded graphics, but most notably to me, a huge collection of main and side questlines with great dialogue and stories.”
- “Personally, while I did not dislike the first title's visuals, this one's map (which is very varied and rather big) is just beautiful to look at.”
- “Still in doubt if it was the money, since graphics look kinda outdated for the price.”
- “The few times I did make it in, I was stuck in the main menu adjusting graphics settings, and that's how I found out there weren't any frame-rate settings either.”
- “It's a decent game, I like the idea... sadly can't recommend, the graphic settings are weird, I keep changing the setting and putting custom sets everything to high restarted the game multiple times too.”
music
43 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
33%
60%
7%
The music receives mixed but mostly positive feedback, with many praising its soothing, atmospheric, and immersive qualities that enhance the game's relaxing vibe and artistic style. Several highlight the soundtrack as a standout element comparable to or slightly behind the original game's memorable tunes, while a few find it repetitive or forgettable. Overall, the soundtrack is considered a key part of the game's charm and mood, often described as chill, relaxing, and fitting well with the visuals and gameplay.
- “It’s probably the best soundtrack to any RPG game I have ever experienced, with very few exceptions.”
- “This is a sit-back-and-relax kind of game, vibing with the atmospheric soundtrack, charming animations, and bird-chirping conversations.”
- “The soundtrack is wonderful (please let us buy it, an airborne playlist would be perfect for so many other things).”
- “The music is... well, it's just different versions of the same theme.”
- “Unlike Kingdom's stable of bangers, Empire has—without hyperbole—the most forgettable music I have ever encountered in a game.”
- “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.”
optimization
17 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
18%
64%
18%
Optimization in the game is currently mixed, with some users noting recent improvements that reduce system strain, while others report significant performance issues including heavy CPU usage, frame drops, and the need to lower settings even on high-end hardware. Though the visuals are relatively simple, the game remains demanding and somewhat unoptimized, prompting hopes for better performance tuning in future updates and the full release.
- “With the recent performance updates (it ran fine for me before but now it hardly puts any strain on my PC) I can confidently recommend Airborne Empire.”
- “However, once everything is researched, upgraded, and your crew and city layout are optimized, the city almost becomes self-sufficient.”
- “The game is still ironing out a couple of kinks and graphics optimizations, but plays and runs well.”
- “If you are considering buying, just wait until the bugs are more ironed out and they optimize their game.”
- “However, there are a few weaknesses, such as the currently still very weak performance. Despite the relatively simple visuals, the game is very hardware-hungry and often has heavy frame drops.”
- “- A few performance issues - not outrageous, but the game seems to take more CPU than one would expect.”
atmosphere
8 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The game offers a charming, laid-back atmosphere enhanced by an atmospheric soundtrack, delightful animations, and satisfying sound design. Its adorable art style and relaxing vibe create a uniquely pleasant city-building experience, making it perfect for low-energy, casual play sessions. Overall, the atmosphere is consistently praised as enjoyable and immersive.
- “This is a sit-back-and-relax kind of game, vibing with the atmospheric soundtrack, charming animations, and bird-chirping conversations.”
- “Every click, navigation move, sick townsperson, market purchase, move, or even just the lights turning on at night – sounds satisfying, unique, atmospheric, and just plain fun.”
- “If you're looking for a city-building game with an adorable art style and a relaxing atmosphere, Airborne Empire is a delightful choice.”
replayability
7 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
29%
28%
43%
The game's replayability is generally viewed as limited, with several users noting a lack of engaging or lasting content to motivate repeated play. While some find it fun and simple enough for replay, most recommend waiting for additional content to enhance its long-term appeal. Overall, the replay value is considered low.
- “This game is replayable.”
- “In other words, this game is just plain fun, simple, and replayable.”
- “I would add that, for me, unless the future content is worthwhile, this game has zero replay value.”
- “I definitely recommend waiting for more content to be released, considering the price tag is pretty high and it really does not seem like a game with a lot of potential replayability.”
- “I don't think the game has a lot of replayability.”
grinding
7 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
14%
86%
Grinding in the game is considered somewhat tedious, particularly due to slow travel speeds and repetitive upgrade mechanics for workers and population growth. While missions remain engaging and not overly grindy, managing resource points and expanding population can feel like a chore. Players hope for more gameplay variety or a creative mode to reduce the sense of monotony.
- “Rather than setting exact workers to a resource point as if they are work locations, treat them as one-time interactions like upgrading buildings to help reduce repeated and tedious inputs.”
- “Growing your population is a bit tedious because you need to scour the map to find settlements for new pops, and gold required to get new pops is relatively harder to get.”
- “It can be tedious to play with different layouts for your city without a creative mode.”
stability
5 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
60%
40%
The game generally runs smoothly and is well-polished, with users experiencing stable performance and minimal bugs. However, some report occasional long freezes on the splash screen and issues requiring restarts after changing graphics settings, though these minor glitches are expected to be fixed over time.
- “It's well polished, runs great, and is super fun.”
- “So far, bug free and happy.”
- “Runs great.”
- “Every time I start the game, it freezes on the splash screen for 5-7 minutes, and if you change graphics settings, you have to restart the whole game.”
humor
5 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The game's humor is well-received, featuring funny dialogue, charming characters, and amusing pop-culture references that enhance interactions and overall enjoyment.
- “Otherwise this is a terrific game with some humor in the interactions between you and different factions.”
- “The characters are adorable and there are some funny pop-culture references.”
- “The dialogue is funny, the lore is interesting, with opportunities to learn more at your own discretion.”
emotional
1 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The game evokes positive emotions through its unique and wholesome gameplay, making it enjoyable and engaging enough for players to return to repeatedly.