Welcome to my handbook on FUMES! Trying to cover everything you'll need to know about the game and its world, and a few other things besides. Also trying for a (slightly) more serious take on the game than gar's guide, but don't expect some kind of big brain statistical analysis or deep dive into code or anything.

This guide will cover the game's structure and mechanics, go through your cars and equipment, and cover the friends and enemies you'll meet in the world and missions. If you think I've missed anything, please let me know!

After the tutorial prologue where you get into an engagement with the local raiders, do your first basic fight, your first boss battle against Expirator and then a fight against Bavarius that cannot be won, you are resurrected and then dropped into the wastes with a crappy car and have to blast your way back up to the top with the help of the friendly neighborhood scrap dealer. The top of what, you ask? The hierarchy of said local raider gang, the "79ers".

As for why you're doing this, who really knows. Also, the vehicles appear to be partly alive, and if you stop driving you'll get eaten by subterranean FUMES-eating vines. There's some seriously strange stuff going on in this wasteland.

The game doesn't explicitly call attention to this, but it's essentially divided up into individual chapters and acts, though I'm going to call the chapters "stages", like a rally, for grins.

Each Stage has you completing a number of Missions in the world in order to unlock a battle with the local Steiger. The world will always be populated with all of the available mission types, but progress in the stage only comes from doing the ones that are highlighted in the Progress screen of the Scrapper. After beating the boss, you will unlock their car body and usually also a new weapon, equipment, or mission type. These items, once unlocked, will be added to the random drop/mission selection pool for all subsequent missions/stages. You then immediately begin the next stage. You don't need to do all of the missions in a stage to unlock the boss, but any you don't do will remain uncompleted on the Progress screen forever, so do 'em if you're a completionist.

Each act (except the first, where the prologue essentially takes the place of the first stage) has 4 regular Stages that end in a Steiger fight, followed by a single Power Stage that instead ends in a fight with an Overseer or Colossus, one of the giant rolling mechanical bosses you've seen in the trailers. After beating an Act, you move to the next and start at the first Stage, rinse and repeat for all 3 Acts currently available in the game. I believe each act also subtly alters things such as enemy spawns, with later acts having better-armed enemies and tougher car bodies spawning more commonly, especially in the "reinforcements" spawned by bosses. After beating Act 3, all content should be unlocked and the world will still populate with missions, so you can continue doing whatever you like, including a refight of a random previous boss.

The numbers next to each boss indicate the number of missions needed to unlock them and the total number of available missions in their stage.

Prologue
Expirator
Bavarius (Unwinnnable)

Act 1
Stage 1: Borewick (2/2)
Stage 2: Beetlejook (2/3)
Stage 3: Carro (2/4)
Power Stage: Sharknador (3/5)

Act 2
Stage 1: Pain Caster & Chase Master (3/6)
Stage 2: Gaslighter (3/6)
Stage 3: Madd Cutts (3/7)
Stage 4: Power Horse (3/7)
Power Stage: Bavarius (2/8)

Act 3
Stage 1: Dune Crawler (4/7)
Stage 2: Surgeon Sorrow (4/8)
Stage 3: Mad Track (4/9)
Stage 4: Beam Father (4/10)
Power Stage: Industrius (3/8)

Post-Game
Randomized Bosses

This is a very simple arcade-type game, but it has a lot of funky stuff going on under the hood. Basic torque curve simulation, turbo simulation, anti-lag, transmission and tire grip sims... they are obviously nowhere near a real sim game- the devs openly admit most of this is done with cheats and tricks to make it easier and reduce the drag on fun gameplay- but it's still all actually there. There's even a manual transmission mode available and you can in fact actually use it for engine braking, if you want.



This is actually simulated! You can see what wheels your suspension is driving by looking under the car. Each body has a center differential that will have drive shafts connected to all the powered wheels. You also have access to a differential locker (default key: K) that will lock the center diff, which can help a lot with climbing but will impair your handling a bit (on AWD suspensions, at least- jury's still out on RWD and FWD). Also, tracked suspensions ignore this and are powered equally "all over", sorta. You also can't diff lock with them equipped.

The stats presented here are based on approximations of the “base” stats (lowest-end C class bodies). A fully-specced S-class version of the car will have around 10-15 more durability points, 2-5 more acceleration points, and 10-12 more KM/H, not counting the effect of equipped suspension. Gear count and Redline are not affected by stat changes.

Stats also aren't everything. In addition to the already-mentioned drivetrain differences, each car body and suspension has a different center of mass and there are suspension differences, even between the same suspension on different cars (switch between a Polon and a Tartarus body and see how differently they bounce even just inside the Scrapper). You could imagine this as a sort of invisible "handling" stat for every body and suspension, though it's much more complex than that (which is probably why it's not represented as a stat bar).

