Metro: Last Light

[Wirdschowerdn]

http://www.4a-games.com.mt/news/2016/10/13/community-letter

Greetings to all our fans,

Last week we revealed the first of two major projects in development at 4A Games – ARKTIKA.1 is a AAA Virtual Reality shooter for Oculus Touch set in a new post-apocalyptic world. It’s a great project for the studio, as VR is a good match for our overall goal of making IMMERSIVE games!

It’s clear that some of you really like the look of ARKTIKA.1, and we’ll talk about that a bit more below – but we also see some of you were… maybe a bit disappointed. Perhaps you prefer traditional PC / console games, and maybe you were hoping we’d announce… something else!

So let me say again – ARKTIKA.1 is one of TWO projects in development right now. It’s not holding the other project up – with our new Malta studio we are a much bigger team, and it is better for us to have multiple projects, for our own independence and creativity. We’re not ready to talk about the other project just yet, but we think you’ll like it. So please be patient!

Back to ARKTIKA.1 – in short, we’re really happy about it; we love being a part of the first wave of large VR projects. This happiness might have deep roots within the experience of our team (the core of which is comprised of people from Ukraine) – we were rather late to enter the games industry and were always chasing after the leaders of that pack.

Now the others will have to chase us.

Why VR?

VR is very immersive. We pride ourselves on our ability to make immersive experiences so it makes sense.

We’ve always been creating immersive games, and I think we can be rightfully proud of our success in this pursuit. Oculus has allowed us to take the immersion to a whole new level, and it would have been a shame to miss such an opportunity.

VR will be the king in immersion until they figure out way to send information right into the brain via WiFi, and with every passing year VR will continue building that momentum.

The decision to start a VR project came rather spontaneously – we just tried it out, and that was it, the decision was made! We’re not much different in that regard from most of the people trying VR for the first time. The experience is, without doubt, eye-opening and we see the potential.

ARKTIKA.1 is a full-blown ААА title, and we are fully employing all of our accumulated experience to take advantage of all the new opportunities provided only by VR. ARKTIKA is not a port, the project was built for VR and the Touch platform from the ground up.

ARKTIKA.1 mixes the post-apocalyptic setting traditional for our team, with Sci-Fi, which is something new for us, and we hope that you like it. We ourselves like the way it’s coming out a lot.

Thank you for your support!

Andriy “Prof” Prokhorov

Creative Director, 4A Games

TL;DR

4A Games is still working on a second, "real" game besides ARKTIKA.1.

 

[Ivan]

hope it captures their feel of their STALKER-ish DLC where you must survive in a toxic environment.

 

[Drakron]

hope it captures their feel of their STALKER-ish DLC where you must survive in a toxic environment.

Twitter?

 

[anus_pounder]

for sure.

 

[Wirdschowerdn]

You know, ARKTIKA.1 looks kinda neat. Any chance this is just a time exclusive and we'll see a proper port later on?

published by Oculus Studios

Never mind.

 

[Carrion]

tl;dr: Is Last Light any good at all?

I played Metro 2033 and loved the atmosphere, but that was pretty much the only thing about it that I liked. It played like some unholy mix of Stalker and Call of Duty, a distinctly Eastern European game that was ruined by popamole gameplay and super linear levels.

 

[Beowulf]

It's still very linear and with more mobs at times. It looks good, the stealth is more serviceable (i.e. very easy this time), but sometimes after a stealth section you are thrown straight into railroaded shooter section.
On the hardest difficulty (Ranger Hardcore if I remember correctly) you don't get key prompts or some parts of a HUD (I had to watch a youtube playthrough to get past the segment with the rail car, because I couldn't start it, and the key wasn't intuitive and wasn't mentioned in the controls, for example), so it's not recommended for the first playthrough unfortunately.

The atmosphere is still there, but I didn't bother to finish it (and I liked Metro 33 as a corridor shooter for similar reasons).

 

[Carrion]

I find that these linear FPS do have their place, it's not like it's serving you with an overdose of slo-mo destruction so over-the-top that it loses all impact and meaning. Metro is Call of Duty for gentlemen of fine taste.

