Welcome Aboard! What is Kingdoms Ablaze actually about?

Airship 2: Kingdoms Ablaze - Welcome Aboard

TL;DR: We will be ready for playtesting soon. Head over to the Kingdoms Ablaze website to sign up:

https://www.revolution-industry.com/kingdomsablaze

Hey Commanders,

This is the first time we are talking to you directly about Airship 2: Kingdoms Ablaze, and we wanted to make it count.

If you are new here, welcome. If you have been with us since Airship: Kingdoms Adrift, this one is especially for you. Everything below exists because of what you built, broke, and asked for in the first game.

Grab a coffee. There is a lot to cover.

Where we started

Airship: Kingdoms Adrift launched in 2023 as our first game in the Skypunk universe. It featured a roughly 20-hour story about a silent privateer turned Academy agent uncovering a conspiracy at the highest levels of Europa, supported by a sandbox many of you continued playing long after the story ended.

The events at the end of Kingdoms Adrift set the world in motion.

What stayed with us was not only that people completed the story, but what they did afterward. You asked more about the lore of the world and how the game could have delivered it better. You asked for proper modding tools and experimented within those limitations. You wanted a living sky full of life and NPCs with their own agency. Most importantly, you wanted to actively take part in shaping the world and to have reasons to return to Suthseg without simply starting another save file.

Kingdoms Ablaze is our answer.

This is not a reset. It is a direct continuation set three months after the Dreamfall Incident which marked the end of Kingdoms Adrift, with the Commander now branded a war criminal under King Calder’s new reign. At the same time, many of the systems beneath that story have been rebuilt around feedback received from the first game.

This is the largest game we have made, and it exists because you kept telling us what the Skypunk universe could become.

With an improved lighting and asset pipeline, the world is more immersive than ever.

What You Are Getting Into

Five key pillars define Kingdoms Ablaze, and each one was shaped by your feedback from the first game. We certainly have our own vision for the game's direction, but hearing from players helps us better understand our own design; ensuring we implement ideas that genuinely fit the experience, rather than just adding everything.

!! SPOILER ALERT FOR KINGDOMS ADRIFT BEYOND THIS POINT !!

1. A Direct Sequel, Not a Reset

The World You're Returning to

The world of Sphaera still bears the scars of the Great Cataclysm, its remaining lands carved into a distinct vertical hierarchy across three separate altitude belts.

Europa’s skyscape settled into three belts, the rest of the world’s fate is unknown.

The Blue Belt, also known as the Azure Ring, serves as the sovereign domain of the Aecerlian Kingdom and the mana-sensitive Aetherborne lineage.

The Green Belt, or Viridian Ring, is the heart of the New Viridian Republic, leveraging its agricultural abundance and mercantile dominance to maintain a grip on continental influence.

The Grey Belt, or Silver Ring, houses the Segson Archipelago, a place that has historically endured on the edge of scarcity, where survival is earned through grit alone.

As Kingdoms Adrift concluded, the continent of Europa existed in a fragile truce that provided no path forward for those in the lower altitudes. The catastrophe at Agatha’s hands wasn't the opening salvo of a new conflict, it was the final blow to the diplomatic facade that had been holding the chaos at bay.

Kingdoms Ablaze picks up as the Grey Belt finds its voice, the upper rings prepare for the inevitable, and every major power in Europa reaches its breaking point. Open war is not yet here, but the air is thick with the knowledge that it is coming.

A Fallen Hero in a Fractured Sky

Kingdoms Ablaze begins a year after the Commander first arrived in the Segson Archipelago and three months after the Dreamfall Incident, when Agatha Schwartz dropped an island onto Tonsberg, Jomsland.

An in-game rendering of the aftermath.

The Silberblum Trading Company, the Segson Standard Company, and the Commander personally have all been blamed for the disaster. Suthseg has fallen into political paralysis following the assassination of its king, and the Commander and crew have been arrested for collusion.

Once celebrated as heroes, you now stand trial as conspirators.

Jean and Minerva, having already escaped their trial, arrange your breakout with help from friends and several mysterious benefactors. Clearing your name through the courts is no longer an option - you must reclaim it through your actions.

The campaign focuses on redemption, rebellion, and the cost of loyalty. It is shorter and more focused than Kingdoms Adrift, offering a 10-plus-hour story designed to respond to your choices rather than guide you through another 20-hour epic.

Can our fallen heroes make a return, and what must they sacrifice?

