When it comes to the current boomer shooter scene, and really any movement that preys on nostalgia, a lot of the projects that come out tend to label themselves as a retro throwback made to emulate the feel of those old games people enjoyed, but oftentimes that is where they stop. Some choose to wear the guise of an older game in order to subvert expectations and do something new, while others settle with simple imitation of the classics; sadly the latter is more common than the former. Games like Prodeus, Warhammer 40k: Boltgun, and Slayers X, while having merit in somethings, ultimately just feel like hollow echoes of their influences. Ion Fury, at first, looks like it is going to be in a similar situation; a game that is trying emulate the likes of the Build Engine trinity, with Shelly Bombshell formerly being a Duke Nukem character, and the fact that the game is actually built in a heavily modified version of the original Build Engine. But, throughout the game's run time, it slowly unveils itself as something more; it is a direct evolution and improvement over its inspirations, it keeps the same feel but without the clunkiness and outdated design tropes.

The importance of the Build Engine games, that being Duke Nukem 3D, Blood, and Shadow Warrior, was their intricacy. The levels that make the worlds that these games take place in had a level of detail and openness that other FPS games just didn’t have; Duke Nukem’s levels were chalked full of air vents that acted as alternate routes and consumable items, like jet packs and steroids, that could lead to complete sequence breaks and level skips if used properly. Blood also had this, but added onto it with much more in depth combat and brutal combat, asking the player not just to aim and shoot, but to actively engage with the 3D environment by using crouch and jump to dodge fire, rather than just finding cover. In a modern context, these innovations aren’t anything unique, they have been integrated into the standards of game design, and as such, are just expected. This is the trapping that the boomer shooters mentioned earlier fall into, they replicate the innovation without improvement, creating a flat circle of design. Ion Fury sets itself apart by going beyond this; it uses the design tropes set up by its forefathers and fully explores them. Levels don’t just have one or two ways to approach, they have a hundred; there could be two different sets of air vents that lead to different positions that flank a group of enemies, there could be an explosive wall that kills the enemies on the other side, there could be a series of banisters or edges that can be jumped across in order to gain the high ground, and so on and so forth. Once the first one of these alternate routes is found, the player's brain starts to seek them out and begins to notice more of them as the game progresses; it keeps the player engaged and gives them a sense of freedom in a linearly structured game. It's not just the physical level geometry that keeps the player engaged, the way the enemies and the player interact also has a level of depth to them not seen in other games. The most blunt example of this is how the robot headcrab enemies overload and explode when hit with the electric baton, offering an ammo free alternative to taking out these smaller enemies. My favorite though is the centipede enemies; these guys break apart into shorter and shorter versions of themselves if you hit their body, but will die in one go if you get a perfect headshot, encouraging the player to slow down for a second so that the encounter won’t get out of hand. Additionally, much like blood before it, the enemies that fire projectiles, particularly the grenade grunts and bow grunts, really keep the player on their toes. If the player just runs around standing straight up like they would in any other game, the will get blown to bits; but, if they utilize the crouch and jump as not just platforming mechanics, but also ways to juke out enemies, these types of enemies become some of the easiest in the game. But, of course, these enemies wouldn’t be nearly as fun to fight if the arsenal of weapons wasn’t up to snuff, and they very much are.