Linearity can work in a specific type of game, but I thought it was a particularly poor fit for Metro because it had a bit of that survival thing going on, yet they couldn't really do anything with it. It was a corridor shooter with checkpoint saving and no backtracking, so the game couldn't put you in a situation where you'd hopelessly fuck yourself over, meaning that every time you entered a new area the game was kind enough to provide you with the required supplies for that section. Don't know if the Ranger difficulties were any different.

 

[DeepOcean]

Metro 2033 is more atmospheric than Last Light because it focus on the supernatural/survival on a wasteland more than Last Light, Last Light focus alot on the political conflict on the Metro world that I find to be the weakest point in the setting, the stealth was dumb down too while Metro 2033 had three states: hidden, exposed, on clear sight, Last Light removes the middle of the road state and or you are completely hidden or completely on clear sight and this cause alot of bizarre things to happen to the enemy Ai that can be easily exploited.

Those two are the biggest flaws of the game, while the rest is better than on Metro 2033, there are more open levels, there is more optional exploration than before, the gunplay is better, there are more guns... So when you balance thing out, the game is on the same level of Metro 2033, somethings it does way worse (the main story and the whole political conflict in the game aren't interesting), other things it does way better.

 

[Wirdschowerdn]

The website for the Metro 2035 novel mentions a new game coming out in 2017.

http://metro2035.com/

 

[Whisky]

tl;dr: Is Last Light any good at all?

I played Metro 2033 and loved the atmosphere, but that was pretty much the only thing about it that I liked. It played like some unholy mix of Stalker and Call of Duty, a distinctly Eastern European game that was ruined by popamole gameplay and super linear levels.

Last Light adds gas mask condensation and a wipe button. It's immersive as hell.

 

[vortex]

I like Metro but I was hoping for new IP.

 

[Ivan]

I'm sure it'll be the last one (meaning no dumb Spinoffs).

Really hope they try a hub based STALKER-like title next.

 

[hajro]

This is a hub based stalker title

Spoiler

Metro2035 ends up with Artyom establishing contact with Yurop, seems Russia got cucked and became inhospitable but there are places where people can live normally and thats where the next game starts out.

 

[HoboForEternity]

looks like i've to start reading the books.

 

[Wirdschowerdn]

https://www.destructoid.com/deep-silver-says-there-won-t-be-a-new-metro-game-next-year-398499.phtml

Putting that rumor to bed

The Metro franchise is one that publisher Deep Silver seems to care deeply about. For good reason, too. It's right alongside Saints Row in terms of its games that are consistently well-received. In some sense, Metro is almost a sure thing.

That's why when information leaked yesterday that there'd be a new Metro title in 2017, it seemed plausible. There will surely be another game in this series, it's more just a question of when. Deep Silver partially cleared that up and denied that it'll be next year.

Deep Silver offered the following comment to Destructoid today: "As the exclusive rights holder to video games set in the Metro 2033 universe, Deep Silver has ambitious plans for the hugely successful Metro series. But just to manage our fans' expectations -- releasing the next Metro game in 2017 is not one of them. When we have more news to share, we will. Thank you for your patience."

That more or less confirms that there will eventually be a new Metro game, a prediction that most could probably have felt comfortable making without Deep Silver's comment. It just won't be next year.

Maybe 2018 then.

 

[Gerrard]

So basically the book author sold out?

 

[Icewater]

Really hope they try a hub based STALKER-like title next.

For the love of god, this. I enjoyed the Metro games but the whole time through both of them I couldn't help constantly wanting something less scripted and more open.

 

[Carrion]

Okay, I'm thinking of getting Last Light, but of course they're only selling the Redux version. It's either that or going for a physical version of the original Last Light, which still seems to be available in some local stores, and I'm leaning towards that after reading some of the comments on the last couple of pages. On the other hand I've also read that Redux has some gameplay changes that make it a bit less popamole, such having no regenerating health on some difficulty levels, which is a huge plus in my books, but then again I've also read that those difficulty levels have a bunch of retarded stuff too (lol we took out ur HUD), so I'm not sure.

So, in short: which one should I be going for, and are there any notable gameplay differences between the two versions?

