Ion Fury follow-up Phantom Fury releases in April

3D Realms has announced that the follow-up to 2019’s Ion Fury, Phantom Fury, will be released on April 23, 2024.

Phantom Fury continues the violent adventures of Shelly “Bombshell” Harrison, who first appeared in 2016’s Bombshell as a stand-in for Duke Nukem after Gearbox asserted their ownership of him. While her first outing was not very well-received, Ion Fury took a different direction by utilizing the Build Engine – the same game engine responsible for William Shatner’s Tekwar (and also Duke Nukem 3D). I personally had my issues with Ion Fury, but a lot of other people really connected with it.

Phantom Fury leaves the Build Engine behind but doesn’t completely abandon the retro-inspired graphics. While it’s moving to a full-3D engine, it looks like something more circa Y2K. It hasn’t been explicitly said by the developers (that I know of), but it seems to be presenting itself as an alternate reality Duke Nukem Forever, following an alternate reality Duke Nukem 3D. It’s as if that game actually released when it was supposed to instead of over a decade later. Hopefully, it will actually be good.

I played the demo of Phantom Fury a while back when it first became available. While it didn’t entirely sell me on the game, it was a competent enough slice that was full of appreciable small details. It’s important to note that while Ion Fury was developed by Voidpoint, Phantom Fury is being done by Slipgate Ironworks.

3D Realms recently saw layoffs as part of the restructuring of Embracer Group. It has been reported that they are now leaving Embracer as part of the $500 million sale of their parent company, Saber. The whole situation must be hell to try and work through, but it’s nice to see that the team was able to get Phantom Fury to the finish line.

Phantom Fury will be released on PC on April 23, 2024.