$14.99Is FUMES worth it?
FUMES is worth it if…
- you want fast, arcade car combat without a tutorial the length of a novel
- you miss the era of low-poly visuals and straightforward shooters
- you like building a loadout and then causing problems with it
- you want a co-op session that starts with one invite and ends in mayhem
- you enjoy open worlds where getting lost is part of the plan
Screenshots
Car combat the old way
FUMES takes the golden era of vehicular combat and runs with it: get in the car, slap weapons on, cruise the twisted wastes. You meet waves of enemies and turn every encounter into a chase of destruction, dodging incoming fire while landing your own shots. It gets hectic fast, in the good way. The driving physics come from old rally games, so drifting and boosting over hills feels weighty and satisfying, and there are no loading screens and no fast travel: wherever you want to go, you drive there. When the fight is over, slow down, go for a ride and enjoy the dusty, moody atmosphere of a world that looks like it was carved into an old DVD.
Build the car that fits you
Every car is yours to shape. Pick a body and suspension, choose a weapon loadout that matches how you like to fight, and slap some stickers on for good measure. One setup puts rocket launchers up front and a minelayer at the back, so a boss chasing you eats every mine. Fights pay out scrap and parts, and beating bosses earns new cars, so the machine you roll out next is always a little meaner than the last. The wasteland gives you plenty to spend it on: offroad races against the fastest racers around, suspicious packages to deliver while greedy chasers stay on your tail, and giant boss monstrosities on wheels waiting at the end of it.
Bring your friends to the wasteland
FUMES is built for a lobby and a laugh. Invite friends into your single-player world and turn a solo wasteland run into shared mayhem: convoy up, hunt bandit packs together, argue over who gets to fight the boss. Everything you loot and everything you earn while playing together is saved to your single-player progress, so a chaotic evening with friends still counts the next morning. And since you can invite as many friends as your hardware can handle, the ceiling for nonsense is high. Cars with guns were already funny. Cars with guns and five friends ramming each other off a dune are funnier.
What should you know before playing?
Can you play it solo?
Yes, and it works well that way. FUMES is a single-player game first, with online co-op layered on top: friends join your world rather than the other way around. Solo, you roam the procedural wasteland at your own pace, picking fights, racing and delivering cargo, and every bit of progress is yours. The co-op just lets you share it.
Is there anything to do besides shooting?
Plenty, and most of it still involves driving fast. You can enter offroad races against the wasteland's fastest drivers, deliver suspicious packages while greedy chasers hunt you down, and haul cargo across the desert. Between jobs, the world is yours to wander: endless procedural environments, anomalies, and the simple pleasure of a night ride with a guitar-heavy soundtrack.
How does progression work?
Everything goes into building and upgrading your vehicle: better weapons, better suspension, better everything, tuned to your combat style. Enemies scale with your improvements, so a stronger car means tougher opposition rather than an easy ride.
How long does a session last?
As long as you want. The game has no loading screens and no fast travel, so a session can be a short loop of one fight and one upgrade, or a long free roam that ends somewhere you did not plan. The open structure suits both: set a small goal or just drive until the fumes get to you.
Does it look and sound retro?
On purpose, yes. The visuals lean into low-poly models and a retro filter that gives everything a dusty, afterlife atmosphere, and the original soundtrack is guitar-heavy, built for long drives through the desert. It plays retro too: straightforward controls, arcade combat, no menus between you and the road.
Can you customize how your car looks?
Beyond the mechanical side, yes. Paint, stickers and skins let you make your car yours, and the customization goes deep enough that two players rolling through the same wasteland can look like they came from different games. A mean machine deserves a mean paint job.
