First Impression: Sky Aces (August 2025 Demo)

Feisty AI and Quality Dogfighting from a Resurging Indie Game

Just a short time ago a scrappy dogfighter has entered the scene. Its developer has been hitting the indie game focused social media accounts hard, making all the right moves to gain exposure. You may have seen it by now as well. Videos of propeller driven warbirds evading missiles while flying beneath floating islands. That was enough for me to happily download the free demo and see what was going on.

At first glance, Sky Aces by Fireruner seems like a quickly put together arena-esque shooter with not too much else going on. My initial perception of it being this way went straight out the window after one particular dogfight. While losing a rate fight, I found the right chance to attempt to zoom climb out of the fight against the fighter with superior maneuverability. As I climbed with a few evasive maneuvers, the pursuing fighter stalled. Unable to follow me, the enemy fighter began to pitch its nose down, only to be strafed by two of my bot teammates before it could fully recover. Tangible energy management? AI teammates taking advantage of a situation? I'm interested.

The demo for Sky Aces was released before the game enters Early Access. The demo is a vertical slice for what the solo indie developer is trying to do with the game. A brief conversation with the dev revealed that they had been working on this game over the past three years as a hobby. After a break with life getting a little busy, they are back to developing Sky Aces and making quite a bit of progress as of roughly a month ago.

This is a straight up dogfighter game pitting teams of up to five people or bots per team against each other. In the demo, single player 5 vs 5 player vs environment is currently available. Player VS player and other PVE modes have been discussed. This game is set to allow for online co-op gameplay with human players working together to shoot down bots on the other side. A nice inclusion to go along with its online PVP experience.

In games that do not have a lot of detailed story or extensive systems outside of combat, the quality of the enemies that players fight takes center stage. On the Steam page, the developer describes their AI units as:

"The AI isn’t just a target dummy. It’s dynamic, aggressive, and responsive. It will adapt to your tactics, pressure you at the worst possible moments, and punish your mistakes all while using real life air to air combat tactics!"

And you know what? Confirmed. The skill level of the friendly and enemy bots is high enough for them to be a nice challenge without being the classic hyper accurate, always perfect sort of way only bots could be. If you provide them with a perfect pursuit position and lazily maneuver, the bots will absolutely dump a few dozen cannon rounds into your aircraft. But actively maneuvering in dogfights with rapidly changing airspeeds, altitudes and directions is effective against the bots.

These are genuine dogfights against enemies that will both gang up on a single aircraft and spread out the fight for multiple 1-on-1 engagements. They will enter rate fights when advantageous while sometimes doing unorthodox maneuvers that seem less than ideal in certain situations. Each battle is different. The bots can both be effective in combat and make mistakes within just a few seconds.

The two aircraft currently in the demo represent different flight styles to a degree. At the most basic level, the Blowgun (right picture, single aircraft) is fast and nimble. Its lightweight makes it easy to perform hit and run tactics with minimal firepower. The Buccaneer (left picture, blue and red aircraft) is an overall heavier fighter with a large concentration of cannons capable of ripping other aircraft to shreds in a second. It is still very maneuverable but with more armor.

As far as damage model goes, while there is no visceral damage showing the aircraft torn apart, they can have specific components damaged and disabled. Engine, cockpit, fuselage, specific wings, etc. Even each onboard machine gun can individually be knocked out due to battle damage. All it takes is one unlucky strafe from an enemy fighter to downgrade your firepower from a burst mass machine to a single barrel hole puncher.

On the subject of weapons, the inclusion of a guided missile in a game full of prop driven warbirds sounds like it would be a massive problem. With no flares or chaff to ward off an incoming missile, it could be game breaking. The balance the developer has struck is to make it so players have one missile per life. Each time players spawn they have a single missile to use and do not get a reload until they are destroyed and respawn again. The missile's maneuverability is low enough that it could be outmaneuvered if players react fast enough. Also, frankly, the audio for the missile's rocket motor is so loud it is a valid warning cue even without a radar warning receiver.

Players that use the missile frequently can learn the best angles and distances to launch it from, being able to one-shot other aircraft when they least expect it. Landing a well-placed missile shot into an ongoing furball is a fine opening blow.

As deadly as a hail of bullets are, I was definitely defeated by the ground just as much as I was by the enemy. Why? Over speeding my aircraft to the point of aerodynamic compressibility. Losing significant flight control input while screaming nose down at the ground at high speed. Only bringing the throttle back to idle and deploying a speed brake if available can possibly help recover. Even in high altitude air battles, diving to escape is something that needs to be done carefully. The bots are exposed to this danger as well and they do fall into it. Sometimes crashing into hills or being stuck flying in a relatively straight line while deaccelerating, making them vulnerable to attack. In an arcade leaning title like this, having a flight sim lite style restriction towards not flying everywhere at maximum throttle with no penalty is refreshing.

The quick gameplay style, frequent deaths, fast respawns and engaging bite sized dogfights have been a good experience in the current flurry of development for Sky Aces. Its developer, Fireruner, has also been actively engaged in feedback with players in Steam discussions, the recently made Discord server and social media.

I look forward to trying out the multiplayer game modes with a few friends in later versions of the demo to get a better feel for what this game could look like in the long-term. This article will most likely be updated in the near future with information about the multiplayer experience.

Connect with 'Sky Aces'

• Discord

• Steam

• X.com

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About the Writer

Aaron "Ribbon-Blue" Mendoza

Co-founder of Skyward Flight Media. After founding Electrosphere.info, the first English Ace Combat database, he has been involved in creating flight game-related websites, communities, and events since 2005. He explores past and present flight games and simulators with his extensive collection of game consoles and computers. [Read Staff Profile]