- Update 2.0.0 - We're back! - 25 April 2026
After a very long silence… Sky Knights is getting a major update.It’s honestly a bit surreal to write this. The last update was over 5 years ago. A lot has happened since then—both for the game and for me personally. I’m now a father of two (7 and 3), and I’ve been working full-time in other game dev roles. Sky Knights has always been a passion project on the side, and while I never stopped caring about it, life simply took priority for a while.But I never considered the game “done” in spirit.Technically, it’s still in Early Access. Not because it lacks content—if anything, it has long since delivered on everything I originally set out to do (and then some). The reason I’ve held off on leaving Early Access has mostly been practical. There have been occasional discussions with publishers over the years, and keeping that “full release button” unpressed felt like keeping options open.At th…
- Update 1.9.3 Eyecandy Update - 2 April 2021
Polish! In preparation for an upcoming full release, it was time to polish some of the smaller stuff in there. The minimap now looks considerably sharper, the missiles have new exhaust particle effects as well as some other minor improvements. Take nice screenshots in offline mode When running the game in offline mode (Profile -> Log out -> Offline Mode) you can now pause the game with ctrl+alt+P. Try starting a 4 vs 4 game with yourself as a spectator. Let the bots take off and merge, then pause the game. Use the free camera mode and press ctrl+alt+U to remove the HUD as well. You are all set up to take amazing screenshots, where you can put the camera anywhere you want! If you create something nice, please share it with us in Discord! Simple Water It turned out that the new water used in the Turning Tides map was a bit heavy on low end computers. I added an option where you can disabl…
- 1.9.0 New Map: Turning Tides - 16 February 2021
New Map! It's ice cold winter here in Sweden, and despite what they say about viking blood, I can't say I really particularly enjoy it. Luckily this new Sky Knights map takes us to the sunny Caribbean. Sun, beaches, yachts, umbrella drinks... and a rain of 1000 lbs bombs! This map features a rather unorthodox layout, with isolated islands and short distances between the opposing center FOBs, and a final backline one very close to the home base. Ships! During play testing, it got apparent that the vast seas were a little empty at first. Our awesome Patreon heroes talked me into investigating if adding some kind of ships would work, and I'm happy they did! Light corvette class ships spawn on both sides and can inflict heavy damage to FOBs if left unopposed. When attacking them, watch out for their machine guns! Patreon Don't forget to check out the Sky Knights Patreon page! You can unlock…
- Update 1.8.0 Christmas Challenge - 9 December 2020
Christmas Challenge! Christmas is closing in to round this strange year off. This month we will run a shorter season beginning now and ending in early 2021. Everyone who wins at least 20 pvp matches during this season will unlock an exclusive Desert Camo skin for the Su-27, normally only available to our high tier Patreon supporters. Not sure if a desert skin really fits Christmas, but who cares? It looks badass regardless! Engine upgrade Before this patch, I updated the game engine to a much newer version, in order to ensure the game stays playable on new hardware, let it make use of engine optimizations and make future updates easier to perform. Engine updates are always a little risky, but I hope no game breaking bugs did make it into the build. Just let me know if something seems off, and I'll do my best to fix it. Twitch integration fix The Twitch integration hasn't beeing working…
- Update 1.7.0 Pilot Voices - 28 January 2020
Pilot voices! One of the most iconic things in air combat is pilot lingo. We all love those "Fox 2!" calls before launching a heatseeker towards an enemy tailpipe. In Sky Knights, they have unfortunately been missing. Until now. Five pilot voices have been recorded, with over 200 lines per voice. Whenever your pilot does something of interest (launching a missile, coming in for landing, gets shot down etc) they will trigger a radio callout. Naturally, you will also hear your team mates radio calls. Everything is 100% network synched, so you will all hear the exact same thing, even the same random variation of a certain voice line. Different hi- and lowpass filters have been used to make it easy to distinguish your own pilot's voice from others'. You are free to select any voice and match it with any avatar of matching gender. Comms wheel This patch also brings a related feature to the t…
- Update 1.6.8 Sell Your Upgrades - 4 November 2019