Jean and Minerva: Familiar Faces and New Stakes

Kingdoms Ablaze features a relationship system. The Commander begins fully bonded with Jean and Minerva, your close companions from Kingdoms Adrift. Both serve as the game’s two main narrative anchors, but they disagree on what should happen next.

Your choices affect your relationships with NPCs and the world around you.

Jean represents reclamation: rebuilding your standing, restoring what was lost, and clearing your name port by port, faction by faction.

Minerva represents retribution: ensuring the people responsible for your downfall do not escape consequences.

Neither path is presented as the "correct" one. Your dialogue, relationships, faction choices, and campaign decisions determine the balance between them; some opportunities will open while others may close permanently.

Some returning characters carry a relationship bias based on your shared history, but most of the wider cast begins at zero. You are meeting the archipelago as a fugitive rather than the celebrated privateer who first arrived there.

Your former status is no longer guaranteed. You must rebuild it; or choose not to.

How the Story is Told

Kingdoms Ablaze retains the persistent third-person perspective, this time featuring a customizable Commander portrait and deeper character customization.

The flagship remains the focus of the presentation, just as in Kingdoms Adrift; there is no on-foot character movement.

Your command vessel remains the center of attention during conversations, story scenes, and ship transfers. The fantasy remains that of a fleet commander, not an adventurer who happens to own a ship.

Your flagship is always the center of attention.

The camera adapts dynamically to different activities. Travel and exploration feature Navigation mode and the archipelago map to help you read distance, scale, and direction. Combat seamlessly merges the camera and targeting with Close-Up and Binocular views, helping you monitor firing arcs and incoming threats without losing control.

The experience is designed around controllers first, with mouse and keyboard following the same control logic; ensuring it feels equally natural whether playing at a desk or from a couch.

Playing at Your Own Pace

Kingdoms Ablaze is built for sessions ranging from roughly one to six hours. More importantly, the game is structured so you can accomplish something meaningful within about ten minutes, even during your first sessions.

This requirement shaped quests, travel, encounters, and campaign management from the beginning. Whether you have twenty minutes or an entire evening, the game should give you something worthwhile to complete.

2. A Sandbox Built to Be Lived In

Not Just a Map, but a Simulation

The Segson Archipelago is not a static collection of destinations. Its 70 ports participate in a living economy. What you find at a port depends on its owner, prosperity, classification, local conditions, and your own history there.

We are still in the Segson Archipelago; however, the situation is very different.

Ports belong to four broad categories:

• Major ports and city hubs serve as faction capitals and trade centers, with complete facilities, larger resource pools, and diverse goods.

• Minor ports and trading posts run specialized economies based on what they produce or trade best.

• Outposts and waystations offer a strong military presence and procurement quests, but rarely share much beyond fuel, emergency repairs, and basic support.

• Hidden/Temporary landing sites remain outside the standard map until discovered through exploration or quests. Some provide services that legitimate settlements will not offer.

What You Do in a Port

Each port provides a selection of facilities scaled to its size.

• The Harbour Office handles fleet organization, ship refitting, and ship trading.

• The Trading Hub handles goods, equipment, crew, and warehousing.

• The Offices Square allows you to purchase property and operate businesses.

• The Community Plaza contains notable characters, quests, and contracts.

• The Governance Office displays political and economic information while supporting faction management.

• The Garrison or Fort Office shows the settlement’s military position and allows you to contribute ships to local defense.

Trading with settlements remains at the core of the experience.

A port is therefore more than a shop. It is an economic and political location whose condition matters every time you arrive.

Docking in

Approaching a port reveals its classification, ownership, access status, capacity, and hostility level.

Your first arrival triggers a discovery event and permanently adds the port to your fast travel registry. Later visits take you directly to the port overview.

When approaching a location that does not welcome you, the game warns you before docking. Depending on the situation, you may choose how to gain entry or turn away.

A World With a Pulse

Every port tracks prosperity separately from faction control. Prosperity responds to trade, quests, criminal activity, local events, and the ruling faction’s relationship with the player.

A struggling port may lose services and trade capability. A prosperous one can provide better protection, stock, and support.

Ports can also experience temporary or permanent events. A blockade may restrict access. A market day may increase trade volume. A crisis may raise prices and reduce services.

These events are not waiting for you to activate them. The archipelago continues operating whether you are present or not.

Join large fleet battles alongside allies and build relationships with various factions.

Factions With Their Own Agendas

Relationships between factions use four states: Tension, Neutral, Friendly, and Alliance.

