As part of the Realms Deep event, 3D Realms and Voidpoint have announced that the long-awaited expansion to 2019’s Ion Fury, Aftershock, will be released October 2, 2023. Happy Monday!
Ion Fury is a modern game built in Duke Nukem 3D’s legendary Build Engine. In a lot of ways, it’s a spiritual successor to Duke 3D. In fact, it would probably have been a Duke Nukem game if 3D Realms hadn’t handed the character over to Gearbox.
Instead, you play as Shelly “Bombshell” Harrison. The expansion pack has her once again going up against her nemesis, Dr. Heskel. Beyond simply being a map pack, Aftershock adds new enemies, weapons, and a motorcycle for Shelly. Beyond that, there’s also a new difficulty and an “Arrange Mode” for the base game that lets you experience everything again in a remixed way.
Cool beans. I don’t think that Ion Fury is quite as great as Duke Nukem 3D – largely because of a harder-to-manage arsenal and less spectacular level design – but as a spiritual successor, it hit the mark. I mean, I think about it, and I’m like, this could have been Duke Nukem Forever. Instead of the mess we got, they could have given us something like this.
Hopefully, the Aftershock expansion improves things in some appreciable ways. I’m looking forward to it. Also, note that this is a different game than Phantom Fury. That one is being done by Slipgate Ironworks and is more of a sequel.
Ion Fury: Aftershock releases October 2, 2023. Currently, it’s only for PC with no word on other platforms.