I really appreciate the balancing and utility of the weapons in Ion Fury. Most FPS games that feature weapons with alternate fire mechanics make the mistake of either making the alt fires way too good, to the point that they overshadow the base fire, or they are way too gimmicky and not worth using. Ion Fury strikes the perfect balance between these two sides by having the alt fires be not too drastically different from the base fires, but different enough to where scenarios in which one would be better than the other can be differentiated. The Ion Bow is the weapon that I think first demonstrates this. The single bolt base fire is great for taking out the group of enemies right before the first boss because of how precise it is, giving clean head shots to all the singular enemies in that wave. But, the overload alt fire where it shoots out dozens of groups of bolts in quick succession proves to be extremely useful for both the boss and its accompanying flying drones that move sporadically. My favorite weapon in the game, the bowling bombs, do a similar thing, just on a much more subtle scale. The alt fire acts like a traditional grenade, Shelly lights the wick and lobs it in a general direction, and then it explodes, badabing badaboom, simple and reliant. But the base fire is a bit more tricky; it can either be rolled along the ground immediately to hit long range targets, or held a bit longer to activate a homing feature that can hit enemies from around corners, making it an extremely versatile weapon. The only weapon that doesn’t really fit this mold is the Loverboy, the starting pistol. The Loverboy’s alt fire lets Shelly pull a Clint Eastwood and auto headshot up to three enemies at a time, which is objectively better than its single shot base fire. Although, I think this is fine because it is the starting pistol, and it grants it relevance even into the final level of the game; as well it's not the easiest thing to get the hang of, so there is a bit of a skill gap. All the other weapons are great too, I just don’t really want to mention all of them here. That being said though, there are a couple of gripes I have with Ion Fury, but they are mostly to do with the porting job to the Nintendo Switch.

As mentioned, the version of this game that I played was the port released for the switch back in 2020, this is the version I bought years ago when it first came out, and I didn’t feel like buying it again on Steam or Xbox. This port of the game is pretty good all things considered; the frame rate does dip, and sometimes slows to a crawl, when big explosions happen or lots of enemies are on screen, but these instances are few and far between. My main issues come in the form of accessibility and options, there are very few of them. Firstly, there is no button mapping, just two alternate control methods, which is better than nothing, but these alternate options don’t change the things I wanted. The game has bumper jumper set to the right bumper and makes the player use the D-pad to toggle between weapons. The first of these is an issue because it means the player can not shoot and jump at the same time, which I am used to as a console FPS fan, but it still sucks regardless as it was so close to being functional, it just needed to be moved to the left bumper. The second issue is bad because having weapon selection mapped to the D-pad means that the player can't move and select weapons at the same time, which is a big issue. The game tries to mitigate this by having the shotgun’s grenade alt fire be a shortcut to the other side of the selection wheel, but I would have rather had a proper weapon wheel like in Dusk or Doom Eternal. Additionally, the games draw distance can be a little low, leaving things far off in the distance hard to see, this is only really bad in some of the levels set in the open streets or subway tunnels, otherwise it is not that big of a deal.

Ion Fury stands proud as one of the originators of this boomer shooter phenomena, standing alongside both Dusk and Amid Evil. It is a prime example of how to take what was set up by its influences, and improve upon them in order to unleash the full potential of those ideas. As this new genre continues to grow, and more and more games come out that simply want to be like the classics and nothing more, I hope more games look to what Ion Fury has done, to see how to properly create a meaningful homage to the past.

Extremely fun build-engine FPS.

A ridiculous but really fun and punchy arsenal (I'm pretty sure dual-wielding SMGs that shoot burning flechettes is a violation against the Geneva conventions somewhere), really good level-design featuring a ton of secrets, and fast shooter action.

If you liked Blood or Duke Nukem for their action, I wholeheartedly recommend this game. Be warned, however, that the levels in this game are significantly longer.

An impressive modern take on the classic Build games of yonder; of course, the game advertises itself as being made on the classic engine too. I Was impressed with how far they took the old game code pile. Maybe my only issues were a slightly small weapon arsenal and honestly too many secrets. Like there are actually so many secrets I just had to accept that I'd find what I did and be fine with a low percentage. Otherwise, I got everything I expected out of it, in a good way, an easy classic FPS recommend.