These relationships shift through rivalry and accumulated world events, not just through your actions.

Your personal standing is tracked separately for each faction across all levels, from Hostile to Allied. Supporting one faction can damage your reputation with another, especially in contested regions.

You begin as Hostile or Unfriendly with groups involved in the Dreamfall fallout. Recovering from that position is a core part of the story rather than a temporary inconvenience.

Improved standing unlocks faction ships, equipment, better commercial terms, and quests unavailable to outsiders.

Because the Segson Archipelago remains united under the Kingdom of Suthseg, territory cannot change hands. Factions, however, try their best to stabilize their holdings while doing everything they can to weaken rivals. Sometimes, when tensions run high, they might even team up to sabotage the dominant faction.

Reading the Political Map

A political overlay shows faction territory, patrol zones, and contested regions. It updates after each weekly simulation cycle.

Trusted and Allied factions may also share intelligence, including patrol activity in places you have visited, contested region status, and notable fleet movements. This information reflects what an actual partner might tell you rather than providing unrestricted knowledge of the entire world.

A world event feed highlights major developments such as settlement blockades, shifting alliances, and fleet engagements. Nearby events receive greater prominence, while distant events remain less intrusive.

Quests From the World

Quest availability depends on faction standing, character relationships, previous decisions, and current world conditions.

Quest givers belong to specific factions and locations, and they maintain their own individual relationships with you. A port where you are trusted will therefore offer very different opportunities from one where you are barely tolerated.

Quests reflect the real needs of ports and help improve local conditions such as stability and prosperity. For example, an unstable settlement plagued by pirate hideouts might ask you to seek out and clear them, while a prosperous, stable port might request protection from faction rivals or ask you to undermine a competitor's strength.

Earn a living through diverse quests and gatherable resources as you travel the world.

Time, Weather, and Travel

During travel and campaign management, one in game day lasts roughly ten real world minutes. Battles run at a true one to one pace.

Day, night, and dynamic weather affect visibility, ship performance, and encounters rather than serving only as visual changes.

The main story remains focused on the Segson Archipelago because the Commander and companions have reasons to stay and repair the damage there. The option will later open routes beyond the archipelago and allow you to influence the wider continent.

3. Ships Worth Obsessing Over

Rebuilding the Fitting System

Ship fitting was the part of Kingdoms Adrift that players explored most deeply, so Kingdoms Ablaze rebuilds it from the foundation.

Every ship begins with an airframe, which determines size, class, grid capacity, and compartment arrangement. The airframe cannot be replaced during refitting. Instead, you decide how to use the space and structure it provides.

Most airframes have several variants with different compartment arrangements or faction identities. This is how the game reaches more than 50 variants across 25 ship families.

Familiar airframes return, along with their variants and a few new surprises.

Compartment Based Fitting

Ships contain four primary compartment types.

• External compartments carry weapons. Each has a firing arc determined by its physical position, ranging from narrow fixed batteries to wide turret arcs.

• Internal compartments contain shields, powerplants, command systems, repair stations, and crew quarters. These systems often determine whether a ship survives more than another weapon would.

• Drive compartments control thrust, torque, mana handling, and movement. Factions approach drives differently. Aecerlian vessels emphasize maneuverability and wind angles. New Viridian vessels focus on speed and tailwind efficiency. Teutonic vessels specialize in lateral movement.

• Hull compartments form the ship’s protective shell. Large ships divide the hull into separate zones, allowing the bow or stern to be disabled independently.

• Storage and armor are part categories rather than dedicated compartment types. They can be installed throughout the ship, meaning cargo capacity and protection compete directly with weapons, drives, and other equipment.

Every decision consumes limited space.

Ships now feature a centralized integrity pool that depletes once damage breaks through shield and armor protection. When this integrity is depleted, the ship is destroyed. Alternative disabling methods are also available if your goal is to capture a vessel.

Firing arcs are now tied to compartments, allowing overlapping layers for more complex layouts.

Parts and Purchasing

Parts have specific compartment requirements; each part consumes one compartment slot, while grid costs vary. Other factors to manage include weight (which slows the ship down), power consumption or production, crew demands, and specific performance effects.

When editing a compartment, the fitting interface displays compatible parts from your fleet cargo, personal warehouse, and the local merchant.

The merchant stock shows prices upfront. You can test parts before purchasing them, and all purchases are settled together when you complete the fitting session.

