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, 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: 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.
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". Developer John Howard has stated that the board game was built to "showcase the Crimson Skies property, with an eye towards expanding on it in other ways".
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 game's relaxed physics as well as its focus on barnstorming 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".
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.