High-flying RPG city builder Airborne Empire has launched on Steam, and it’s testing my balancing skills in more ways than one

My flying city in Airborne Empire is tilted at a 1 degree angle. That’s not a big deal: it’s barely detectable visually and it doesn’t seem to be bothering my citizens. It sure is bothering me, though. I can’t stop imagining one of my residents, after a hard day harvesting resources or battling pirates or working in the iron foundry, coming home, sitting down to relax, placing a pencil on the coffee table in his living room, and watching that pencil slowly roll away.

I already have several active quests in this high-flying city builder from developer Wandering Band: I need to eradicate an island of pirates, deliver food to several friendly outposts, and help a scientist identify sea creatures. But I’ll be honest: my real quest, my personal quest in Airborne Empire, is to balance my city so it’s 100% level.

You can join me in obsessing over how level your own city is: Airborne Empire launched into early access on Steam today. It’s the sequel to 2022’s Airborne Kingdom, but there’s a much, much bigger world to explore and now there’s combat to consider, too: the realm is full of enemy airplanes, ground-based bandit colonies, and other hostile flying structures. Somehow, the game still pulls off a mostly chill and cozy vibe—except when something goes wrong and my flying city starts plummeting toward the ground.

The placement of new buildings is important in most city builders, but in Airborne Empire it’s especially critical because you need to distribute weight evenly. If your city leans too much to one side, citizens will become unhappy (understandable, it makes me unhappy too) and if the tilt gets too pronounced they’ll abandon you by walking to the edge of your city, hopping off, and parachuting to the ground (sad to watch, but also kind of adorable).

There’s also lift to consider. Carefully consider. You know in an urban city builder when you plop down some new structure and suddenly the power goes out because you’re now using more electricity than you produce? Imagine that, except your city is flying, and suddenly it weighs more than the lift you’re producing. You haven’t experienced panic until you’ve ordered your citizens to quickly construct a new fan or balloon to keep your city in the air while it’s in freefall.

So, how do your citizens gather resources like wood, coal, and food while you’re cruising around hundreds of feet above the places these things appear? With little bitty airplanes, of course. Build airplane hangars and you can dispatch pilots to the ground to do some gathering.

Later on, once sky pirates become a problem, you can weaponize your planes for battle, along with other combat options like auto-firing defensive towers, cannons you can use for manual bombardment of ground targets, and other weapons like flamethrowers and tesla coils.

I’m only a few hours in but Airborne Empire has been a solid challenge for my balancing skills: and not just literally balancing my city so it’s not flying around lopsided. There are also lots of elements to consider when it comes to progression. What would benefit me most? More efficient engines so I burn less coal to stay airborne? More powerful propellers so I can fly across the world more swiftly? Better defenses to keep the pirates at bay?

Every time I have to choose a new research goal it takes a ton of thought, and that’s a great sign for a new city builder. You’ll find Airborne Empire on Steam, where it’s 10% off for the next two weeks.