Unlike traditional shoot 'em ups, in which the direction of the player craft is fixed, Luftrausers allows 360 degrees of motion, more akin to a multidirectional shooter.

Jan Willem Nijman of Vlambeer started Luftrausers while on the airplane home from the March 2012 Game Developers Conference (GDC) in San Francisco.

[10][11][12] Jake Valentine of GameZone gave the PC version nine out of ten, saying, "I could talk more and more about how enjoyable Luftrausers is, how exciting the gameplay is, how easy re-starting the game after death can be, how addicting and exhilarating the experience is, but at the end of the day, you can kill a battleship by flying your plane through it.

"[29] EGMNow gave the PlayStation 3 version nine out of ten, saying, "Hearkening back to a bygone era of simple-yet-deep arcade games where you played for score, not story, Luftrausers takes basic ideas in concept and execution and turns them into hours of challenging, chaotic fun.

[32] PCGamesN gave the same PC version eight out of ten, saying, "Simple in almost all respects, Luftrauser is one of Vlambeer's biggest triumphs because it strips back everything in the name of exposing the fun at the centre of the game.

"[33] USgamer gave the same PC version a score of four out of five, saying, "Vlambeer improves on one of its smaller, free releases with Luftrausers, expanding an excellent dogfighting game with a ton of customization and a great soundtrack.

"[28] Digital Spy gave the same Vita version four stars out of five, saying, "From frustrating beginnings to high-score runs involving nukes and boosts, Luftrausers is a game packed with a surprising amount of depth, infinite replayability, and truly satisfying risk versus reward gameplay.

"[36] However, 411Mania gave the PC version six out of ten, saying that it was "what a modern arcade game ostensibly is: small, bite-sized bits of gameplay that is broken up by countless deaths over and over.