Sell your upgrades! I always wanted to change the Race shop so that you don't have to buy the upgrades every time you made a new attempt on a track. So you kept the upgrades that you had bought between lives. However, I also wanted you to be able to swap them out if you changed your mind. Basically, sell them. With this in place, I played around with the idea of adding it into the main game as well. Only difference is that you'd not get the full refund for them. So if you wanted to change tactics later in a match and no longer needed a certain upgrade, you can at least get a 50% payback when selling it. And when I was at it, I realized how many times I had bought an upgrade, only to realize 3 seconds later that I should have bought something else. To fix this, I also implemented an upgrade refund feature. What this means is that you can sell back upgrades for 100% of the price as long a…
- Update 1.6.7 Weekend Bug Squash - 11 October 2019
Squashing them bugs! In my ambition to keep Sky Knights 100% bug free, it's necessary to sometimes forget about making new stuff and just fix the glitches before they start to add up. This philosophy has paid off resulting in a maintainable code base, very few bugs and less player frustration. This little update features five minor bug fixes which should make the Sky Knights experience even more smooth! Have a great weekend! Oh, I almost forgot, check out the Sky Knights Patreon page! Cool things, like exclusive aircraft skins are waiting for you if you want to become a supporter! https://cdn.steampulse.org/steam/asset?u=https%3A%2F%2Fsteamcdn-a.akamaihd.net%2Fsteamcommunity%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fclans%2F29661056%2Fc785dabb33d03f81f32d9d25551ebce9f5a205c6.png Best regards //Bankler 1.6.7 Fixed bug where minimap vision circles were offset from the aircraft in the Cold Snap level. Fixed bug where aircraft without no radar (A-10 and Su-25) didn't se…
- Update 1.6.6 Advanced Radars - 3 October 2019
New radar implementation! On real military jets, the radar is typically a forward looking thing located in the nose cone. Despite this fact, when I first created Sky Knights I wanted to keep things as simple as possible (I still do, to some extent), hence I implemented the radar "sci-fi style" making it simply cover a circular area around the aircraft. Several players have feedbacked that they would like the radar to be more of a cone (like in real jets). Not only for the sake of realism, but also for the tactical gameplay it would provide, enabling players to stay out of radar coverage and so on. The more I thought of it, the more it made sense. Furthermore, the aircrafts' different radar performance stats would provide an interesting way to make the aircraft even more unique. In this new implementation, there are two separate zones around the aircraft that can locate enemies. The firs…
- Update 1.6.5 New Co-op campaign! - 29 August 2019
https://cdn.steampulse.org/steam/asset?u=https%3A%2F%2Fsteamcdn-a.akamaihd.net%2Fsteamcommunity%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fclans%2F29661056%2Fe1a7a82781692e6584472bcdadc333b682025da9.png New Co-op campaign! Long time Discord veteran, Patron, tech wiz and awesome person Turavis has contributed with a co-op campaign! Actually, he handed me the draft for this months ago, but I admit it was challenging enough for the testing to take a considerable time! I'm hyped to bring you the first user-created content. Thanks a lot for the contribution and your hard work, Turavis. The campaign puts you in the cockpit of Russian jets across several different maps, and is intended to play with one wingman. I warn you though, it's NOT easy! :) Power 100 modification crafting When you craft a new modification using a power 100 raw material, you are now guaranteed to get another type of modification than the one you used for the crafting. Hopefully good news for the high-…
- Update 1.6.4 Winning Streaks - 19 July 2019
https://cdn.steampulse.org/steam/asset?u=https%3A%2F%2Fsteamcdn-a.akamaihd.net%2Fsteamcommunity%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fclans%2F29661056%2F0686c6762ca86346c54e3a8e7f8824bc8909d597.png Winning Streaks! Some players have expressed concern over the time it takes to reach ACE rank during a season. While ACE should of course be something really hard to get, I'm inclined to agree that it has been a little extreme. As a response to the feedback, I've added a Winning Streak feature. What it means is that when you win a match, if you also won the previous one, you'll be rewarded with one extra star. This could potentially cut the number of matches it takes to reach a certain rank in half, but only as long as you're victorious in your battles! Patreon I'm blown away by the response on Patreon. No less than six people have already signed up. I'm very happy for the support! If you also want to support the development and get some cool ingame stuff like custom…
- Update 1.6.3 Skins and Patreon - 13 July 2019
