Crimson Skies is a tabletop and a video game media franchise created by Jordan Weisman and Dave McCoy, first released as a board game in 1998 and then as a PC game in 2000.

The series' intellectual property is currently owned by Microsoft Corporation through its Xbox Game Studios division. Weisman's former company, Smith & Tinker Inc., had announced in 2007 that it had licensed the electronic entertainment rights to the franchise, but no new titles were developed.

The Crimson Skies trademark was renewed in 2013 by Microsoft for video games, although the trademark for other related media has been abandoned.

The series is set within an alternate history of the 1930s invented by Weisman and McCoy. Within this divergent timeline, the United States has collapsed, and air travel has become the most popular mode of transportation in North America; as a result, air pirates thrive in the world of Crimson Skies. In describing the concept of Crimson Skies, Jordan Weisman stated he wanted to "take the idea of 16th century Caribbean piracy and translate into a 1930s American setting".

Crimson Skies was first conceived as a PC game known as Corsairs!, but was released first as a board game from FASA. The franchise has since expanded to include a collectible miniatures game from Wizkids, a miniature wargame from Ral Partha, as well as a series of books. The series also includes two arcade flight-based video games published by Microsoft Game Studios – Crimson Skies for the PC and Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge for the Xbox. Both games were well received by critics, though only the second was commercially successful.

Crimson Skies is an example of the dieselpunk genre, though it predated the genre name.

Development history

According to series creator Jordan Weisman, the original idea for Crimson Skies came after he had completed research on the early years of aviation; the era and historical characters inspired him to create a game about the period. For their game, Weisman and Dave McCoy settled on a post WWI European setting revolving around the "knights of the air". However, a game with a similar idea came out then; Weisman and McCoy subsequently moved the setting to the U.S. and changed the concept to placing air pirates in a modern setting. From there, they crafted an alternate history to simulate the conditions that gave rise to piracy in the Caribbean in a 1930s setting. Weisman later said about the development of the universe: <blockquote>Whenever I create different universes—MechWarrior, Shadowrun, Crimson Skies—to me, it's all about looking at 'What are the fantasies that excited us when we were 5?' And if we can find a new and more sophisticated way to tap into that fantasy [...] Crimson Skies is just combining two classic male fantasies: You get to be a pirate; you get to be a pilot.</blockquote>

Work on Crimson Skies began under the name Corsairs!. Development started for Virtual World Entertainment, and was later moved to a PC game when Virtual World merged with FASA Corporation. Although the Corsairs! project was shelved, Weisman and a group of FASA employees worked outside of business hours to create the Crimson Skies board game. According to Weisman: "The board game was borne purely out of the fact that I needed to get this universe out of our heads and into the world, and it was the best venue to do so quickly".

When FASA Interactive became a part of Microsoft, Weisman and his team were able to start a new game, and work on the PC version of Crimson Skies began; the game was developed by Zipper Interactive. The game utilizes arcade flight mechanics, focusing on action, as opposed to a realistic portrayal of the physics of flight.

The Xbox game Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge was later developed as a first-party title for Microsoft Game Studios by FASA Studio. Like the previous game, arcade flight elements were incorporated in order to focus gameplay on action instead of flight mechanics. Early in the game's production, developers decided upon a "playable movie" concept, but found that gameplay would be restricted by this approach. Consequently, the game's release date was pushed back by approximately one year to allow the development team time to retool the game. The results of this extra development period include more open-ended gameplay features and Xbox Live support.

After development concluded on High Road to Revenge, the developers moved to work on another Crimson Skies title for Microsoft; development, however, was cancelled shortly into the project. Weisman's latest company, Smith & Tinker, later "licensed from Microsoft the electronic entertainment rights" to Crimson Skies. Although the company has made no formal announcement as to its plans with the franchise,

The resulting nation states that formed were no longer unified—distrust between them strained diplomatic relations to the point that several small-scale wars broke out.

After the dissolution of the United States, the country's interstate railroad and highway systems fell into disrepair or were sabotaged as they crossed hostile borders. Consequently, ground-based vehicles such as the locomotive and automobile were replaced by aircraft such as the airplane and the zeppelin as the leading mode of transportation in North America. Europe soon followed this fascination with aviation to make its own strides into the new, aerially-dominated market. Gangs of air pirates formed in turn to plunder airborne commerce. Although air militias formed to counter the threat, rivalries between the nations of North America reduced their capacity to effectively address this issue, and even encouraged the countries to sponsor pirates as privateers so as to direct their illegal operations against opposing nations. In Europe, privateers and other mercenary groups were widely adopted by nations who wished to avoid another world war, especially in the case of the Spanish Civil War.

