“Steampunk” used to mean something quite specific. But the term has been more and more broadly applied over the years, to the point where it’s now commonly accepted as a shorthand for “sci-fi stuff done with old technology”. A broad premise, you’d think. It should be. But in practice, it almost always boils down to brass and top hats and twee Victoriana, with all the grim colonial baggage of the era swept under the steam-carpet, using a broom with cogs on it. The whole subgenre is stuffed with British – or at least European – cultural cues.
Sometimes, it really works. See the sexy-ugly, heraldry-daubed WWI mechs of Iron Harvest, for example (this is technically Dieselpunk but… c’mon), or the hellish, in-steam-we-trust desperation of Frostpunk. Grand stuff. But for every masterstroke there’s a dozen lazy also-rans, where goggles, corsetry and pith helmets have been applied with abandon, like a sauce that somehow makes a meal taste more bland. In this desert of waxed moustaches, then, coming across a game like Airborne Kingdom, in which the whole concept has been approached with fresh eyes, feels like stumbling upon an oasis.
