Ion Fury

 PC
User Score
7.0

Mixed or average reviews- based on 293 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 190 out of 293
  2. Mixed: 31 out of 293
  3. Negative: 72 out of 293

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  1. mr-NachoMen
    Oct 10, 2019
    7
    Ion Fury is a game that tries to live up from the nostalgia fever that we live today, recreating the classic FPS experience of games from the DOOM era that includes Shadow Warrior, Blood and Duke Nukem 3D... but, at the end the game gets boring after some time playing and a mess.
    I won't deny that the level design is amazing in this game, the level designers really push the Built engine    Ion Fury is a game that tries to live up from the nostalgia fever that we live today, recreating the classic FPS experience of games from the DOOM era that includes Shadow Warrior, Blood and Duke Nukem 3D... but, at the end the game gets boring after some time playing and a mess.
    I won't deny that the level design is amazing in this game, the level designers really push the Built engine to it's limits delivering huge detailed maps, but this is one of it's problems... as the game objectives mostly consist on collecting color keys and activating some switches to progress into the game this huge maps can became a maze at times and collecting this keys became a nightmare getting constantly lost (that is if you have disorientation problems like me). What was really cool from the classic fps that this game imitates was that the levels were small or even huge but well built that was easy to find the keys, the only problem with those games was finding the secret areas, but, this game takes some time to find the keys and even more secret areas which by the way there are many per level.
    The combat really shines being brutal in higher levels just like the old times, it will really push your reactions so you won't get kill, and off course, ammo can be scarce.
    The game does a really bad job into telling you what to do next or were to go.
    Now the games has it's weapon arsenal but, the weapons are not that fun to use except the shotgun, but the rest of the guns you will barely use them (at least i barely use most of them, cause it was better to use the shotgun).
    SO... i'm not saying that the game is bad, but it does not reach the same high as DOOM, specially, the only problem this game really have is it's levels, trying to mix some classic level design with the modern open area of today's level design is not a good mix after all.    … Expand
  2. mentez
    Aug 27, 2019
    7
    Brought back some nice memories. C'mon guys the site is supposed to help other people to make a meaningful decision whether to buy this game or not. All these 0s are completely ridiculous as well as all the 10s. Grow up. It's a decent game with some very good moments, it's not perfect but it's not garbage as well.
  3. eromneva
    Sep 3, 2019
    5
    I really wanted to enjoy this game, but the stuttering became progressively worse until I was unable to continue.
  4. Rajax
    Aug 20, 2019
    7
    The game is good, plain and simple. Truly invokes the classics shooters of 90s while still feeling fresh.

    However, I feel truly bad for the developers who put hours of blood sweat and tears into this title. The incompetent leadership managed to destroy any potential audience for the game do to their poor decisions. The context of the game as well as the comments of certain of members    The game is good, plain and simple. Truly invokes the classics shooters of 90s while still feeling fresh.

    However, I feel truly bad for the developers who put hours of blood sweat and tears into this title. The incompetent leadership managed to destroy any potential audience for the game do to their poor decisions.

    The context of the game as well as the comments of certain of members of staff was such that political sjws decided to crusade the game. At this point that audience is already lost because you're permanently painted an enemy regardless of amends.
    Unfortunately a poor decision to apologize to the bloodthirsty mob and try to force the employees to correct their wrong-think was made. On top of being a gross violation of your staffs freedom of choice I heartily recommend spending your money on a company not run by spineless cowards.    … Expand
  5. MikComposer
    Aug 17, 2019
    6
    It's ok. There's planty of fun to be had. I'd still recommend you to buy it even full price. But I want to see a sequel that expands on the ideas and corrects amateurish mistakes that's plenty. I believe that this one allowed the devs to learn their craft, and I do believe that with money they will make, they can invest in to the sequel, and it is going to be very good. Anyone can see howIt's ok. There's planty of fun to be had. I'd still recommend you to buy it even full price. But I want to see a sequel that expands on the ideas and corrects amateurish mistakes that's plenty. I believe that this one allowed the devs to learn their craft, and I do believe that with money they will make, they can invest in to the sequel, and it is going to be very good. Anyone can see how much potential there is! I like the protagonist and I think she should be even more edgy. Playing it in software renderer and not having openGl issues.