By the end of 1937, North America was a "hotbed of conflict", with multiple pirate gangs and air militias battling for control of the skies. Europe was no better, as Germany jockeyed for power while France and Britain looked the other way. The Russian States continued to fight their civil war, which threatened to spill over into the Eastern European nations and Alaska. Asia, too, was on the brink, with Japan's recent invasion of China and the continuation of the bloody civil war in Australia. Although some planes were modeled after actual 1930s era experimental aircraft and other "bizarre and outlandish designs" from the early years of aviation, For example, the Devastator aircraft features a pusher propeller and a biplane design.

Because of the history of the world of Crimson Skies, especially given that the nation states of North America are constantly at war with one another and that air travel is the primary means of transportation, advancements in both aircraft and weaponry technology would have proceeded at a faster pace than had actually happened in the same time period. Radio-controlled rockets are also available in the Crimson Skies universe, which can be controlled remotely after launch.

Other technologies are exclusive to the world of Crimson Skies. Magnetic rockets have the ability to track planes or weapon emplacements over a short distance. Aerial torpedoes are similar to sea-based torpedoes, but are specifically designed to take out airships. The Choker rocket disables the target's engine by bursting into a fireball that burns all oxygen around it. The Tesla cannon is a tesla coil-style weapon that fires a bolt of electricity at a target, disabling it. Also featured in Crimson Skies is the wind turbine, a weather control mechanism designed to generate storms.

Games

FASA board game

The Crimson Skies board game was released by FASA in 1998. The base game came with card stock, assemble-yourself airplanes included, but later metal miniature planes were offered separately. While the focus was on fantasy over fact, many of the planes in Crimson Skies were modeled after real experimental aircraft of the era.

The complex universe of Crimson Skies earned many devoted fans, as dozens of different weapons, planes, nations, air forces, bands of pirates, and characters were all given detailed pasts, and several additional supplemental campaigns were published.

Microsoft PC game

The PC game Crimson Skies was developed by Zipper Interactive and released in 2000. The game's storyline is framed around a radio drama that chronicles the adventures of Nathan Zachary and the Fortune Hunters pirate gang during their rise to fame and fortune. Gameplay centers on the control of one of the game's playable aircraft, which the player can customize with different parts to alter performance. The game's flight mechanics were designed to be a compromise between realistic and arcade flight. The game's focus on barnstorming and relaxed flight physics led GameSpot to comment that "Crimson Skies is very much based on a 'movie reality' where if it's fun and looks good, it works".

Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge

Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge is an Xbox game developed by FASA Studio and released in 2003. The game centers on Nathan Zachary and the Fortune Hunters, in their crusade to avenge the death of a close friend, Dr. Fassenbiender, at the hands of the Die Spinne organization. Developers decided early on in the game's production cycle that the game would not simply be a port of the PC title, and by the end of the development cycle, many of the story elements that linked the game to the PC game had been excised.

Although the game is similar to the PC game in that gameplay centers on controlling an aircraft, a new feature is the ability for the player to switch aircraft or man fixed weapon emplacements during a mission. The game's mission structure also features a number of other open-ended elements that have led to comparisons with the sandbox gameplay of the Grand Theft Auto games. The game additionally boasted a number of online gameplay modes over Xbox Live.

WizKids collectible miniatures game

In 2003, Wizkids released the Crimson Skies collectible miniatures game. The game utilizes collectible figures featuring both planes and pilots from the Crimson Skies universe. These miniatures use WizKids' Clix system, by which a character's or plane's statistics and abilities can be altered during gameplay by way of an adjustable dial located on the base of the figure.

The Crimson Skies miniatures game comprises two separate games, each with its own set of rules. The gameplay in Crimson Skies: Aces revolves around pilots battling each other on the ground, while the gameplay in Crimson Skies: Air Action focuses on dogfighting between squadrons of aircraft. Figures were sold in "squadron packs" and "ace packs", which were formatted in blisterpacks as opposed to the random packaging format used in other Wizkids games.

  • Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, a film that bears stylistic and plot similarities to the Crimson Skies universe.
  • Dark Void, a spiritual successor developed by former FASA Studio members.

Notes and references

  • MIRROR SITE of the Crimson Skies official site