Firing Chains and Subsystems

Weapons can be organized into numbered firing chains and switched during combat. A ship might separate its heavy broadside, long range guns, and point defense weapons rather than firing everything simultaneously.

Ships also have subsystem controls for navigation, power policy, shields, crew behavior, repairs, and other functions.

Some subsystems are universal. Others come from factions, doctrines, or installed equipment. This allows faction identity to affect how a ship operates rather than only how it looks.

Multiple subsystem presets can be saved for each ship. You might create one configuration for battle and another for travel, then switch between them when needed.

Deep Physics, Simple Stats

Ship performance is calculated using underlying physical values like force, mass, and drag, but you are shown clear, practical results.

Speed appears as a simple, readable number. Installing a drive directly shows how the ship’s actual top speed or turning performance will change, rather than requiring you to interpret raw thrust values.

The simulation underneath remains deep, while the information presented stays accessible.

Damage and Survival

Damage passes through several defensive layers.

Mana Shields serve as the first line of defense. They form the outermost layer and block most incoming attacks, but they consume significant power and require time to reboot after failing.

Armor protects the frame and the compartments behind it. As armor integrity falls, direct damage becomes more likely to penetrate. Fortunately, armor is easier to patch up during battle using emergency repair.

Different armor types provide various forms of protection—such as flat reduction, percentage reduction, complete negation below a damage threshold, or a cap on damage from single hits. Choosing armor is therefore a tactical decision rather than simply selecting the highest number.

When a compartment reaches zero integrity, it stops functioning. If it is destroyed, the parts inside may be damaged permanently. Over time, damage control crews can restore basic compartment functionality, but full repairs can only be carried out outside of combat.

Every time a compartment loses integrity, the ship also loses overall hull integrity, which is nearly impossible to restore while the ship is at battle stations.

Fleets get larger as their commander gains command experience.

Building a Fleet

The flagship remains your camera anchor and the ship you command directly. Other members of your fleet operate under AI control, influenced by their officers and your direct assignments.

Your main fleet begins with only the flagship you escaped in, then expands through your career progression. Crew members are shared across the fleet, and ships without enough crew suffer performance penalties.

Ships outside your active lineup are kept in reserve—either in tow or, better yet, docked in your port hangars. You can also assign extra ships and officers to form additional fleets once you have access to officers experienced enough to lead them.

These fleets within your personal faction can be tasked with a variety of missions - from supporting a settlement’s supply chain and escorting merchant convoys, to defending settlements and joining expeditionary forces.

4. Companions That Grow With You

One Character System for Everyone

The Commander, officers, faction leaders, captains, and named settlement characters all use the same character profile structure.

Characters do not rely on separate hidden stat systems. Recruiting an officer therefore means gaining someone with a background, history, strengths, and growth potential governed by the same rules as the player.

Profiles contain background and traits, representing fixed identity, and talents, representing practical abilities.

Background comes from three elements:

• Cultural origin determines starting traits, faction biases, and fleet.

• Professional history influences which talents are learned more quickly.

• Aliases are earned through achievements, provide small bonuses, and can later be changed at a cost.

Building Your Commander

At the start of a new game, you choose the Commander’s name, cultural origin, professional history, and starting alias.

These decisions create the starting profile, including traits, talent points, learning biases, and initial circumstances.

You also select a difficulty level, which determines which story achievements are available.

Mastery points can promote unlocked talents to Master status. Each additional mastery costs more than the previous one, making specialization a deliberate decision.

While talent trees are unlocked linearly, specializations allow for unique and diverse character builds.

Five Core Talents

Every character uses five measurable talents.

• Command governs fleet leadership and coordinated combat.

• Piloting covers ship handling, firepower, drives, and evasion.

• Logistics supports larger fleets, cargo capacity, and efficient trade.

• Industry governs resource extraction, processing, salvage, and industrial facilities.

• Mana represents understanding of mana reactive technology and dangerous environmental phenomena.

Mana requires the Aetherborne trait, which the Commander must earn through a particular quest rather than possessing from the beginning.

Each talent has ten levels which can be unlocked linearly at a basic level. However, when it comes to mastery, they are divided into three tiers: five introductory nodes, four stronger nodes requiring earlier investment, and one capstone requiring mastery of at least two second tier nodes.

Talents improve through relevant activities. Command grows from the experience earned by active officers. Piloting grows through combat at the helm. Logistics grows through profitable trade. Industry grows through harvesting, salvage, and construction. Mana grows through studying or creating anomalies after the talent becomes available.

Officers and Crew

The game contains five officer classes and twelve crew classes.

