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Airborne Empire
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!
What players say
Steam review score and the most-helpful voices, which may include critical ones. Score via Steam as of 2026-09-04 · quoted reviews as of 2026-05-13.
What reviewers agree on
63 of the 103 reviews raise this.
“I'm happy the introduction of combat from Airborne Kingdom has made the game better and not distracted from the story and overall game play.”
“This is such a fun, fun game! Wandering Band have built on what made Airborne Kingdom so fun, and created another wonderful game that I can't put down, lol. The addition of combat in this sequel definitely adds an extra…”
“Build your own Dalaran”
19 of the 103 reviews raise this.
“Grow your city as you cruise through the skies and explore. The world looks inviting and it's fun to build your floating city. I especially liked the design of the bird people inhabiting this world. The UI is very…”
“I am giving this a tentative thumbs up. All negative are fixable technical issues. The gameplay is great, just like the the previous game, very engaging, good progression, interesting tech. The music and art style are…”
“Nice game, graphics are cute. Might be better with a mouse than with a trackpad.”
15 of the 103 reviews raise this.
“I am giving this a tentative thumbs up. All negative are fixable technical issues. The gameplay is great, just like the the previous game, very engaging, good progression, interesting tech. The music and art style are…”
“Music and artstyle are gorgeous. The city idea with lift as Health is nice. The no Limit on how u wonna build your town is amazing. Only thing bugging me is the enormous amount of Micromaniging to keep your city running…”
“Overall great game. + Surprising replay value (after some time has passed) + Excellent chill vibes + Great music + City growth feels organic + Tight optimization constraints without being stressful + Great art style +…”
9 of the 103 reviews raise this.
“I loved this game - played on easy mode so I don't know what the higher difficulties are like, but nice quests that played out the simple narrative. A good cozy game when played that way. It took me about 30 hrs. to…”
“Relaxing city building, visually pleasant, good sense of progression. Story is bland so but overall 8/10 city building game. Took me about 35 hours to 100% completion of campaign but I discovered game speed button when…”
“Highly recommend for fans of Airborne Kingdom and other city builders! This game has the same aesthetic, music, and gameplay loop, with one notable change: the activity you do while flying from place to place collecting…”
9 of the 103 reviews raise this.
“I have had a lot of fun playing Airborne Empire in early access - I like the options as far as difficulty and type of play you want. It's fun to just noodle around with entirely outside of the story, which is also fun,…”
“I loved this game - played on easy mode so I don't know what the higher difficulties are like, but nice quests that played out the simple narrative. A good cozy game when played that way. It took me about 30 hrs. to…”
“Just finished my first run through of the entire story. I have to first say, if your considering this game, ignore the negative reviews. Most of them don't make sense to me. Someone played for 60+ hours, just to crap on…”
21 of the 103 reviews raise this · 14 of them still recommend the game.
“In a word, disappointing. It has none of the class and flair of Airborne Kingdom. The map is cartoonish and plain rather than the incredible stylized map of Kingdom. The wonderful narrated story is replaced with idiotic…”
“It was fun for a few hours; enough to get well past the refund window, but not enough to actually justify the purchase, even at 50% off. The game is lacking entirely in verticality, and I don't necessarily mean vertical…”
“Combat is quite dull, tech tree has hardly anything there...it got boring quite quickly...”
8 of the 103 reviews raise this · 4 of them still recommend the game.
“It was fun for a few hours; enough to get well past the refund window, but not enough to actually justify the purchase, even at 50% off. The game is lacking entirely in verticality, and I don't necessarily mean vertical…”
“Combat is quite dull, tech tree has hardly anything there...it got boring quite quickly...”
“I finished this game in adventure mode on normal difficulty. I can only recommend it if you feel you'd enjoy repetitive activities similar to idler games. Game speed is very slow: the speed at which your Airborne Empire…”
7 of the 103 reviews raise this · 5 of them still recommend the game.
“The game runs at 100% GPU and generates 45-47 FPS max with my rig. Then drops to 15 and crashes. Optimization? What is this foreign concept you're talking about?”
“I am giving this a tentative thumbs up. All negative are fixable technical issues. The gameplay is great, just like the the previous game, very engaging, good progression, interesting tech. The music and art style are…”
“BRUTAL CONSEQUENCE! You need more housing! Time sink? Yes! Satisfying when done? YOU'RE NOT DONE!! Add your own challenge and turn off auto save and only can use 1 slot. DEVs!! Don't remove the quick save feature yet!!…”
6 of the 103 reviews raise this · 3 of them still recommend the game.
