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Hi everyone,
We're back with a Balloon Party update! The game is 50% off for the occasion!
We have added a new menu when you start a new game to choose a Town Center. Besides the classic town center, you can now choose the Balloon Town Center! This Town Center is built around large balloons to provide Extra Lift (100 Lift) without using any Coal! It’s a little less sturdy (150 Health) and a little slower initially (10 Propulsion) but the extra lift can be a real boost for a new little sky town.
To go along with the Balloon Town Center, we have also added a Balloon Theme Pack to decorate your city!
- The Wandering Band
After an incredible journey through Early Access, Airborne Empire has officially reached version 1.0!
From the very beginning, your feedback, bug reports, suggestions and city screenshots helped shape the game into what it is today. Thanks to the support of our community, the world of Airborne Empire has grown far beyond its original scope.
Version 1.0 also brings several major additions:
New Kingsfell biome to explore
Final confrontation with the Pirate Queen
New quests, locations and story content
New buildings and upgrades for your flying city
New Combat Ability building: The Jet Engine
Mac support
New language support including Brazilian Portuguese and Russian
New Steam achievements
Better Performance: Introduced significant performance improvements for a smoother experience at higher FPS. Also added ability to cap FPS through more detailed VSync settings.
Today marks the full launch of the game, and we’re incredibly excited to finally share the complete experience with all of you.
Since launching in Early Access on January 13th, 2025, the game has received several major updates:
Survival Mode (Mar 19, 2026): A new gameplay mode introducing harsher survival mechanics and new challenges for experienced players.
Pacifist Mode (Feb 23, 2026): A relaxed exploration-focused mode where players can build and explore without combat, with optional combat testing through the Combat Range.
Difficulty & Custom Settings (Jan 12, 2026): Added Hard difficulty presets and customizable difficulty sliders for combat, injuries, resources and more.
Creative Mode & Skydock Overhaul (Nov 28, 2025): Creative Mode allows players to freely build cities with unlimited resources, alongside a major overhaul of the Skydock city editing system.
Tropicos Expansion (Sept 1, 2025): A major content update introducing a new biome, quests, enemies, buildings and a dynamic weather system.
Ancient Wonders (May 24, 2025): Added powerful unique Wonder structures unlocked through quests that provide city-wide abilities.
Quality of Life & UI Improvements (Apr 16, 2025): Major improvements to interface navigation, worker management and map usability.
New Buildings & Gameplay Systems: Updates added new morale buildings, relics, combat mechanics and expanded customization options.
Localization & Accessibility: Added support for multiple languages including French, Spanish, Japanese, Korean, Brazilian Portuguese, and Russian.
And much more!
The Kingsfell biome introduces a completely new region to explore, filled with unique landscapes, new settlements and fresh challenges for your airborne city.
Players will encounter new environmental conditions, discover hidden locations across the skies, and uncover stories that expand the world of Airborne Empire.
Version 1.0 expands the narrative and exploration elements of the game with new quests, characters and skybound locations to discover.
Meet new allies, uncover lost civilizations and take on story-driven missions that guide you deeper into the mysteries of the world above.
The full release introduces new structures, upgrades and customization options to help you shape the ultimate flying city.
Expand your infrastructure, improve citizen morale and optimize your city’s layout with new strategic possibilities that give you more control over how your empire grows.
Your journey through the skies ultimately leads to a dramatic final confrontation with the Pirate Queen.
Prepare your city, manage your defenses and face the ultimate challenge that will determine the fate of your airborne empire.
Among the discoveries waiting in Kingsfell is a powerful new building: the Jet Engine.
This remarkable structure allows your city to unleash a burst of speed, dramatically increasing movement for a short time. Perfect for diving into combat or escaping a dangerous situation in the skies, the Jet Engine is a Combat Ability building, meaning it occupies one of your ability slots. When combined with other weapons such as the Barrage Cannon, it opens up new tactical possibilities for how players can approach combat.
Version 1.0 introduces new Steam achievements for players looking to master every aspect of the game.