https://cdn.steampulse.org/steam/asset?u=https%3A%2F%2Fsteamcdn-a.akamaihd.net%2Fsteamcommunity%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fclans%2F29661056%2F8c1afa34b51c7bfce9e646244852386b11ed3cdf.png Skins! The tech required for changing the default skin for fancy ones is now in place. This feature is still in limited testing. At this time, there are two ways to unlock skins: 1) A challenge is in place, for this season only, where you can unlock the Viggen Splinter Camo by winning 20 PVP matches. 2) You can also get access to skins by becoming a Patreon. Later down the road, I'll look at adding some other ways to get skins (possibly both paid and non-paid). https://cdn.steampulse.org/steam/asset?u=https%3A%2F%2Fsteamcdn-a.akamaihd.net%2Fsteamcommunity%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fclans%2F29661056%2F2d20a1bb4c89dd4b236fe3bfbb0cf0cede6b4dd9.png Patreon Quite a few players have asked if they can help out financially by donating. While flattered by the offer, I have not accepted any donations so far. I think Patreon however is a fun w…
- Update 1.6.2 Deep Freeze - New co-op campaign! - 24 January 2019
https://cdn.steampulse.org/steam/asset?u=https%3A%2F%2Fsteamcdn-a.akamaihd.net%2Fsteamcommunity%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fclans%2F29661056%2F93b721a6f6d22826bd3795d23d523e1f1cb27ecc.png Defend the Motherland! In this new challenging co-op campaign, you'll take off towards the northern parts of Siberia to defend the Motherland. Grab a friend or two, or three (or pick some people up on Discord) and fly the mighty PACT aircraft like the Su-27 Flanker and the MiG-29 Fulcrum into battle. In this campaign you'll sometimes see a lot more than the usual maximum of 8 aircraft. In the final stage of the campaign, there will be up to 14 aircraft fighting in the skies! It's a bit chaotic but a lot of fun! :) More stuff in the Custom Co-op Match Toolbox! For the mission creators out there, I have added three more attributes that you can change for your co-op mission: StartingUpgrades StartingCredits DisabledObjectiveAAAs Chech out the details about those ones in…
- Update 1.6.1 Create your own co-op levels! - 16 January 2019
https://cdn.steampulse.org/steam/asset?u=https%3A%2F%2Fsteamcdn-a.akamaihd.net%2Fsteamcommunity%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fclans%2F29661056%2F009906439d445bb4ebde0f73f883b269196b010a.png Show us your design! Last update introduced the Co-op game mode, in which you and your friends battle through a campaign of custom rules matches. We're now adding the next layer on this feature, enabling you to create your own custom campaigns, and even share them with other players. If you feel that a campaign you've built is fun to play, there's nothing stopping you from submitting it to us so we can put it in the game for all players to enjoy! If we think the campaign feels good, we'll be happy to put it in there and credit you for it! We might even have little treat for you if you choose to share your campaign with the community! :) How does a cool Campaign Builder Medal that you can wear on your pilot portrait sound? https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity…
- Update 1.6.0 Co-op mode! - 22 December 2018
https://cdn.steampulse.org/steam/asset?u=https%3A%2F%2Fsteamcdn-a.akamaihd.net%2Fsteamcommunity%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fclans%2F29661056%2Ff2e3c7fe9f9f5839056f25782fc6411d7c15c3cd.png New Co-op game mode! This update introduces a new game mode, in which you take on challenges in the form of matches with customized game rules. For instance, in one match you may be restricted to only flying the F-16 in a 2 vs 4 scenario. In another there may be no enemy aircraft at all, but much more ground threats to worry about. The co-op challenges are played on the usual maps, but things like number of FOBs, what aircraft types you may use, ground vehicle spawn rates and lots of other things will change between each co-op challenge. Each challenge has a max player amount (between 2 and 4 depending on the challenge). You can of course play the challenges solo as well (though some of them will be extremely difficult). Each finished co-op challenge rewards the playe…
- Season 17 is starting! Free Wings available! - 6 December 2018
https://cdn.steampulse.org/steam/asset?u=https%3A%2F%2Fsteamcdn-a.akamaihd.net%2Fsteamcommunity%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fclans%2F29661056%2F34e76f9f674d160c0ef6c30fe05992d6ed9ca6ed.png New season! Free Wings! Season 16 is over, and Season 17 (The big Christmas season!) is now starting! Nice flying everyone and big congratulations to the TOP 10! This season we got three player who reached ACE RANK, generating three 50-wing vouchers that any player may use, so be sure to credit them here on Discord! To use them, enter the code under options/redeem. These are the codes: * ACE_JARMEN * ACE_WEW * ACE_TURAVIS (Not valid forever, so jump in and claim them right away!) Season 16 Final Results 1 Jarmen Kell 2 「wew」 3 Turavis 4 Strigon_Actual 5 alumican on the orange 6 TruongBradley 7 Bullet Spongy 8 TorchedForever 9 CoDeViRuS 10 coda777 Update coming soon? Yes! I'm working on a little larger feature this time around, so can't say for sure when it'll be done.…
- Update 1.5.1 Quality of Life and bug fixing! - 6 November 2018