Also present, though usually not super relevant, is weight. This mostly affects who comes off worse in a collision between cars but some guns with absurdly high recoil like the Rocket Launcher or Pounder also affect you more or less depending on how heavy you are. I have a sneaking suspicion that the acceleration stat also does not adjust for your weight, so lighter cars probably accelerate faster for a given acceleration value too.

Also pointing out that enemies generally have terrible aim, so a smaller car can actually make you significantly more survivable all other things unchanged. The Bizon for instance is a notorious bullet magnet due to its gigantic size.

Boost gives you a huge jump in acceleration, though it has much less effect when the vehicle is already near its top speed. It also allows you to partly ignore the speed penalty related to driving in mud or water-soaked terrain. In addition, it functions at least in part without regard for grip, torque, etc., because it's giving you raw thrust like you're igniting a rocket on the back of your car rather than actually putting nitrous in the engine, though it does have some effects there too.

Boost is recharged by driving over 95 KPH, or by killing enemies. It will also be recharged to full every time you receive a heal from killing a wave of enemies.

Based on the Polski Fiat 126p compact, an extremely common and well-known car in Poland where it’s known as the Maluch, or ‘the little one’ (hence, the name in FUMES). The real model is powered by a 650cc 2-cylinder engine making only 26 horsepower, but the Cub’s has been swapped out for what appears to be a boxer-4 (in-game) or V6 (in key art). Weirdly enough, in the stock config it’s front wheel drive (still driven via a driveshaft from the center differential, like it was AWD at one point but is missing the rear driveshaft), like it's pretending to actually be a Mini Cooper.

It's a dime-a-dozen starter car with only 1 gun slot. Really the bare minimum in its stock config. Not much health, speed or firepower, but acceleration and handling are pretty decent. Should be replaced ASAP, or at the least upgraded with heavy suspension (which are a better deal for it than many other cars, for what it's worth).

Stats
HP: 60
Accel: 60
Speed: 158
Gears: 5
Redline: 6000

Steiger: Expirator / Cubot (Former only appears in Prologue, latter only appears in Steiger Skirmish)
Obtained: End of Prologue



Based on the VW Golf Mk1, powered by some kind of inline 4, who even knows which out of the 300 engine variants the car’s ever had, but it seems to at least be turbocharged. I probably don’t even need to introduce an old Golf, it works basically how you would expect.

It’s a fast and agile car but only has one gun and barely any more health than the tiny Cub, for which it serves as essentially a direct upgrade by being (barely) more durable and a whole lot faster. If you have a need for speed, this is a halfway decent option.

Stats
HP: 70
Accel: 60
Speed: 169
Gears: 6
Redline: 7000

Steiger: Pain Caster & Chase Master
Obtained: Act 2, Stage 1



While it’s outwardly based on a Peugeot 205, a normal French compact car (called the “Frog” in the alpha, for reasons you can guess), close examination will reveal it’s actually based on the Group B rally homologation variant, the T16, with a massively reworked mid-engine design, visibly turbocharged out the ass and converted to all wheel drive.

You still only get one 360 weapon slot, but it’s the fastest car in the game and since most of the original body was torn out and rebuilt as a rally-style space frame, it’s fairly durable for what it is.

Stats
HP: 80
Accel: 70
Speed: 200
Gears: 6
Redline: 8000

Steiger: Dune Crawler
Obtained: Act 3, Stage 1

Based on a first-generation FSO Polonez, another very common Polish car. In the earlier demo versions of the game, this was instead known as the Poloness, so I suppose you can congratulate them on their FtM transition. Judging by the decent engine performance it appears to use one of the Polonez’s better 2.0 L I4 engines (Ford or Fiat probably), possibly with a turbo by the sound of it. These cars were made to be exported and have been built to Western crash safety standards (rather than Soviet crash danger standards), making them more durable than they look.

The car has great stats for how early you get it and a pair of good weapon mounts, one 360 mount on the roof and one wide angle forward mount on the hood. In summary- a very reliable car, it’s also the one they start you with during the Prologue. The configuration you have there is Rallye suspension, a Shellgun on the hood and a Rotor on the roof. You can re-obtain your original paint job after killing Bavarius at the end of the second act.

Stats
HP: 100
Accel: 62
Speed: 170
Gears: 6
Redline: 8500

Steiger: Borewick
Obtained: Act 1, Stage 1




Based on a Tatra 613, a wonderful piece of Czechnology and what passes for luxury in the later Soviet era. It’s rear-engine, rear-wheel-drive with an air-cooled V8, but won’t tailspin or flip like a Corvair because the engineers actually knew what they were doing. It’s the closest thing to a muscle car you can get in the wastes.

Handling is a bit pokey since it’s big, long and back-heavy, but it makes up for this with some serious straight-line speed. Weapons-wise it's the same as the Polon plus a narrow angle trunk slot facing backwards. I’d rank it as a very reliable car, has a solid niche as the heaviest of the middleweights.

