The Steel Empire is a horizontally scrolling shoot ’em up developed by Hot-B and released for the Sega Genesis in 1992, originally launched in Japan under the title Koutetsu Teikoku (literally ‘Empire of Steel’), then brought to North America by Acclaim’s Flying Edge label as The Steel Empire and to Europe under the more literal translation Empire of Steel. Set in a steampunk-inspired alternate world, the game casts players as pilots of propeller-driven biplanes and airships battling an authoritarian steel empire across sky fortresses, zeppelins, and industrial landscapes rendered with an unusually distinctive Victorian-futurist art style for a 16-bit shooter. Beyond its visual identity, the game is also notable for letting players switch their aircraft’s weapon type on the fly and for a scoring system built around destroying specific enemy parts rather than simply clearing the screen, rewarding a more deliberate approach than most contemporary shmups.