Officers are assigned to individual ships and provide passive bonuses and active abilities. Crew are distributed across the entire fleet, with understaffed ships performing less effectively.

Recruitment depends on relationships. A character’s opinion of the Commander determines whether you may inspect their profile, recruit them, receive a lower recruitment price, improve their experience gain, or pursue romance where available.

Relationships normally stop progressing at a cap until a character is recruited or romanced. Once that bond is established, it becomes protected from the normal relationship decay caused by faction disputes.

A Real Chain of Command

The same character system supports different positions throughout the world.

• Faction Leaders command fleets and normally captain their flagships. The Commander serves as leader of the player faction and can be customized through the faction menu.

• Commanders lead individual fleets and captain their flagships.

• Captains serve aboard ships and influence how those vessels perform in battle.

• Harbourmasters provide logistical bonuses to their settlements.

• Settlement Notables live in ports and may serve narrative, political, or commercial roles.

• Officers form the recruitable pool from which these positions are filled.

NPC factions begin with their own officers and command structures rather than functioning as anonymous lists of ships.

Populating the World

An archetype system generates additional characters according to background, role, strength, and faction. This keeps ports populated with recruitable talent throughout a long campaign.

Some authored characters can exceed normal talent limits and possess signature traits unavailable to ordinary characters. The Commander is one of these exceptional individuals.

5. Built to Be Modded

The Same Pipeline We Use

Kingdoms Adrift could not provide the modding support many players wanted. Kingdoms Ablaze is being structured differently from the beginning.

Every ship, part, faction, character, quest, item, event, port, and dialogue line exists inside a data layer. The base game, official DLC, and community mods all use the same content pack format.

Our designers create content through the same pipeline that will eventually be available to modders. Community creators will therefore work with the same underlying capabilities as our development team rather than a restricted subset.

What Can Be Modified

Creators will be able to work with:

• Airframes and compartment layouts

• Weapons and other parts

• Factions and relationships

• Character archetypes and talent trees

• Quest chains and branching outcomes

• Dialogue

• Trade goods and economic values

• Ports and world data

• Battle parameters

• Audio and visual assets

• Text and localization

• Gameplay tuning values

Engine code, save integrity systems, licensing, and DRM remain protected.

Every object uses a namespaced ID. The base game, DLC, and individual mods occupy separate namespaces, preventing unrelated content from colliding simply because it shares a name.

Mods may add new objects or override existing ones. When several packs change the same object, load order determines the result, and the game explains which pack takes priority.

Authoring Tools

The modding pipeline is planned around four main tools.

The Data Editor provides an interface for ships, parts, characters, quests, economies, and world data.

The Asset Packager bundles visual and audio assets and connects them to data definitions.

The Localization Editor manages string tables, translation imports and exports, and missing text references.

The Pack Bundler combines everything into a distributable package and runs validation before producing the final file.

A pack that fails structural validation cannot be bundled, helping creators identify problems before distribution.

Managing Mods In Game

Kingdoms Ablaze will include a full in game Mod Manager.

Steam Workshop support and mod management will be available starting with the first playtest.

It will list installed packs and show whether they are active, inactive, conflicting, or producing errors. You can adjust load priority, toggle packs without uninstalling them, view dependencies, inspect manifests, and see which content each pack overrides.

Conflicts are explained in ordinary language rather than hidden inside technical logs.

Enabling mods disables achievements.

Welcome Aboard

We are now in full production and targeting a 2027 release.

This post marks the beginning of developing Kingdoms Ablaze more openly with the community that helped shape Kingdoms Adrift.

Three Things You Can Do Now

Wishlist the Game

Wishlisting costs nothing and remains one of the most valuable ways to support us. Every wishlist helps show Steam that more players may be interested in the game.

👉 [Wishlist Airship 2: Kingdoms Ablaze on Steam]

Sign Up for the Playtest

We are inviting you into development early to help test and shape the sandbox, combat, and fitting systems. Places will be limited.

👉 [Sign up for the Kingdoms Ablaze playtest]

Join the Discord

The Revolution Industry Discord is where we share development updates, discuss feedback, and speak directly with the community.

If you played Kingdoms Adrift, come tell us what you want from the sequel. If you are new to the Skypunk universe, come and meet the crew.

👉 [Join the Revolution Industry Discord]

More is coming soon, including ships, officers, and a closer look at the Segson Archipelago.

Thank you for flying with us since 2023.

-The Revolution Industry Team