https://cdn.steampulse.org/steam/asset?u=https%3A%2F%2Fsteamcdn-a.akamaihd.net%2Fsteamcommunity%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fclans%2F29661056%2F10868aeb513212a0981e6f958589d3665a530f10.png Uncapped frame rate Since the day of launch, Sky Knights has been locked to 60 FPS. By popular request, I have now provided an option to either set an alternative frame rate cap (25, 30, 60, 80, 120 and 144 is available) or to disable the cap completely. To be clear, we still recommend using the 60 FPS cap. It will let your computer run cooler and more silent since the fans won't have to cool the graphics card as much. Furthermore, most monitors are running at 60 hz anyway. If you're running the game on a low end computer, it might even be a good idea to cap the frame rate at 30 FPS, as it's often a better experience to have 30 solid FPS than having a higher but more inconsistent frame rate. When you're in a match, and enable the options menu, you'll now see a frame r…
- Update 1.5.0 HUD Redesign - 29 October 2018
https://cdn.steampulse.org/steam/asset?u=https%3A%2F%2Fsteamcdn-a.akamaihd.net%2Fsteamcommunity%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fclans%2F29661056%2F07ea4bfcee07637ff0638203dd830f41307f043f.png New HUD This is something I've wanted to take care of for a long time. The original HUD was inspired by a fighter aircraft hud, with bars along the edges, indicating speed and such things. While this certainly made sense, given the theme of the game, it was quite problematic that important elements (such as the health bar and the ammo counters) were located very far from each other. This required the eye to constantly look in different places. The new HUD is more inspired by a classic RTS/MOBA HUD grouping all the important elements in one place. Hopefully this will be much more efficient. Since this is a rather drastic change, and it might take a while before things are perfected, I have provided an option to use the classic HUD until we feel completely confident tha…
- New AAA models - 8 October 2018
https://cdn.steampulse.org/steam/asset?u=https%3A%2F%2Fsteamcdn-a.akamaihd.net%2Fsteamcommunity%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fclans%2F29661056%2F8cbb6658e6c5c953b00ad0d9753fc12a06c6f3db.png New AAA models We've finally put some proper AAA models in there, replacing the old ones. These new ones have rotating turrets and cannons that can tilt upwards. The muzzle flash particle effects should look much better now as well. Go ahead and bomb them, or just casually fly over and enjoy the tickling feeling of 20/23 mm bullets on your belly! Shoutout to awesome artist partner .modernator! Custom game modifications cap Some people have been setting up organized matches on Discord, which is just awesome. There was a request for a feature to limit modification power in these matches, to ensure a completely level playing field. This made a lot of sense, so now, when you start a Custom Game (previously known as Practice Game) you'll have the option to set a power cap…
- Update 1.4.8 Su-17 Fitter - 21 September 2018
https://cdn.steampulse.org/steam/asset?u=https%3A%2F%2Fsteamcdn-a.akamaihd.net%2Fsteamcommunity%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fclans%2F29661056%2Fb583af56c3f3f23bc0dc8314692bab3268891130.png Click for trailer! The Su-17 Fitter The time has finally come for the PACT faction to get a tool comparable with the recently released AJS 37 Viggen. Unlocking it! Finish Race number 4 under the required time. After that is done, you can put the mighty Su-17 in your PACT deck! What can it do? The Su-17 shares many of the strengths and weaknesses with the Viggen. They carry similar loadouts and share the power of being able to quickly getting into enemy territory for a quick airstrike and escape! However, the Su-17 has a unique feature that no other aircraft in Sky Knights has. It can sweep its wings! This changes the aerodynamics in several ways. In general, when you want to go fast, sweep the wings! When you want to turn and dogfight, extend the wings. And don't try…
- Update 1.4.7 Game Balance - 12 September 2018
https://cdn.steampulse.org/steam/asset?u=https%3A%2F%2Fsteamcdn-a.akamaihd.net%2Fsteamcommunity%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fclans%2F29661056%2Fc6abd70c7f0a6e091446ceaa35f138f33af2f81d.png Balance! Tweaks! Fixes! This was meant to be a small update, adressing some minor balance issues. The more I worked on it, and the more I talked to the player base, the more inspired I got to keep polishing things. In the end the change list got pretty big. Thanks a lot for all the great and constructive feedback. I hope you enjoy the changes! Shorter respawn times The increasing respawn times are necessary to make the match end at some point. Sky Knights matches should generally take 10-25 minutes, not longer. However, many player felt that towards the end of the match, it's just too much waiting around. We'll try reducing the respawn time cap by 10 seconds, and the intial respawn time by 5 seconds. Most importantly, I have now put all these number on the server so i…
