Four years of development and just over a year in Steam early access. That's the runway The Wandering Band needed before Airborne Empire was ready to properly take off. The flying city-builder sequel to the original Airborne Kingdom has now formally launched with a substantial 1.0 update, and the studio is celebrating with a 50% discount that runs through May 1.
Here's the lowdown: Airborne Empire takes everything that made Airborne Kingdom work, specifically the core concept of building and managing a city that floats through the sky, and expands it with a larger world, light RPG elements, and now a proper story with a genuine ending.
Pay less for your games.
Get discounts up to 80% off
What the 1.0 update actually adds
The headline addition is Kingsfell, a brand-new snowbound region where icebergs dot the terrain and frigid waterways cut through the landscape. Players exploring Kingsfell will encounter new stories, locations, and environmental conditions that push the city management systems in fresh directions. It's the kind of biome that should feel meaningfully different from what came before rather than just a reskinned version of existing content.
The narrative side of the game has also been expanded. New quests and characters have been added, with the studio promising players will make new allies and uncover lost civilisations during their travels. More importantly, Airborne Empire now has a proper finale: a confrontation with a pirate queen that The Wandering Band describes as the "ultimate challenge" for your city's defences. Having a real boss-level endpoint gives the game something Airborne Kingdom arguably lacked.
Both the 50% discount on Airborne Empire (bringing it to $15) and the 80% discount on the original Airborne Kingdom (bringing it to $5) expire on May 1.
The jet engine changes how combat feels
Among the new structures added in the 1.0 patch, the jet engine is the one worth paying attention to. Bolted to the rear of your city, it delivers sudden, powerful bursts of speed designed specifically for combat situations. You can use it to close distance on an opponent fast or break away from a fight that's gone sideways. The Wandering Band notes it can be combined with existing weapons like the barrage cannon, which opens up some interesting tactical combinations for players who lean into the aerial combat side of the game.
What most players miss in city-builders with combat systems is that movement itself becomes a weapon. The jet engine leans into that idea directly.
Picking up both games right now makes sense
The original Airborne Kingdom sits at an 80% discount through the same deadline, dropping it to $5. If you've never played the first game, that's a cheap way to understand what Airborne Empire is building on before committing to the sequel at $15.
The key here is that the "weird city-builder" genre has gotten genuinely competitive over the past few years, with games like Timberborn and others carving out dedicated audiences. Airborne Empire's full 1.0 launch positions it as a complete product in a crowded field, and the launch discount removes most of the friction for anyone sitting on the fence. For more on what's new in the city-builder space, browse our latest gaming news or check out recent reviews to see how Airborne Empire stacks up against the competition.
