Post-Impact Earth does not suffer many to live on the surface: only the mutants can survive in the dense, orange haze that seeps and spreads from Ground Zero, in Antarctica. Whether the meteor brought the mysterious hot catalyst with it or simply thawed it is unclear and unimportant. The world's remaining superpowers wage war over the rights to Antarctican airspace and the freedom to purchase this ore from the mutant miners below.
You are the mutant miners. You dig, you sell, you dig... while you collect and repair the bullet-ridden wreckage that falls from above the haze. After all, you don't plan to stay down here forever.
Heirs to the Air is a resource-management game in which every load of ore that you sell to the first-world factions overhead puts you one step closer to building your own dirigible fleets so you can fight for control of the 12 territories. On the other hand, every load of ore that you sell makes one of the first-world factions stronger.
You will race against your fellow mining factions to assemble an air force, time your ascent, and then try to hang tough. When the final first-world faction is eliminated, the game ends, but beware: you can all lose if a first-world faction runs amok and establishes dominance over Antarctica.
—description from the designer