Stats
HP: 120
Accel: 58
Speed: 180
Gears: 6
Redline: 5000

Steiger: Gaslighter
Obtained: Act 2, Stage 2



Based on the Wartburg 353 station wagon variant ("Tourist"), this is an odd car from East Germany powered by a two-stroke inline 3. The engine was said to be surprisingly powerful (if loud and smoky) for what it was, and this car as a whole is pretty similar. It’s front wheel drive on the stock wheels, and the only such vehicle to have actually been FWD in real life.

Three weapon mounts, two wide angle foward-facing mounts and one wide-angle rear mount. Has good coverage all around, the roof guns overlap their arcs a bit in a line perpendicular to the car's direction. Handling is peppy, it feels much lighter than most other cars despite its size.

Stats
HP: 110
Accel: 56
Speed: 180
Gears: 5
Redline: 6000

Steiger: Surgeon Sorrow
Obtained: Act 3, Stage 2

This lightweight offroader is based on the Romanian ARO 243. It’s sort of Jeep-like, uses a normal inline 4 car engine but it’s relatively torquey and does the job. Raised hardtop on the bed is the result of this being the 3-door variant of the car, so it has some decent bulk. Comes AWD by default.

Pretty slow, but decently armed and armored for an early game car. 360 roof mount, wide angle hood mount- this is the same as the Polon, spartan but effective, and it has more cargo slots. Handling feels questionable, however.

Stats
HP: 120
Accel: 50
Speed: 150
Gears: 4
Redline: 6000

Steiger: Carro
Obtained: Act 1, Stage 3



Based on an FSR Tarpan 233, a small agricultural pickup from Poland. The original wasn’t really designed for anything more heavy-duty than hauling produce to a farmer’s market, but clearly the Scrapper has worked the same magic he did on the Cub because this, of all things, is one of the fastest vehicles available. The name is a reference to the actual Tarpans, a now-extinct breed of wild Eurasian steppe horses.

One of my personal favorites, it's far faster than it looks and can be tooled up for whatever you like pretty easily. Wide angle hood mount, wide angles on both sides- kind of like the Jook, but the extra gun is on the front instead of the back and in exchange the side guns don't align fully at the front or rear. Additional cargo slots all over too, so it can be a good cargo runner. Handles about as well as a hotrodded Soviet-era farm truck could be expected to, which is acceptable, surprisingly.

HP: 115
Accel: 59
Speed: 185
Gears: 6
Redline: 5000

Steiger: Power Horse
Obtained: Act 2, Stage 4



A heavier-duty offroader based on the Polski Budołaz, a rare truck which was meant to be a Polish knockoff of the Unimog 406, but which never made it past prototyping. Despite the name, it doesn’t come tracked by default or anything, but Mad Track does use it in half-track configuration. Like the Jook, it has air brakes and a low redline implying a medium-duty diesel engine.

Not fast, but handles decent for its size, fairly well armed- it's like a more refined version of the Jook. One 360 mount on the roof, two trunk bed mounts, one is a 180 mount and the other is more like 270, can shoot to the side fairly well.

HP: 122
Accel: 50
Speed: 152
Gears: 4
Redline: 2500

Steiger: Mad Track
Obtained: Act 3, Stage 3

Based on the FSC Żuk, a van and light pickup manufactured in Poland, favored by repairmen and farmers. According to the developers, the Jook in-game is powered by a 3-cylinder diesel engine, and it comes with the same broken-AWD-as-FWD setup as the Cub does on stock wheels. It appears substantially larger than the real-life version and has air brakes, implying some kind of medium-duty application whereas the original was based on a drivetrain from a 1930s sedan.

It doesn’t have great performance, and is pretty top-heavy (especially with raised suspensions), but it does have a lot of health and the gun layout is good, once you get used to it. There’s one wide angle mount each on the left and right sides and one narrow angle mount in the rear bed (plus one cargo slot). One of the only bodies to be able to line up 3 guns on one target (in this case, directly behind you).

HP: 120
Accel: 50
Speed: 150
Gears: 4
Redline: 2500

Steiger: Beetlejook
Obtained: Act 1, Stage 2



A knockoff of the VW Transporter T3 (better known as the “Vanagon” in the states, perhaps prompting the name), with all the rear windows removed and extra doors added, making it into a sort of panel minivan variant. Seems to be based on a specific custom rally car, the T3 Syncro Rallyebus by Bernd Jager, judging by the unique roof air scoop and front chrome bars. Theoretically powered by some kind of four-cylinder boxer petrol engine, but I’m not sure. The Rallyebus was a radically rebuilt mid-engine custom job, but the in-game model has the typical engine placement.

