In Fur Fighters, the player's job is to rescue the tiny animal babies who have been taken from their parents by the central villain, General Viggo. Viggo has scattered these babies all over the world, requiring the animal parents to explore, confront Viggo's henchmen, and rescue all of them. The gameplay featured many unique aspects for a third-person shooter of the time it was released, most notably making each level an extremely large, expansive area that requires sometimes hours of involved exploration to locate the babies and get rid of the enemies. (Examples include a giant construction site and an entire section of a large city, complete with buildings to explore, including a complete museum of modern art.) Maneuvering through these levels often requires careful observation of the environment so as not to get lost, as well as solving puzzles to figure out where some babies might be hidden or how to gain access to more of the level. Unlike most action games of this type, Fur Fighters distinguishes itself by featuring a system where the player can, at many intervals on a level, switch between one of many animal parents. Each parent has their own advantages and disadvantages, with many having special abilities allowing them to do certain things easier. This switching-out system also makes it easier for players who are low on hit points or ammunition to switch to a more playable character.

While Fur Fighters was not a tremendous financial success and went almost unnoticed by the majority of gamers at the time, critically the game was almost universally praised for its size, scope, sense of humour, and attention to detail. The fact that mindless violence was not the sole gameplay element impressed many, and the game went on to become a sort of cult classic. In an attempt to take the series further with a larger audience, a new version of the game entitled Fur Fighters: Viggo's Revenge was released in 2001 on the PlayStation 2. It met with mixed success as it was simply an update of the original game with a few minor features included (such as cel-shading and real voices for the characters). Notably, the first level of the game is the "World Quack Centre", a play on New York's World Trade Center. Some people wondered if the level would be removed from future copies of the game after the events of 9/11, though that never happened. This may be to do with the fact that the game's storyline relies on each and every level to make sense.