Indie developer The Wandering Band has released its first game in the form of city-builder Airborne Kingdom. Airborne Kingdom takes the core loop of managing resources, city building, and population control to a new level by adding in a unique twist: Players are put in charge of an aerial kingdom that flies above a beautifully crafted world, collecting resources and discovering other kingdoms.
The overall gameplay of Airborne Kingdom follows the basic grind of many other city-building games on the market: Find resources, harvest resources, build new structures, repeat. Where Airborne Kingdom really shines is in its constant need for air flight balance. As players build around the main hub they will need to take into consideration weight distribution and the lift capabilities of their airship - build too much on one side of the kingdom and the whole ship could tumble down. It's an incredibly rewarding experience in symmetry and resourcefulness.
Everything players would expect in a city-building game is present in Airborne Kingdom. Throughout the vast landscape are patches of resources that can be gathered and transformed into better buildings, housing, and monument-style aesthetics. There are also land-based kingdoms that players will need to interact with. These kingdoms can provide shops, more population, and quests that can be completed to create a new ally.
Another strong feature is the research trees involved in the game. There is a constant progression in Airborne Kingdom that makes it hard to put down, and stressing about which research node to work towards next was a common occurrence in the game. Players can focus their kingdom towards better propulsion, increase resource gathering, decreased resource use, population happiness, and much more. It's easy to get lost in all the options but every choice is positive and players will never feel like they went down the wrong path.
Although the lore of Airborne Kingdom seems very deep, the story in-game is a little lackluster. There is a short cinematic at the start of the game and each kingdom provides a small narrative on why help is needed, but nothing truly felt like an overall story. With such a beautiful world to explore it's easy to want more out of the story and Airborne Kingdom just doesn't deliver on anything over the basic premise of "rebuild," one of the few times it comes up short on delivering on its promise.
The visuals in Airborne Kingdom are gorgeous, from the vast grid-based landscape to the constant whirring and motion of the airship itself. Airborne Kingdom really shines with its simplistic style, and traveling across the world felt weighted, in a good way, while discovering new areas of the map was always a treat.
Airborne Kingdom is an excellent game. It doesn't reinvent the wheel, but it takes the classic gameplay loop of city-building, refines it, and throws in some fun new features and beautiful visuals on top of it to create an enjoyable experience. While city-building may not be for every gamer, anyone who loves planning and resource management will find Airborne Kingdom a delight, and it even has potential to sell some newcomers on the genre as a whole thanks to its accessible presentation.
Airborne Kingdom is available on Windows PC. Screen Rant was provided a PC code for the purposes of this review.