In any case, it’s not very fast but has a lot of bulk and a big health pool- the second-biggest in the game, in fact. This is effectively a big heavy gun truck, four weapon mounts in total. You can only really bring 2 of them to bear at any time, but it's also a minimum of 2. The front two guns can't shoot directly backwards, and the rear two guns can't shoot directly forwards. Easiest way to handle this is to try to broadside as much as possible, as the guns have the largest overlap angles there.

HP: 132
Accel: 53
Speed: 160
Gears: 6
Redline: 6000

Steiger: Madd Cutts
Obtained: Act 2, Stage 3



This big guy is based on a Jelcz 300 series heavy-duty commercial truck. Originally it was known as the Yeltch, presumably changed because “Yeltch” sounds like the noise someone makes when they find a spider on their steering wheel. This is a proper cab-over truck- the same body used by the Convoy trucks, in fact- with a heavy duty diesel inline 6. However, this one is on a (slightly) more nimble short wheelbase platform- kind of like those Dakar endurance racing dune trucks, which probably explains why it’s so fast. Acceleration is, uh, an issue though. In fact, a C-grade base-kit Bizon can't even reach its 8th gear without using boost.

Has a 360 slot on the roof and two wide-angles on the doors, like they finally figured out what was missing from the Jook and Warhorse. Also, 3 whole cargo slots in the bed. Very effective well-armed hauler, but so big that it has issues with catching too much enemy fire. Slightly more HP than the Flakwagon, but between your size and slow acceleration it won't last nearly as long.

HP: 135
Accel: 52
Speed: 190
Gears: 8
Redline: 2000

Steiger: Beam Father
Obtained: Act 3, Stage 4

Every body type has access to a few basic suspension types, with some bodies having unique or semi-unique suspensions. Changing suspension not only affects listed stats like speed, health, acceleration, and grip, but also unlisted statistics like ride height and suspension geometry. Each suspension also has its own drivetrain configuration, which can affect handling further still, especially if it's different from whatever the stock config is for that car. I suspect (but can't directly confirm) that it also affects weight, even beyond the center of gravity changes you'd expect from taller suspension.



Available for all bodies.

Essentially, the default wheels. Provides a small bonus to every stat, but it’s small. 5% at most. Despite being looked down on by the Scrapper the “stock” suspension is by objective standards a fairly decent rally set-up with heavy shocks and all-terrain tires. I guess this is just the bare minimum for a car in the wasteland. The main actual advantage of this part is stability, especially for top-heavy bodies like the Jook. Low center of gravity and less body roll means you have very good handling, even if you shouldn’t try mountain climbing or mud rolling with it. The only part that has a different drivetrain arrangement per body, see the vehicle entries for what that is (usually, RWD).

Jacked suspension and bigger, heavier off-road tires. A reliable part, trades some acceleration away for gaining a bit of everything else, especially Slope Grip (much moreso than mud grip, oddly). It’s also not as tilt-happy as some of the other taller-than-stock suspensions. It's all-wheel-drive, of course.

Actual monster truck wheel (or slightly larger offroaders, for the Cub). Very top heavy. That warning to take it easy with these is no joke, you’re in serious danger of rolling the car anytime you drive dumb. Also, takes away a lot of top speed. Upside is, huge HP boost and the off-roading characteristics aren’t bad as long as you don’t flip over. AWD.

A high-powered set of tracks in the back supported by an unpowered wheeled front end which handles the steering. Has the off-road benefits of a tracked suspension without the odd handling quirks of the full-tracked suspension options (see below). Surprisingly high top speed bonus. It completely nukes your acceleration from orbit, though.

A full-tracked suspension based on construction equipment tracks, which means it steers by applying brakes to the track on the side you want to turn. This makes it very difficult to carry speed through the corners, but the upside is very high grip. You can even spin in place if you want.

A full-tracked suspension like the Digger with the same handling, but this time based on the Bullet Farmer's tracked muscle car from Fury Road. Has slightly different stats, but one major difference is the stability. Because of the angle of the treads, starting or stopping will tilt you forward and back precariously. Be cautious.

Available for more than a few cars, but not all.

Low-clearance, six-wheeled offroad chassis, like a moon rover. Trade away a bit of top speed for a huge boost to everything else. Very reliable, if uninteresting. Also, quite stable, but might disagree with very rough terrain due to its stiff shocks and limited travel. Available for the Cub, Cricket, Griffin, Polon and Warthog. Drives all 6 wheels, and in addition it steers with both the front and rear axles.

Jacks up the rear tires. Terrible stats, looks dumb, really I don’t even know why you would use this. It has like one bonus stat (acceleration) in exchange for almost all of the other stats being negatives, at least unless you bother to upgrade it heavily at which point it gains a minor speed bonus. Also, it’s rear wheel drive. Available for everything except the Bizon.

Offroad suspension with dual truck tires instead of off-road wheels. Gives you a lot of Mud Grip in exchange for dropping both speed and acceleration by a bit. Otherwise, pretty similar to Off-Road tires. Only available for Polon and Tartarus. AWD.