Whether you're exploring every biome, building the perfect city or overcoming the toughest challenges, there are plenty of new goals to pursue.
The 1.0 release also expands accessibility with additional language support, including:
Russian
Brazilian Portuguese
This builds on the previously added languages and helps make Airborne Empire accessible to even more players around the world.
With the 1.0 release, Airborne Empire now officially supports Mac.
Mac players can now experience the full game and build their own flying cities in the skies, with the same features and content available on the Windows version.
If you've been waiting to jump in from macOS, now is the perfect time to take your city to the clouds.
Reaching version 1.0 would not have been possible without the incredible support of our community.
Every bug report, suggestion, screenshot and piece of feedback helped shape Airborne Empire into the game it is today. Early Access allowed us to grow the game alongside you, and we’re deeply grateful for everyone who joined us on this journey.
Now that the full release is here, we can’t wait to see the cities you build and the stories you create in the skies. If you'd like to share your cities, give feedback, or chat with the team and other players, come join our community on Discord.
Thank you for being part of Airborne Empire.
Hey Everyone,
After years of building cities among the clouds, exploring breathtaking horizons, and helping the people below reclaim their skies from pirate rule, the journey is nearly complete.
We’re excited to finally announce that Airborne Empire will leave Early Access and launch its full 1.0 version on April 17.
The full release introduces the final chapter of the adventure, a new frozen biome to uncover, and the long-awaited confrontation with the Pirate Queen herself.
Today’s update also introduces a new way to play:
Today’s update introduces Survival Mode, a faster-paced and more intense way to experience Airborne Empire.
In this mode your goal is simple: survive all 20 stages while defending your airborne city from relentless pirate attacks.
At the start of each stage a Pirate Outpost appears somewhere on the map and begins sending waves of enemies toward your city. You must fend them off, destroy the outpost, and prepare your defenses before the next assault begins.
Each stage grows more and more dangerous than the last.
To help you survive the escalating threat:
Research and building speeds are dramatically increased
Workers, blueprints, relics and resources are easier to obtain
You can rapidly expand and reinforce your city between waves
If you manage to survive all 20 stages, the game will record your time so you can see how quickly your empire conquered the challenge and compare your score with other players.
Good luck keeping your city airborne!
The 1.0 release on April 17 introduces a brand new biome: The Kingsfell.
Far to the north lies this frozen tundra, where ancient cities stand buried beneath snow and pirate banners now fly where peace once ruled.
Players will travel through this hostile frontier, discovering lost settlements, meeting new characters, and helping liberate the cities that have fallen under pirate control.
Somewhere deep in this frozen region waits the leader of the pirate forces…
The Pirate Queen.
Finding her stronghold and defeating her will bring the story of Adventure Mode to its final chapter.
Among the discoveries waiting in the Kingsfell is a powerful new building:
The Jet Engine
This remarkable structure allows your city to unleash a burst of speed, dramatically increasing movement for a short time. Perfect for diving into combat or escaping a dangerous situation in the skies.
The full release will include:
The new Kingsfell biome
New quests, characters and locations
New buildings and upgrades for your city
The final confrontation with the Pirate Queen
New achievements
Additional language support: Russian and Brazilian Portuguese
And more!
When Airborne Empire first launched in Early Access, the world contained three biomes and the story had only just begun.
Throughout development we expanded the world, added new content, and continued refining the experience with your feedback.
Now, with the addition of the fifth biome and the final chapter of the story, we’re incredibly excited to bring the full adventure to players with the 1.0 launch.
Your support has been invaluable to a small team like ours.
Thank you for helping shape Airborne Empire along the way.
The winds are rising.
The frozen north awaits.
The Pirate Queen prepares for battle.
Your airborne empire must be ready.
Airborne Empire 1.0 launches April 17!
See you in the skies.
— The Wandering Band
The Pacifist Mode update introduced a bug with loading save file where things in the first Aeyrie biome were not loading correctly. This is fixed with this update. Unfortunately, any games saved in the last 2 days will have this issue.