I'm sorry to offend people over the age of 30 but this game is MID. The movement and gun play is fine but HOLY FUCK GIVE ME MORE. I understand this game was built on a really old engine but bro. The music is mid. (cardinal sin for a video game) The title is mid. The art style is mid AT BEST; the environments can look nice but the enemies and weapons ARE MID. The writing is worse than mid, it's just BAD. I understand you're not supposed to take it TOO seriously but I can literally tell this game was written by horny nerds. (a bad thing) And to top all of this off, the latter half of the game is WAY too fucking long and unfocused. So many rooms and routes where I'm like, why does this exist? I actually liked the last boss because I just got to shoot shit and not worry about collecting the third keycard of the stage! Don't think I'll ever play this game again fr.

Sewer Levels are the evil twin of Train Levels, please stop making them.

Solid Boomer Shooter. One i think mostly improves upon the games it's inspired by. I have always thought the Build-engine games looked like ass, but it does it's damnedest to make it look nice. And this also feels much more satisfying to play. The shotgun is fantastic. It has a nice rhythm.

The trade-off i guess is it personality, it feels somewhat more generic than Blood or Duke ever did. It still also keeps some of the flaws those games had, like overly big levels, the annoying tiny enemy type and bullet-sponge boss fights. None of it a deal breaker and i did overall like it.

Best modern indie retro FPS, hands down.

Part of that is my Build engine bias speaking, no doubt, but I'll never pass up an opportunity to replay this.

The levels are technical marvels that still wow me years later and the gunplay and weapons are slick as hell. I still love this game's cyberpunk atmosphere too. Not as over-the-top like Turbo Overkill as an example, but grounded with some minor comical elements, akin to the 80s Sci-Fi it's inspired by. All that's missing is a bigger modding scene but even then, this is still one of my all-time favorites.

TLDR: The levels are perfect but the actual shooting and weapons feel bland to me.

OK, I feel actually bad for giving this game my rating. Because I absolutely love that this game is built in the Build Engine and it's levels are just amazing, with crazy hard secrets to find and extremely detailed little extras everywhere.

My core problem which made me abandon this boomer shooter: The shooting just doesn't feel good to me. And when the shooting doesn't feel good even amazing levels can't fix it.

Hit feedback doesn't feel as good as it should. The majority of weapons feel bland or useless (Clusterpucks are a great example for that). And the main weapons I used (revolver, shotgun/grenade launcher and SMGs) just do not carry the "oomph" I would like them to. I understand that not every hit feedback can be as good as my beloved Cultic, but even in a "simple" boomer shooter like Dusk it feels way way better to actually hit stuff than here in Ion Fury.
I don't need crazy weapons in my boomer shooters. I don't even need a BFG type. The before mentioned Cultic has very standard weapons too, but in Cultic landing headshots even with the bare bones pistol feels absolutely amazing, whereas in Ion Fury it's just "ok".

Also I absolutely hate the spider enemies, because they are just annoying.

But still huge respect for developing this in the Build engine. And as always plus points for releasing this game on GOG without DRM.

I think this may be my new favorite retro shooter.

I love everything about this game, the art, weapons, levels and sfx, etc. Everything is so tight and refined, I feel like this game really is the peak of Build Engine. (This or Blood. It's hard to decide which one I like more lol)

Unlike a common issue in a lot of boomer shooters, there wasn't really any low points within this game I feel, like the entire playthrough I was completely engaged and had so much fun.

Kickass! I don't play a lot of DOOM clones, but I always have a good time when I do. Ion Fury is definitely pretty late of a DOOM clone, but it gets a lot of that innate appeal. Dodge and weave, keep peppering the enemy, gore and gib 'em.

Duke Nukem 3D is admittedly a blind spot for me when it comes to DOOM clones (most of my Duke Nukem exposure comes from Manhattan Project and the first third of Forever), so any particular nuance with how the Build engine contrasts with the DOOM engine is lost on me, at least for now. Broadly speaking, levels are HUUUUUUGE compared to what I'm used to - I'm honestly reminded of Sonic Robo Blast 2 first and foremost, at least with respect to how long you spend navigating a particular level. I imagine things get paired down a lot once you memorize certain levels, but even so...