Jacked six-wheeled suspension designed to somewhat resemble a cargo truck. A bit goofy-looking on the smaller cars, but it’s an okay part. Bit more HP, bit less acceleration. Reasonable stability as well. Description referencing that it’s good for heavy guns is an artifact of the earliest game builds, which had a weight capacity system that’s no longer in the game. Available for the Cub, Cricket, Griffin, Polon and Warthog. Powers the two rear axles only.

There can be only one (car body using this suspension)

The Polon-exclusive suspension you have during the Prologue. It's like an in-between of the Off-Road and Stock wheels. Looks slick, and has great handling- it's my personal favorite for this car. AWD.

Exclusive to the Flakwagon, it’s essentially a lifted offroader-sized Rover suspension except it doesn't have the dual axle steering. Six wheel drive.

Like Mudder, but lower clearance and with single-layered truck tires instead of doubles. Exclusive to the Griffin. AWD.

Bizon exclusive Rover/APC/whatever equivalent, sort of. Six monster size wheels. Nobody could ever miss you when you drive this- the Bogeys sure won't. Six wheel drive.

Any weapon can be carried by any weapons-enabled hardpoint on a car body, but depending on the hardpoint in question you can have either a full 360 degrees of rotation or a restricted arc. In addition, hardpoints can be designated by the game as for weapons only, cargo modules only, or either weapons or cargo.

All weapons have infinite ammo, but the majority suffer from increasingly severe spread gain from continuous fire. Some (especially bullet-firing guns like the Automat and Rotor) essentially require burst-firing outside of close range, while others (like the Pyreblitz and Charge Thrower) can almost completely ignore spread to fire nonstop.



A bog-standard machine gun weapon, very reliable but not super interesting. Spread blooms out quickly in sustained fire, especially with lower-grade models, so anywhere beyond punching distance you will want to use burst-fire to preserve accuracy. Used well, it’s good for poking out to long range.
Unlocked: Default

Based on the infamous Pancor Jackhammer, but with an industrial-grade yellow color scheme more similar to an actual jackhammer. It’s what you’d expect, an auto-shotgun. Sort of an in-between of the shellgun and automat. Demands less aim than either and has a bit more effective range than the regular shellgun, but has bloom so you’ll need to burst-fire it at longer ranges like with the automat.
Unlocked: Default

A double-barrel shotgun. It’s very bursty, you can kill minor Bogeys with one or two good hits at close range, but it fires very slow and the range isn’t great, demanding aggressive driving and surprisingly good aim for a shotgun weapon.
Unlocked: Kill Borewick (Act 1, Stage 1)

MLRS-style rapid-fire dumb rocket artillery battery. Good at pumping out explosions, but very difficult to aim because of the arc trajectory and relatively small blast radius. You want to burst fire this too due to spread gain. However, Overseer bosses get shredded regardless because they’re too big to miss and they’ve got subsystems that the Orkan can hit multiple of at once. Very fun to double this one up.
Unlocked: Kill Carro (Act 1, Stage 3)

An automatic grenade launcher. Shoots capsules full of explosive chemical residue. Despite appearances, it’s a purely explosive weapon and doesn’t deal any kind of poison or other DOT, but it’s still a very effective weapon. Grenades have smart fuses and will explode on impact with vehicles, even when you’ve bowled them across the landscape, so it’s pretty easy to aim once you get used to the slow speed of the projectiles. Keep in mind that’s any vehicle, it does not discriminate and so it’s also very easy to blow up your allies.
Unlocked: Kill Pain Caster & Chase Master (Act 2 Stage 1)

A short-range gas-powered flamethrower. This does most of its damage through the flame DOT, not the actual flamethrower itself (which is surprisingly low damage in addition to having very short range), so it really requires another weapon to pair with that has some range and burst capability. The DOT does apparently stack, so you could theoretically try to double up if you've got slots to spare. Still, could be better.
Unlocked: Kill Gaslighter (Act 2 Stage 2)

A minelayer weapon. Really, that’s it. It has enough damage to kill a regular bogey in maybe like 2 or 3 hits? Mostly useful for a slot you don’t want to try aiming at the same time as your other guns, like a Jook or Tartarus trunk slot. Also lets you attack people behind you with a slot that would otherwise have only forward coverage.
Unlocked: Kill Madd Cutts (Act 2 Stage 3)

A minigun- for saying “hasta la vista” to the 79ers in style. Basically an improvement over the Automat in close range, as it can fire a lot more bullets. The bloom grows slower but also regains accuracy slower, so you want longer bursts with longer wait periods to maintain good damage. Lower damage per shot and slower velocity means it’s much weaker at long range, though.
Unlocked: Kill Power Horse (Act 2 Stage 4)