This means than any games saved in the last 2 days (since the Pacifist Mode update) will have some broken things in the Aeyrie. The most obvious thing will be that the defeated pirates from that biome will there again.
Really sorry about that!
This patch comes with other bug fixes:
Fixed some more save files not loading at all
Added some storage blueprints in the Blackspine in Pacifist Mode
Hi everyone,
We're back with another update! The game is 30% off for the occasion!
This time its a new game mode: Pacifist Mode.
As you know the main story mode in Airborne Empire, Adventure Mode, is set in a world that is full of sky pirates. Players have to defend their city and defeat a variety of enemies on land, in the air and at sea. We've spent a lot of time on the combat, and it has improved a lot during Early Access (that you for all the feedback!) but some people have asked for a different experience, something with a chiller vibe, like our first game, Airborne Kingdom.
So, all that being said, we've added this new mode as a kind of relaxed non-combat remix of the game. It still takes place in the same large open world and players will still have to explore for resources and purchase new buildings from cities they encounter along the way. The main difference is in this mode there is no story and no enemies. The player just explores and builds.
If you are playing Pacifist Mode or Creative Mode and you decide you would like to sample a little combat then you can now try that as well. Visit any city in the world and go to the Combat Range in the main City Menu and you can launch a test combat scenario, just to see how your city would hold up. You can stop the combat scenario at anytime by returning to the Combat Range.
We've added a number of bug fixes and game performance optimizations as well:
Fixed Tesla Coil cooldown starting when it is activated instead of when it has finished its attack
Fixed wrong update description for Park
Fixed being able to build Defense Tower in Havenmill before researching it
Fixed building entrance not facing paths for Bird Cage Bar and Charcoal Hut
Fixed resource generation rates not updating correctly when city tilts and affects worker speed
Fixed propulsion buildings still animating when there is no more coal
Fixed worker cost not updating in Quest Button
Fixed some rare bugs with road placement
Thanks again for all the support and feedback, we're gonna keep cooking, more updates soon!
- The Wandering Band
As requested by some players, we decided to allow changing the difficulty during a playthrough. There is now a Game Difficulty button in the Pause Menu to do just that.
As always, let us know in Discord or the Steam Forums if you encounter any issues!
Fix issues with some quests not finishing correctly and some quests showing up when they shouldn't
Fix some parts of the world showing up twice
Fix Iron Forge and Warehouse not being available to research
Fix iron forge not being available to research
Hi everyone!
Happy new year! We hope everyone is doing well and had a good holiday. We took a nice little break and now we're back with another update! The game is 30% off for the occasion!
One big piece of feedback we've consistently received since the launch of Airborne Empire is that some players want a more difficult challenge when playing through the main Adventure mode. We added an easier difficulty a while back, as that was also requested, but we wanted to take a little more time with the harder difficulties. Today we pushed a new update with not only harder difficulty levels but also custom difficulty sliders.
When starting a new game players can now select from one of our 4 preset difficulty levels or they can create a custom game where they individually adjust difficulty for things like combat damage, worker injuries, resource costs, etc. and they can also toggle friendly fire on or off. These are chosen at the beginning of the game but cannot be adjusted once the game is started, choose wisely! Please share your feedback on these difficulties!
We've got a lot more coming soon. We're pushing to get the game to 1.0 before the summer and we still need to drop Survival mode, a few other things and, of course, the final biome and conclusion of the campaign for the main Adventure mode. We will update the roadmap on Discord and in the Steam forums to reflect that.
Thanks again for all the support and feedback! As always, if you have any questions or issues please let us know in our Discord or on the Steam forums.
Keep previous camera zoom when coming out of Ground City interaction
Fix edge buildings being marked as invalid when initially placed in Skydock mode
Fix highlight of some quest ruins and ground cities not working after it is repaired or interacted with
Optimize rendering for improvemed overall game performance
Small performance optimizations for games with big airborne cities
- The Wandering Band
Hi Everyone!
To celebrate the Holiday Season we are releasing a new Theme Pack!
This Theme Pack will allow you to add Christmas and Winter themed decorations to your buildings.