The main thing I find myself impressed by here is weapon variety. When I play DOOM, I tend to fall into almost exclusively using the Shotgun (or Super Shotgun, in DOOM II). Sometimes the Chaingun gets its due if I'm low on Shells, Rockets get their play when I'm fighting a boss, and sometimes fists come up if I'm berzerking - but it's mostly the shotgun's show. In Ion Fury, there's a good amount of forced variety at play. The Disperser tended to be my go-to weapon out of habit, but there's enough of an ammo restriction that I'd have to be comfortable switching to the Penetrator(s). The Loverboy got quite a bit of use, too. Specific enemies would also be easiest to solve with the Electrifier or the Ion Bow, and the Chain Gun and Bowling Bombs made for good switch-up options. The only one I never got comfortable with was the Cluster Puck (heh), largely owing to how little I use Trap Mines in these sorts of games. But it made for a decent alternative grenade.

By contrast, I didn't think enemy variety was great. We're definitely skewing closer to the first over the second DOOM here, where a small suite of enemies carry very specific functions, and you just have to get used to gunning down the same cybernetic cultists rhe whole game. Not a huge deal, the first DOOM did fine, but don't expect a ton of new foes until, like, pretty late into the campaign.

The level pacing is also pretty front-loaded, where the first four zones have 5 levels apiece while the latter three zones... don't. Speeding up towards the finale works fine enough for a game of this length, but I sorta felt like the developers were hurrying along to get to the end, too, after that big climactic fight with the helicopter. Especially since "Countryside Carnage" and "Ordinary Laboratory" are completely missing bosses. I know part of that is that the devs really wanted to use demo level "Heskel's House of Horrors", and it's so much of a non sequitur that it must've been hard to sequence in as anything besides a capstone, but like it's pretty noticeable. Not bad, just kinda funny.

Good, good game all around, though. I definitely think the final fight against Heskel is one of the first times I've been suitably impressed by the final boss in one of these (DOOM and DOOM II are great, but I don't love the Spider Mastermind or the Icon of Sin). Honestly just cool to see that there's a market for this type of game/development in modern day.

P.S. - I get why they had to change it, but I'll forever bemoan the fact that they couldn't call this game "Ion Maiden". Woulda been perfect.

One of my new favorite Boomer Shooters of the modern era.

Ion Fury is a game that I have heard a lot of great things about over the years, but I never actually got around to trying out. I honestly thought the hype around this game was going to be overblown, but it turns out I was completely wrong. This game absolutely owns and it proves that the Build Engine is the undisputed GOAT of FPS games.

I think the biggest things this game gets right are its guns, enemies, and aesthetics. Every weapon has its niche, and there was never a point where I felt that I was underutilizing a certain weapon. Bowling Bombs and the Disperser especially were 2 of the most fun weapons in the game, and some of my new favorites in the entire genre. The enemies also all felt incredibly unique, and other than the little head spiders, none of them were particularly annoying.

The visuals are a particular high point, as the art direction shows that the Build Engine still has incredible potential when it comes to its graphical capabilites. Most levels were a joy to look at, with a lot of little details that stood out and made the whole experience feel so lively. That, and also the great performance from Shelly.

My issues mainly come from the fact that I feel the game loses a lot of steam in its last 3 episodes. There are some absolute winner levels in there, a standout being Eskel's Estate in my opinion, however the levels begin to start dragging on and on without stopping. The last few levels all have their own individual loading zones in them, which make them feel like they will never end. Add in one of the worst clusterfucks of a final boss I have seen in an FPS in a while, and you have a game that tragically doesnt stick the landing.

Even with its bleh final episodes, Ion Fury absolutely deserves its reputation of being a fantastic modern Boomer Shooter. I really hope Phantom Fury is just as good as this, but from what I have seen of the demo, vibes are at an all time low.

Can't wait to play Aftershock tho. I need my Sherry fix.