    Pros:
    -Cool 80's-90's anime art style
    -Weapons feel pretty good, some better than others
    -Tracker music
    -Parts of levels are well designed and are interesting

    Cons
    -Ai has a lot of problems
    -Enemy hit scan is relentlessly accurate
    -Too dark to see far away enemies, yet to much color in the visible area makes enemies that are closer hard to differentiate from the environment.
    -Sometimes it can take many seconds before you can realize where the enemies are shooting from.
    -Soundtrack doesn't fit the game and doesn't pull me in to the action, with exception of 3 tracks one of which track that was featured in last years demo which is really really cool.
    -Level design is chaotic and often boring. Open areas are cool but game lacks a lot of the ribbon level design loved by fans of old school fps including myself. It does get better later on but...
    - ... then the ammo problem starts and game really begins to slog. with...
    - ... more and more new types of annoying enemies.
    - There shouldn't be a need to switch between guns and mele. Just make it work like the all mighty foot!    … Expand
  6. sweet
    Feb 13, 2023
    6
    I loved Duke Nukem. I can still pick up and enjoy the hell out of Duke 3D today. Ion Fury not so much. Duke Nukem has a lot of variety in levels, enemies, weapons and mechanics. The levels in Ion Fury are uninteresting, the weapons are bland, the enemies generic, the byplay forced and disconnected. It seems unreasonably difficult to perceive enemies against the background, so you're oftenI loved Duke Nukem. I can still pick up and enjoy the hell out of Duke 3D today. Ion Fury not so much. Duke Nukem has a lot of variety in levels, enemies, weapons and mechanics. The levels in Ion Fury are uninteresting, the weapons are bland, the enemies generic, the byplay forced and disconnected. It seems unreasonably difficult to perceive enemies against the background, so you're often pixel hunting for movement while constantly moving around yourself. I think that has as much to do with poor artistic design as the low resolution art style. It's not an awful game for what it is and it is enjoyable to a point, but it was massively oversold as Duke reinvented.… Expand
  7. PublicNuisance
    Jan 27, 2020
    7
    ION Fury delivers some good old fashioned FPS gameplay. Sadly it also brings some issues that games from that era were known for. Maybe asking that a game combine the best of the old and new eras of games is too much to ask but I will do so anyway. That being said I still enjoyed myself for the most part, the good outweighs the bad.

    The gameplay itself was fun and brought me back to    ION Fury delivers some good old fashioned FPS gameplay. Sadly it also brings some issues that games from that era were known for. Maybe asking that a game combine the best of the old and new eras of games is too much to ask but I will do so anyway. That being said I still enjoyed myself for the most part, the good outweighs the bad.

    The gameplay itself was fun and brought me back to when shooters didn’t have classes, small amounts of weapon limits, chest high walls and QTEs. Just you, your enemies and your creativity to experiment with your arsenal finding the best ways to dispatch the wide range of enemies you will face. Shooting is satisfying and the different weapons all have their own feel. The story is......well it’s there....kind of. There are no cut scenes which is fine as a story can be told in many different ways but my issue is that ION Fury doesn’t really tell the story in any way. There is a general synopsis available at the main menu area but that’s about it. You don’t get told where you are going, why you are doing anything or what your goals are. You just go throughout the levels and kill enemies while trying to make it to the end of the level. This may not bother some but there are plenty of games that merge a great story with top notch gameplay so I can hope for a better balance. F.E.A.R.; Max Payne; Far Cry; Crysis; Doom 3; etc all deliver on both fronts. The level design also falls short. I’m not one who requires a giant arrow pointing me where to go but ION Fury was more like a maze where I would keep walking around trying to see where I haven’t gone yet trying to find where to go. The levels having next to no context as to why I was there didn’t help. The graphics are what they are. A retro throw back. There isn’t much to say other than while they were no means top notch they did a better job having variety than many newer games do. There was an actual colour palette which included more than browns. The soundtrack was well done and kept the tempo high. The voice acting was well done for the over the top style although the one liners got repetitive quickly.

    I played ION Fury on Linux. It never crashed on me at all. It was missing a library that caused the game to crash at launch. I will give the developers credit in that they mentioned this on the main page for GOG so you knew about it before you bought the game. The library is SDL2-Mixer-2.0-0 and it isn’t hard to install. On Manjaro I simply had to open the package manager and search this library and click install to solve the issue. I could also install it through terminal had I wished. After that the game launched just fine. During play my total GPU usage was 6-18%; my VRAM usage was 846MB-2.22GB; my CPU usage was 9-10%; my system RAM usage was 2-2.3GB. The game ran at a constant 144FPS. There were no graphics options at all to adjust. There was an FOV slider that went from 70-120. Alt-Tab worked. There was a manual save option where you could quick save or manual save whenever you wanted. The quick saves worked strangely though as they would overwrite your most recent save rather than create a new save each time. The game does have a built in auto save checkpoint system if you would rather just use that. The game uses just 97.4MB of disk space. It uses the Build engine. You can’t change the difficulty level after starting the game. I used version 1.02 from GOG.

    If you just want state of the art bang bang then look no further. The gameplay was fun and enjoyable. The story and level design was poor but I feel many won’t care. I paid $20 CAD for ION Fury and feel that is a fair price. I finished the game in around 7 or 8 hours. The game doesn’t keep track and i’m guessing.