Basically, it’s a sniper nuke. Two shots blows most bogeys to kingdom come, but it fires slowly and recoils your vehicle pretty hard (aren’t rocket weapons supposed to be “recoilless”?). The velocity is fast and the trajectory is straight, so it’s fairly easy to line up on individual enemies but can be difficult to use in a close-range scrap because of the low rate of fire.
Unlocked: Kill Dune Crawler (Act 3 Stage 1)

A sort of auto-sniper weapon. Much harder-hitting than the Automat and with better accuracy, but requires more precise aim due to the lower rate of fire. Good for reaching out to longer ranges, and finishing off enemies that have been blasted to low health by one of the heavy weapons. Can do a lot of damage when multiple are stacked.
Unlocked: Kill Surgeon Sorrow (Act 3 Stage 2)

Not a typo in the name... this is a mortar, which means a very awkward projectile arc. In exchange, you get a decent blast radius and very high damage for how fast this thing fires. Very difficult to aim, but rewarding if you can wrap your mind around it.
Unlocked: Kill Mad Track (Act 3 Stage 3)

This is effectively a miniature tank cannon, and has the painful traverse speed to match. Massive velocity, huge damage with an actually respectable AOE, but must be aimed perfectly since it only goes off on a direct hit (but can be ricocheted into an enemy, if you’re a trajectory wizard). Also, it has absolutely massive recoil, lightweight vehicles need not apply! Seriously, you will bowl yourself over every time you fire this thing if you aren’t driving a heavier car. Use truck or van or at least the Tartarus at the minimum, unless you can handle a serious rodeo.
Unlocked: Kill Beam Father (Act 3 Stage 4)

Despite what you might initially think, enemies don't have randomly selected parts. They use specific loadouts and paint schemes, and you can learn to identify these and the usual movement patterns of these enemies with enough observation.

Because the game doesn't feature its own bestiary or anything, I've had to come up with the names for all these enemies myself. In addition, it seems like there are multiple sub-variants of some enemies, so they could appear with parts outside of the standard build description I give here. If you see anything that's radically different, though, let me know, because it's entirely possible there are enemy types that I haven't recorded yet!


Standard idiots with Cub and Polon bodies and stock suspensions, armed with a single automat or rotor, maybe auto-shellguns. They drive after you at a moderate distance and shoot short bursts of gunfire. Steigers will summon these guys as part of their initial waves of backup, and they appear sporadically as throwaway enemies elsewhere.


Bogeys driving slightly more durable cars. Early on it's Caros, later on the Tartarus, but despite having more gun slots they still only carry the one gun. Basically the same as a regular Bogey but slightly more durable, but also bigger and thus easier to hit. Overseers tend to summon these straight out, and Steigers will start throwing them at you after a few waves.


Bogeys, but with slightly faster cars. They drive Crickets and Griffins. Really mostly the same as regular bogeys, but ever so slightly better. They tend to appear in Convoy missions, using their speed to catch up to you and the truck faster. Sometimes spawned by Steigers, especially in later acts.


Buzzsaw melee enemies. Easy to identify by the distinct power drill sound they constantly emit, sawblade roof decorations, and always using purple paint with orange lamps. They drive up erratically towards their target and try to saw them. Easily the fastest enemies- they have access to FUMES boosting! But I think they have lower max health than their car usually would. A version exists for pretty much every car body, with different saw mount locations.


Truck drivers with charge throwers. They stay in medium-long range and spam charges at you. You can find "light" versions carrying a single gun on a 360 slot, and "heavy" versions who carry two on a pair of side-slots.


Medium-weights with offroad suspension and Autocannons. They stay away and plink at you. Don’t forget about them, they have good aim and can whittle you down a lot if you let them.


Lightweights on lightweight wheels armed with rocket launchers. They snipe you from long range- like Musketeers, but with rockets. The Griffin Steiger called Dune Crawler summons these instead of Bogeys, and basically is one himself. They’re very dangerous because they’re evasive and hard to hit and their rockets can take chunks off your health bar.


Enemies that have figured out the art of carrying more than one type of weapon at once. For most of the game, you'll see these as Jook enemies, carrying their main weapon (a charge thrower or autocannon usually) on a side mount and an Automat in the back mount. They'll try to keep you on their "strong" side since they only have that one side gun. In the third act, these guys can graduate to Warthog bodies which lack that blind spot.


Green compact cars with the Minescrap on the roof, drunk driving at high speed while dropping mines everywhere. They use Rover tires which makes them more durable than you would think.


Middleweight cars like the Warthog and Polon with tracked, rover or mudder suspension, they’re armed with a shellgun or pyreblitz in the forward mount. They aggressively pursue you at close range and tend to make big swerves back and forth, basically jousting you. They have a fairly large healthpool and usually sport bright orange or red paint jobs. There’s rarer Tartarus and Warthog variants that mount their weapon on their trunk slot instead and try to drive in front of you.