 

[DeepOcean]

Okay, I'm thinking of getting Last Light, but of course they're only selling the Redux version. It's either that or going for a physical version of the original Last Light, which still seems to be available in some local stores, and I'm leaning towards that after reading some of the comments on the last couple of pages. On the other hand I've also read that Redux has some gameplay changes that make it a bit less popamole, such having no regenerating health on some difficulty levels, which is a huge plus in my books, but then again I've also read that those difficulty levels have a bunch of retarded stuff too (lol we took out ur HUD), so I'm not sure.

So, in short: which one should I be going for, and are there any notable gameplay differences between the two versions?

I didn't play the redux version but I heard they used the stealth system from Last Light, if that is the case, Metro 2033 stealth will be a cakewalk. Last Light uses a binary stealth system, on darkness, you can't be seen at all and on light you are seen, Metro 2033 has actually 3 states, hidden, partially hidden and exposed. This means that while you are on darkness, on Last Light you can pretty much exploit the Ai to your pleasure, not so much on Metro 2033 as they are way more sensitive what makes the game harder but makes a pure stealth playthrough almost impossible.

The redux version offers better graphix especially on the character models that on Metro 2033 they are pretty shitty and is more polished but from what I heard, it is actually more popamole than less because of the changes

Metro 2033 had a huge problem on the higher difficulties that could make the game unfinishable, there aren't any vendors selling gas filters after a certain point in the game but the player has no way of knowing this, that coupled with the short duration of filters on high difficulties, you could reach a position where it was impossible to finish the game as the last areas are all long surface levels. Maybe they fixed this on the redux version. So you will need to choose between an easier kinda popamolified version of the game but polished on the Redux version or a really raw kinda unfinished game on Metro 2033 original.

 

[naossano]

Playing stealth in both the games in both version, both versions are a bit extreme. Stealth in redux and last light have a lot of options, but is OP and have zerodifficulty. In vanilla 2033, it is much harder, but way more satisfying to succeed a 100 pacifist playthrough. You really are earning your happy ending. And it s way more scary as a survival game when sleath is harder and darknesspreventyoutoseefromafar.

 

[Carrion]

I didn't play the redux version but I heard they used the stealth system from Last Light, if that is the case, Metro 2033 stealth will be a cakewalk.

Thanks, but it's Last Light I'm thinking of getting. I've already played through the original Metro 2033, and I doubt I'll play it again as I didn't think it was very good as a whole. I'm still curious about checking out Last Light as I really liked the atmosphere, and the gameplay was alright for a game that really went out of its way to incorporate all the shitty elements from Call of Duty and the likes.

Metro 2033 had a huge problem on the higher difficulties that could make the game unfinishable, there aren't any vendors selling gas filters after a certain point in the game but the player has no way of knowing this, that coupled with the short duration of filters on high difficulties, you could reach a position where it was impossible to finish the game as the last areas are all long surface levels.

Yeah, it's kind of an unavoidable side effect when you're adding survival elements to a corridor shooter with checkpoint saving and no backtracking.

 

[Icewater]

Underhell mod had the same issue for the same reasons; corridor shooter with no respawning of items but still had an ever-decreasing hunger meter and respawning enemies.

 

[naossano]

[QUOTE="Carrion, post: 4898032, member: 19]

Metro 2033 had a huge problem on the higher difficulties that could make the game unfinishable, there aren't any vendors selling gas filters after a certain point in the game but the player has no way of knowing this, that coupled with the short duration of filters on high difficulties, you could reach a position where it was impossible to finish the game as the last areas are all long surface levels. Maybe they fixed this on the redux version. So you will need to choose between an easier kinda popamolified version of the game but polished on the Redux version or a really raw kinda unfinished game on Metro 2033 original.

Since the beginning of the game, you have no way to know if or when you will refill you filters. At no point in the game you are supposed to not care about yourfilterreserve.

 

[Gerrard]

The game also never tells you that you can only have a set number of filters, and once at that number you can only pick up filters you find if they have more time left than the lowest one you have, so most of the time you would come across filters that you can't pick up because playing with most of your screen fogged up is not fun.