    My Score: 7/10

    My System:

    AMD Ryzen 5 2600X | 16GB DDR4-3000 CL15 | MSI RX 580 8GB Gaming X | Mesa 19.3.2 | Samsung 850 Evo 250GB | Manjaro 18.1.5 | Mate 1.22.3 | Kernel 5.4.14-2-MANJARO    … Expand
  8. arostislavna
    Nov 14, 2021
    7
    Alright game, marred with some dumb memeable controversy, has some bad guns, and a horrible endless ad-spawning final boss fight. At least it's based on Duke Nukem's girlfriend Shelly "Bombshell" Harrison.
  9. scojac
    Dec 6, 2019
    7
    Decent old school shooter. Plenty of cool secrets and the level design in general stays fairly varied and interesting.
    Unfortunately, many of the levels have big, wide open areas where enemies will almost always shoot you before you see where they are. The gunplay isn't hit scan, but it might as well be - most enemies move slowly and shoot with pinpoint accuracy. So you are just    Decent old school shooter. Plenty of cool secrets and the level design in general stays fairly varied and interesting.
    Unfortunately, many of the levels have big, wide open areas where enemies will almost always shoot you before you see where they are. The gunplay isn't hit scan, but it might as well be - most enemies move slowly and shoot with pinpoint accuracy. So you are just ducking and popping out of cover constantly.
    It's fine, it's just nothing revolutionary. A good game that compares favorably to Duke 3D and Blood, but doesn't really add anything new to the formula except for a female protagonist whose voice lines just aren't quite as rad as the classics.
    If you like old school shooters, you will like this. It's great that this was made using the old engine and is very authentic. Just don't expect a super refined experience or even any innovation here.    … Expand
  10. petrovich_zfx
    Jan 7, 2020
    7
    It is a solid and fine FPS, with a great sense of weapons. Yes, it is old school by the bone. But at the same time feel fresh somehow.
  11. JaydenPickens
    Jun 21, 2021
    7
    It's a good game. Not as good as other old school revival games like DUSK or Project Warlock, but it's still fun. It's basically Duke Nukem 3D with a girl. Really amazing secrets, but gameplay was kinda average. Wish the game had better and more fun weapons. Besides that, it was fun as hell. Pickens approves.
  12. Zemai
    Nov 7, 2019
    7
    I think the worst problem this game has is that they made the maps too big rather than sticking with the 90's style hardware restrictions. Instead of feeling like you can just go running in blasting everything you see, the spaces are often too wide open leaving enemies too small to see, and they do like cramming their enemies in these open spaces too.

    The difficulty balance isn't as    I think the worst problem this game has is that they made the maps too big rather than sticking with the 90's style hardware restrictions. Instead of feeling like you can just go running in blasting everything you see, the spaces are often too wide open leaving enemies too small to see, and they do like cramming their enemies in these open spaces too.

    The difficulty balance isn't as extreme as they make it sound... you're clearly tougher than the enemies you fight but not by so much that you can soak damage. If you're sticking with one weapon you're the one who is limiting yourself and making the game harder than it actually is. The issue really is just figuring out where the enemies are, made more difficult by how big the maps are and the lack of slow moving projectiles.

    The end result is that the game ends up playing slower than a 90's game should play, meaning that running up on and blasting enemies rather than using cover mechanics isn't as simple. You CAN very quickly dispatch enemies, especially if you vary your arsenal (and exploit head shots)... but you need to do it one corner at a time.    … Expand
  13. Excallibarr
    Sep 17, 2020
    6
    Ion Fury is a game that truly recreates the feeling of retro FPS games. Unfortunately that includes the same mechanics and visual techniques that made me unable to play any of those games in their heyday, due to being physically dizzying and nauseating. If you have that problem too, this is not the game for you.
    The game would have been better made using a modern engine to remedy some of    Ion Fury is a game that truly recreates the feeling of retro FPS games. Unfortunately that includes the same mechanics and visual techniques that made me unable to play any of those games in their heyday, due to being physically dizzying and nauseating. If you have that problem too, this is not the game for you.
    The game would have been better made using a modern engine to remedy some of the more outdated elements.    … Expand

Awards & Rankings

90
#90 Best PC Game of 2019
48
#48 Most Discussed PC Game of 2019
16
#16 Most Shared PC Game of 2019

Critic Reviews

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Metascore
79

Generally favorable reviews - based on 29 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 23 out of 29
  2. Mixed: 6 out of 29
  3. Negative: 0 out of 29
  1. Worth Playing
    Dec 2, 2019
    90
    Ion Fury is an old-school shooting fan's dream. All of the mechanics are intact, from non-regenerative health to the ability to carry a full arsenal of weapons, and the level design feels intuitive and encourages exploration without needing waypoints. Some of the new mechanics fit in well, but a few, like the need to reload, only increase the difficulty on a tough game. Seeing all of this done on a decades-old engine is enough to convince you of the versatility of those old FPS engines. Unless you hate the old FPS style, Ion Fury is a must-have for your gaming library.
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  2. PLAY! Zine
    Oct 16, 2019
    80
    Great and fun homage to the retro shooters from the 90s
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  3. GameGrin
    Sep 20, 2019
    80
    A very well-made, entertaining throwback shooter with some useful quality of life improvements, but nothing you didn't see 20 years ago.
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