Heavy vans like a Flakwagon or Bizon armed with multiple Shellguns. They will tend to closely follow the convoy truck if they spawn in a convoy mission. Very dangerous up close and tend to be pretty durable, but at least they don’t aggressively chase you like Hussars do.


Vans with a dual pair of Rotors. They clearly like shooting a lot of bullets and that’s just what they’ll do. They don’t seem like a very common enemy, for whatever reason. $400,000 of bullets is a tall ask I guess?


Enemies with weirder configurations. Suspension and armaments are highly variable. I'm going to be honest, this category is also a bit of a wastebasket taxon for one-off enemy configurations that I couldn't classify as something else. I'm sure there's one or two things that I simply haven't seen enough to recognize as its own enemy type.


Big guys with blue and white paint jobs, treads, and a set of multiple Orkan Batteries. They spam rockets at medium range. I noticed that many variants seem specifically built to reference Corvid tanks from Brigador like the St. Benjamin, Nickel and Party Van. There’s also rarer wheeled variants. They’re surprisingly dangerous, maybe the most dangerous regular enemy, just because of how enemies fire huge volleys when using Orkan Batteries. This results in a ton of stuff getting hurled at you, especially if there's more than one- which can happen often in Act 3.

There are three categories of boss battle in FUMES: Steigers, Overseers, and [monsters]


Steigers are bosses who use normal car bodies and either a Monster suspension or one of the tracked ones. You can fight one in a Steiger Battle once you've beaten enough Missions in a Stage to unlock them. Each Steiger uses a single weapon exclusively, filling all possible weapon slots on their car's body. They also have access to FUMES boosting and will use it to chase you down. They summon Bogeys of various kinds at the start of the fight and will re-summon them whenever they're all killed. This re-summon move is important because doing this will both heal you and also cost them a percentage-based portion of their health. This means it does more damage to them the more health they have- don't wait around on killing their backup! When you do successfully kill them, you unlock the body and the weapon that they were using, and are moved to the next Stage. You can also re-fight Steigers that you've already beaten in the Steiger Skirmish mission type, which starts appearing in Act 2.


Overseers are huge industrial vehicle bosses. A rolling village settlement (Bavarius) and a cargo ship on wheels (Sharknador) are available so far, with hopefully some more to come. You battle these at the end of each Act, and winning against them is what allows you to progress to the next one. They're huge, and have a ton of ordinance to throw at you. They also have a unique attack- a big fog horn sounds and a big red holographic target appears on the ground to herald that area being obliterated in an artillery strike, which happens at regular intervals during the fight. It takes agility and foresight to dodge this, so don't go into their fight loaded up too heavily to move. Their weakness is their size, and the fact that they have subsystems that can be damaged- especially with explosive weapons. They also share the percent damage cost of summoning bogeys with the Steigers.

Currently, there's only one- Industrius, who serves as the final boss in the current early access version of the game (as of Sept. 2025). These are huge rolling machines that are so large, you only fight them by driving up into their interiors and having a shootout with mounted equipment, sentry turrets, and Bogeys that they'll drop on you from above.

Current version of Industrius is the unfinished build from the demo- you can't "beat" him, you'll end up in an arena that will eventually drop you into a death pit. Reaching this part and dying to it is considered "beating" him for gameplay purposes though, and unlocks the postgame.

For now these only appear in specific missions, with one obvious exception.


Your friend to the end. Crazy big V8 he's got. He drives along the roads lazily. If you drive too far from him, he'll be teleported to a road closer to you, so just follow his icon on the radar and you'll never have to drive too long. Honk twice to get him to stop, but you can totally Knight Rider it up the ramp while he's moving, provided that the road is straight enough.

The objective of both Convoy missions, a Bizon truck with an extended wheelbase and a cargo bed full of wrecked cars and a big glowing orb. They will only ever follow the route of the road at a moderate speed, and don’t have any weapons. These trucks can be easily spotted from a distance due to their orb emitting an aurora into the sky (red for Convoy Hijack trucks, purple for Convoy Escort trucks).


Friendly NPCs spawned in a trio* at the start of the Convoy Escort mission who will always stay near the convoy truck. They drive pretty much any cars, usually equipped with heavy suspensions, and they’re always painted a shade of blue with no decals. They carry one gun and one cargo module full of cargo, which mostly just helps to identify them. They don’t seem to do much damage but they do distract the 79ers from attacking the truck which helps it live longer (not that it tends to die fast anyway). If all of them are killed, they'll respawn at the start of the next wave.

* Anecdotal evidence indicates the possibility of only two or even just one guard spawn


Maybe stretching the definition of friendly a bit but these guys are your opponents in the Checkpoint Run race missions. Your guns are disabled during races, but you can ram these guys all you want, for whatever good that may or may not do you. They use pretty much any body whatsoever, but oddly they seem predisposed to use vans and trucks on wheeled suspensions. You'll see at least a few Monster wheel users, as much sense as that makes. They don't use guns either, but they do fittingly have access to FUMES boost which they will use zealously.


