Metro Exodus leaves the tunnels behind, and that is the best decision 4A Games ever made

Metro Exodus leaves the tunnels behind, and that is the best decision 4A Games ever made. The 2019 first-person shooter, published by Deep Silver, is the third game in the Metro series and the follow-up to Metro: Last Light and Dmitry Glukhovsky’s novel Metro 2035. It puts Artyom on a locomotive called the Aurora and sends him east across post-apocalyptic Russia and parts of Kazakhstan. The Metro was always a haunted house. Metro Exodus is a road trip through the wreckage, and the change of scene gives the series room to breathe.

Trailer, via metrovideogame.

The Aurora and the year outside

The game runs on a single in-game year, and the environments change with the seasons as the story moves. That structure does real work. You start in nuclear winter and end in it, with spring, summer and autumn in between, so the journey has a shape instead of a level list.

The Aurora is the hub, a place to talk to the crew between missions. Miller returns as the leader of the Spartan Order and Anna’s father. Anna, now Artyom’s wife, is back too. The Spartan comrades include Alyosha, Damir, Duke, Idiot, Sam, Stepan and Tokarev.

The train picks up more along the way: an engineer named Yermak, a nurse named Katya, Katya’s daughter Nastya, and a mechanic named Krest. That crowded train is the emotional engine of the whole thing.

Gas masks, wristwatches and no markers

The HUD is minimal on purpose. Information lives on Artyom’s body instead of on the screen, and it works. A wristwatch timer shows how long the current gas filter lasts. A compass can be attached to the watch to point toward objectives. The flashlight flickers when the battery runs low.

Filters last one minute each, and you replace them if you have spares in reserve. Dirt and blood collect on the gas mask, which can crack and needs duct tape until you can repair it properly. Irradiated areas force the mask on.

Weapons cover pistols, shotguns, sniper rifles and submachine guns, plus air-powered options in the Tikhar and the Helsing crossbow. Molotov cocktails and grenades are available. You carry three weapons.

The design choice that matters most is the map. 4A excluded mission markers so players explore naturally, and the game mixes several large open spaces with the linear missions the series is known for. Binoculars identify points of interest. It is a smart compromise: the openness of S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl, the tightness of the older Metro games.

What the open spaces cost

Here is the honest ranking of what Metro Exodus does well, best to worst:

1. The Aurora and its crew, which turn a shooter into an ensemble story.
2. The physicalized HUD, the strongest immersion trick in the game.
3. The seasonal structure, which gives the year a real arc.
4. The open levels, which are a genuine improvement but the least disciplined part of the package.

That last point is the argument worth having. The wide maps let you wander, and wandering is where Metro Exodus is weakest. The series was built on pressure: tight tunnels, scarce ammo, something breathing in the dark. Give the player a field and a pair of binoculars and some of that pressure leaks out. The game knows this and keeps pulling you back toward linear set pieces, but the tension between the two halves never fully resolves.

The journey east

The story picks up from Metro: Last Light’s “Redemption” ending. Artyom has left the Spartan Order, fed up with the infighting and corruption in the Metro, and obsessed with proving that people survived outside Moscow. He and Anna witness a train on the surface and are captured by Hansa soldiers, who shoot Artyom and take Anna.

He survives, follows them, and destroys a signal jammer that was blocking radio contact between Moscow and the outside world. Transmissions start coming in. Humanity is not extinct. They steal a Hansa locomotive and name it Aurora, and the Spartan Order moves to retake it before realizing who is aboard.

It is a clean premise, and 4A uses it to focus on Artyom’s personal story and relationships rather than the supernatural material of the earlier games. Glukhovsky collaborated on that story. The result is the most human entry in the series, even when it is the least frightening.

Metro Exodus scores 8.3 out of 10. It is not the tightest Metro game. It is the one that finally lets the series leave the dark, and the gamble mostly pays off.

4A Games · Deep Silver · FPS · game review · Metro Exodus · post-apocalyptic