This update also comes with some other changes and bug fixes:
Refund upgrades when disassembling buildings in Skydock Mode
Add Camera Move Sensitivity setting to control camera movement speed using WASD
Increase default keyboard camera rotation speed
Rename Mouse Rotation Sensitivity to Camera Rotation Sensitivity to reflect that it doesn't only affect mouse rotation speed but keyboard as well
Fix several bugs with resource deposits not visually replenishing as it should
Fix new Barrage Balloon loot being spawned when loading game with dead barrage balloon
Fix Windmill never showing up as lit when placing it
Fix wrong description used for the Tavern building
Bring back light clouds in the Barrens biome that were previously mistakenly removed
More updates coming in the new year, hope everyone has a great holiday and thanks for all the support in 2025!
Hope you enjoy!
The Wandering Band
Fix 5th mystery propulsion building showing up in Research Tree
Fix bug when trying to rebuild destroyed upgraded storage building or house
Fix incorrect cooldown times for player Cannon, Freeze Cannon, Barrage Cannon and Tesla Coil.
Hey everyone,
We’ve got a pretty big game update dropping today! It comes with a brand new Creative Mode, a revamp of the Skydock Mode and improved performance.
We’ve added Creative Mode to the game. So now, in addition to our classic Adventure Mode, players can also freely build the flying city of their dreams. In Creative Mode all buildings are unlocked, and you have infinite resources and workers. We’ve already seen some pretty crazy cities from players and we can’t wait to see what you all come up with in this new mode.
The other big piece is we’ve made a major overhaul to the way the Skydock works. Here are the main additions:
You can now move buildings anywhere you want, without being connected to a road, and have them free floating while you rearrange. Everything will need a valid placement before you leave the Skydock but we’ve added some UI tools to help with that.
Buildings and upgrades also complete instantly. You no longer have to wait for roads to be constructed before moving buildings there!
Storage is temporarily infinite. This means you can disassemble many buildings and get their full refund price even if you don't have the storage for it. However, be sure to use all those extra resources. If you exit Skydock before using all the resources over your storage, those resources will automatically be dumped.
Your city can temporarily overtilt. You will have to be within normal tilt limits before leaving the Skydock.
Finally, the game will be forced pause and you will not be able to unpause. Since buildings can now float in the middle of nowhere, unpausing the game would cause many things to stop working correctly.
Hopefully this update addresses a lot of the feedback on the feature.
We've also been working on improving the performance of the game. We've optimized several aspects of the rendering of the world for some significant performance improvements in this update. More of that coming in the future!
There are also a number of bug fixes and quality of life improvements:
Many bug fixes related with placing, moving and disassembling buildings
Improve user experience for Customization UI and Disassemble UI
Fix massive FPS drop when pushing many edge buildings with roads
Reduce time where lighting has low contrast during dawn and dusk time of day transitions
Fix wrong description being shown for Taverns and BirdCageBars
Fix wrong enemy name being used in update feed when destroying enemies
Fix recently destroyed bullets not updating its rebuild button when workers become available
Thanks,
The Wandering Band
Hi Everyone,
It's time for the Steam Awards! We would love to have your nomination in the Sit Back and Relax category. This seemed to be the best fit for a little indie city-builder like ours and we'd really appreciate your nomination, even if we don't win it helps our game a lot.
In the spirit of sitting back and relaxing we are going to release our new Creative Mode update in the first week of December! We are still hard at work on other updates as well, including finishing up the main storyline! More updates very soon!
Thanks,
The Wandering Band
Fix applying customization to all after loading removing Theme from every building
Fix low flashing light checkbox not working in settings
About
This page aggregates Steam news feeds, patch notes, and developer announcements for Airborne Empire, sourced from official Steam community posts.
Major updates, balance changes, and seasonal events often correlate with player-count spikes — cross-reference announcements here with the live charts on the main Airborne Empire statistics page.
Articles link back to Steam for full changelogs. SteamScope refreshes news entries as new posts are published to the game's Steam hub.