Only found outside of missions. Initially they are neutral but can be turned hostile through various actions.


Random civilian NPCs who drive around the roads of the overworld with random cars on stock suspension, using one gun (usually at the front) and the rest of their car’s slots filled with cargo modules. You can intimidate or ram them to give up their cargo and they might either run away or fight back.


A bunch of nonhostile NPCs driving cross-country together at a moderate speed. They’ll fight you if you shoot at them, but otherwise leave you alone. I think this is one of the only cases of true randomization in the game, since their loadouts tend to be pretty... well, random.


A rare sight, single NPCs driving cross-country at high speed, sometimes with cargo, sometimes not. They don't get the cargo interaction that Roamers do.


Jockeys, basically, but they’re shooting at each other for some reason. They don’t seem to actually be hurting each other much, and if you intervene they all start shooting you together instead. IDK what their deal is, high on fumes maybe?


These guys randomly spawn if you leave the Scrapper with cargo on you and will ambush you in a pack of about two to five, demanding you give up your cargo. You can surrender or refuse and fight them. They seem to be armed similarly to Wanderers, one frontal gun and everything else a cargo slot, but they use Rodded suspensions (because they’re stupid, that suspension is useless).

There are various references to pop culture in the game. Polish-specific or otherwise. These can get pretty obscure, so if you see one that isn't listed here, please let me know!


The “Nocaps” skin for the Jook references the Youtuber of the same name, who covered FUMES in early development.

The "Interceptor" skin for the Polon features the same color scheme as the MPF Interceptor from the first part of the first Mad Max film.

The “Helldriver” skin for the Flakwagon references Helldivers, particularly the color scheme of 2’s box art.

The Griffon features no less than three skins referencing the livery the real-life Peugeot 205 T16 sported in Group B competition- pictured is the "Virra" skin, but it also has the "Group Bee" and "Zero Fifty" skins which have similar color schemes.

The Cub Steiger, Expirator, has a name that is a mashup of "Terminator" and "Expire" (as in, die). This is a reference to the fact that his only purpose is to die in the first five minutes of the game. This sounds like a joke (and it is) but unlike every other boss he actually stays dead, because while you can get a Cub Steiger in the boss refight missions, it's a completely different guy named Cubot (who you never actually fight in a "proper" stage-end battle).

The Polon Steiger, Borewick, is painted like a soviet era Polish cop car with a number 7 on the side and named as a reference to the Polish cop show, 07 zgłoś się, starring Porucznik (Lieutenant) Borewicz, who drove around in a white Polonez.

The Jook Steiger, Beetlejook, is a dual reference to the name of the original car (which means “beetle” in Polish) and to the movie Beetlejuice, especially with the black and white striped “Beetlebob” paint job that he uses which is a reference to Beetlejuice’s similarly striped suit.

The Tartarus Stieger, Gaslighter (who uses Pyreblitzes exclusively), and his skin the "Pyre Engine" is a reference to the use of Tatra 613s as rapid fire response vehicles in Soviet Czechoslovakia.

The game contains a few oblique references to the vehicle combat game Brigador; a few Bogeys use loadouts and paint jobs designed to reference vehicles used by the anarchist insurgent faction, the Corvids, from that game. Knockoffs of the St. Benjamin, Nickel, and Party Van (respectively a truck, pickup, and van on tank treads) appear as Katyusha enemies.

The "McRally" skin for the Polon references the color scheme used by real world rally driver Colin McRae, who appeared in a number of eponymous rally racing video games.

The "SUPERHOT" skin for the Polon is a reference to the game of the same name, and features a stark-red shatter pattern similar to the artstyle of the game.

One of the Caro's skins is named “ThatWasFast”. This is a reference to the reveal of the vehicle originally being tied to the number of reviews of the game’s pre-release demo, which was met on the same day as the reveal announcement.

The Bullet tracked suspension is named after and has a description that references the Bullet Farmer from Mad Max: Fury Road, who drove similar tread-converted muscle car.

The build and coloration of the Shellgun (yellow double barrel shotgun with drum magazines) may be a reference to Sledge’s Shotgun, a unique shotgun from the Borderlands series. The two ammo drums have a randomized color scheme (checkered in either black and white or yellow hazard stripes) which appear to be a reference to Torque guns from that series.

The boss Bavarius is designed and named in reference the movie of Mortal Engines, specifically the opening chase scene between London and the Bavarian mining town of Salthook.

Thanks to averycoolspider and JCurtiss96 on the FUMES discord for proofreading and advice!

Thanks to the FUMES Team developers for this wonderful game, and especially thank you to pirxOS for answering some of my badgering questions about how stuff works in the game!

And finally, thank you for reading! Once again, let me know if there's anything to add here.