Phantom Fury

If you like to march through corridors, blow through your enemies, and maybe get a few one-liners in along the way? Phantom Fury is going to be a good time. It’s a legacy throwback that has done its homework, and while it didn’t delight me it also never made me want to throw the dang thing in the garbage. It’s some good lightweight fun. Let’s just hope that this time around the title avoids becoming the main character of controversy, hmm?

Despite being a game with exceptional ideas developed by a talented team, the reality is grim: Phantom Fury debuts with fundamental design flaws amidst the crossfire of survival, Embracer Group, and layoffs during development. Unfortunately, it is a rushed game, plagued by constant errors and a hastily constructed third act.

Phantom Fury is a decent boomer shooter, albeit one that emphasizes environmental interactivity over an arcade-inspired killing spree in which everything is a weapon. The few moments of cinematic silliness are par for the course in the boomer shooter genre, but they’re not enough to make this any less of a slog.

Phantom Fury is not bad, but it's a forgettable experience. It would be an iper boomer shooter, but fall short of its ambitions.

Phantom Fury refers to itself as a road movie and claims to be inspired by games like Half-Life. You should ignore these flowery descriptions, if you are hoping to get any fun out of this retro shooter. This game offers an interactive world with plenty of shootouts and a bunch of puzzles. However, technical issues, weak sound design and weaker weapon impacts, as well as uninteresting storytelling get in the way of enjoying this title. Its 12 to 15 hours of play time make this game feel too long. Elements such as pass codes hidden in terminals or blocked passages, which you need to clear up with a swivelling crane, repeat and lose their novelty, as does the small selection of enemies. It’s still entertaining in short sessions, but it doesn’t offer enough variety for anything more than that.

It’s a pity – thanks to fast action, tremendous atmosphere, and some genuinely clever weapons, Phantom Fury could be special, but it winds up as frustrating as it is enjoyable. At this point it’s a tough one to recommend, but I’m hoping that it can be salvaged with some patching and rebalancing in the coming months.

Nostalgic feeling is no longer enough.

But regardless of what caused the project to get derailed, it still means that Phantom Fury is a disappointing result. It’s a mash of ‘00s FPS cliches without reprieve. I spent most of its runtime wishing it was over. Or, at least, wishing it was what it promised to be. Its overall blandness has done the impossible and made me appreciate Duke Nukem Forever just a little bit more.

Shelly Harrison sets out on a cross-country action-FPS trek to find the lost artifact of the Demon Core. Intense firefights are interspersed with slower exploratory segments, making it more a late-90s FPS throwback than prequel game Ion Fury's Build Engine adventure.