Of all the 90s FPS classics I’ve always loved Build engine games most, specifically Duke Nukem 3D and Blood. When Ion Fury was announced (originally as Ion Maiden), I didn’t know what to think. Reusing the old Build engine in 2019 to create a completely new game, pushing the engine to its absolute limits sounded commendable, but was it necessary? Having played the game, I’m still somewhat confused about how to feel.
First things first – this is actually running on the actual Build engine by Ken Silverman, using the EDuke32 source port of the engine. Which means good and bad. On one hand, this means that Ion Fury can look and feel exactly like the classics have, but with native support for higher resolutions, more open levels (and hub-based level structures), have some of the visual flair of the classics (remember when we had perfect mirror reflections in games?) yet be really well optimized and run perfectly fine on weaker systems. On the other, there are kinks due to engine age (Vsync, for example, doesn’t work properly when enabled by the game, not the GPU driver), the movement can be janky, especially the jumps and some basic quality of life things can be working weird, like Quick Saves not being a separate slot, rather a dedicated manual save, saved with one button press. If you’ve played and loved the classics, none of the issues and restrictions would be annoying, but if you’re somewhat new to the games built on the engine, it might require a tiny bit of getting used to.
Besides, it is impressive what has been built here. The level of detail is incredible, things look much better than they could in the 90s, pushing the engine to its literal limits and the game even uses tracker music that will undoubtedly remind you of games for Amiga (or demo scene tunes, also often found in trainers or cracks). Main character, previously featured in the poorly received Bombshell, kicks ass and spits out one-liners and Jon St. John (voice of Duke Nukem) is involved, this time voicing the main villain of the game. Levels are perfectly explorable, having clearly defined points of no return that tell you the amount of secrets you have missed and allowing you to backtrack to any previously explored part. Weapon designs are fun and have the best ideas from the classic Build engine titles of old. Enemies are varied and distinct. Every element to make this game work is in the right place. But something… Something doesn’t click exactly right.
The game feels too long. Partially, because it is pretty goddamn long, taking me about 15 hours to complete it. And partially because it doesn’t change things up often. What I personally loved about Duke 3D and Blood was how different each Episode could get. From old towns to carnivals to mines to ancient ruins. Or from futuristic cities to canyons, to goddamn space, then back to Earth but a very different feeling city. There was variety in levels that is mostly absent in Ion Fury. You spend more than a half of the game in the same looking city and buildings in it. Then the game teases you with a nice looking open natural area, mines and an old mansion. Only to then get you into labs that all look exactly the same and somewhat similar to the buildings from the first half of the game. And it just drags on and on…
And it doesn’t help that the action never gets fun. Classic Build titles, at least in my opinion, spiced up their rather simplistic combat and enemy pattern designs by having incredibly weird and fun to use weapons. None of the weapons in Ion Fury have that. They’re balanced and functional and useful. But not fun. All while enemies range from okay to ridiculously annoying. The game also shows its pattern early on and never lets up on it – get an item or do anything to progress, more enemies spawn out of thin air so you don’t get “bored” (or, as a classic player guidance trick, show you the way to progress). As a result, I did get bored, because I knew that every single keycard I take or a progress-important button I press means that I will then have to battle a bunch of enemies. Which are, as I mentioned, not that fun to fight. Look quite boring too, if I’m completely honest – just a bunch of samey looking robots and people in hoods.
Was playing through Ion Fury enjoyable? Yes, but it would’ve been more enjoyable if the game was at least twice as short. Can it be fun for those, who don’t have any nostalgic memories about Duke 3D/Blood/Shadow Warrior? Probably yes. Does the game still amaze me with its use of an old engine and a fantastic (for exploration purposes) level design? Oh, absolutely. Music’s pretty good too, even though not my kind of thing. But I can’t really say that I enjoyed the game as much as I thought I would. And replaying through recently re-released Blood was, if I’m totally honest, more enjoyable, even though I realize that on many levels Ion Fury is a far superior and better made title.
P.S. Also, I probably would’ve enjoyed it more if not for the fact that DUSK is so goddamn near perfect and achieves the same goals of rekindling the 90s FPS feel far better.