“The performance is pretty bad, and I'm running a high-end PC. On top of that, the gameplay feels pretty repetitive.”
“The game runs at 100% GPU and generates 45-47 FPS max with my rig. Then drops to 15 and crashes. Optimization? What is this foreign concept you're talking about?”
“I am giving this a tentative thumbs up. All negative are fixable technical issues. The gameplay is great, just like the the previous game, very engaging, good progression, interesting tech. The music and art style are…”
6 of the 103 reviews raise this · 3 of them still recommend the game.
“In a word, disappointing. It has none of the class and flair of Airborne Kingdom. The map is cartoonish and plain rather than the incredible stylized map of Kingdom. The wonderful narrated story is replaced with idiotic…”
“A step down from the predecessor, combat sound good in theory but it's tedious and far too frequent with not much reward. Story drags on and last island has lots of visibility issues with white range rings and white…”
“Relaxing city building, visually pleasant, good sense of progression. Story is bland so but overall 8/10 city building game. Took me about 35 hours to 100% completion of campaign but I discovered game speed button when…”
Counted across 103 English reviews, sampled to match this game's 87.2% positive rating · as of 2026-05-13
“Usually I do not play citybuilders, but this has become one of my comfort games. Stating the obvious, the moving city concept is neat and an important part of resource gathering. And the first area of the game is about as large and elaborate as the entire previous game, there…”
— a player, Steam review · 27 hrs played“This is one of those times I really wish Steam’s rating system wasn’t binary, because Airborne Empire is a solid 6.5/10. Airborne Kingdom slapped. You gathered resources, expanded your kingdom, explored—simple, addictive, cozy loop with a cool story. This one, though? Managing…”
— a player, Steam review · 3 hrs played“Shadowslyph's review sum up some very important key points. The game is fun for the first few hours, but the enjoyability drops off as you progress. For a game using the RPG tag... The story is mundane and does not give you any sense that you are building a kingdom. You can…”
— a player, Steam review · 63 hrs playedPlayer activity
Monthly average concurrent players. Live data self-collected from the Steam API · history through 2026-06 via SteamCharts.
Achievement stats
Global completion rates across all Steam players — a data view of how far people actually get. Source: Steam official stats · as of 2026-09-05.
Price tracking
US-region pricing (USD), sampled twice daily by our own tracker since 2026-07-25. Steam prices vary by region — always confirm your local price on Steam.
Regional prices at last sample, in local currency — Steam sets each region's price independently.
Cheapest → most expensive, converted to USD at ECB reference rates (2026-09-04). Relative comparison only.
Latest official news
Developer announcements via the Steam news API — links go to the original posts. More across all games on the news hub.
New Mill Town Center
Hi Everyone, Today we've updated the game with another new Town Center; The Mill . The Mill Town Center is a little different than the other two that are currently available - The first advantage is t
Balloon Party Update!
Hi everyone, We're back with a Balloon Party update! The game is 50% off for the occasion! New Town Center We have added a new menu when you start a new game to choose a Town Center. Besides the class
Patch Notes v1.0.11
Fixed rare bug where Gladiator submarine would never come out of water
Patch Notes v1.0.10
Fix bug where pushing edge buildings with roads might push them really far from the city making the game unplayable
Patch Notes v1.0.09
Fixed rare bug with Dragons of La Mesa quest getting stuck Added light on Flame Shrine so it illuminates its surroundings at night Added missing Attack Rate relic in the Barrens
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Screenshots
Official Steam store screenshots — click any shot to enlarge.
Facts & details
From the Steam store record, snapshot 2026-05-13.
| Genres | Action, Adventure, Casual, Indie, RPG, Simulation, Strategy |
| Player tags | Early Access · Colony Sim · Strategy RPG · Wargame · Sandbox · City Builder · Resource Management · Physics · RTS · Open World · Exploration · Atmospheric (SteamSpy community voting) |
| Features | Single-player · Steam Achievements · Camera Comfort · Custom Volume Controls · Adjustable Difficulty · Mouse Only Option · Playable without Timed Input · Save Anytime |
| Languages | English, German, Simplified Chinese, French, Spanish - Spain, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese - Brazil, Russian |
| Achievements | 25 |
| Official site | https://www.airborneempire.com |
Minimum system requirements (PC)
Minimum: 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