Metro Exodus Enhanced - out of the metro tunnels and back on Steam

[JDR13]

Or maybe you have shit taste in shooters

Honestly I don't care to argue more about it.

I didn't realize we were arguing.

It's fine to have an opinion, but some of the statements you're making are blantantly false.

 

[Wunderbar]

And yet the 6-round shotgun was the most versatile and dependable weapon in that game. How does that work? And what was fixed exactly in Redux?

i somehow failed to write "double barrelled". You can't hit shit with Duplet unless you're shooting point-blank.

 

[Gerrard]

And yet the 6-round shotgun was the most versatile and dependable weapon in that game. How does that work? And what was fixed exactly in Redux?

I think you mean the revolver. It could kill even librarians in 3-4 good shots.

 

[JDR13]

And yet the 6-round shotgun was the most versatile and dependable weapon in that game. How does that work? And what was fixed exactly in Redux?

I think you mean the revolver. It could kill even librarians in 3-4 good shots.

I just finished 2033 Redux on Ranger difficulty, and Librarians were a nightmare. It took at least 6 point blank shotgun blasts to put one down AFTER hitting it with a sticky bomb.

 

[toro]

And yet the 6-round shotgun was the most versatile and dependable weapon in that game. How does that work? And what was fixed exactly in Redux?

I think you mean the revolver. It could kill even librarians in 3-4 good shots.

I just finished 2033 Redux on Ranger difficulty, and Librarians were a nightmare. It took at least 6 point blank shotgun blasts to put one down AFTER hitting it with a sticky bomb.

You were no supposed to kill them. Just keep the light on their faces and go around.

 

[Sodafish]

Fully charged volt driver in the face is the way to deal with librarians (or anything else for that matter). Of course in Redux they removed it from that first bandit camp you encountered, so you then couldn't get it before the library. I can see why as it's incredibly OP, and the ammo is cheap as dirt.

 

[Gerrard]

Because it's a broken weapon that was never in the game in the first place until the Ranger DLC was added. And you can get it right in the beginning of the game. What were they thinking?

And yet the 6-round shotgun was the most versatile and dependable weapon in that game. How does that work? And what was fixed exactly in Redux?

I think you mean the revolver. It could kill even librarians in 3-4 good shots.

I just finished 2033 Redux on Ranger difficulty, and Librarians were a nightmare. It took at least 6 point blank shotgun blasts to put one down AFTER hitting it with a sticky bomb.

I don't know about redux, in the original the Hellsing was the most efficient way of getting rid of them. At full charge it was 2-3 headshots to kill them and you could get the a"arrows" back.
The pneumatic weapons were (also) stupid overpowered, from both game and realism perspective.

 

[AwesomeButton]

Help me out here - what is the point in the last human enemy surrendering? As game functionality, what purpose does it serve? In streams I've watched so far, the player invariably kills the ones who surrender. And what else is there - choke them, so as to not offend the faction? After you've murdered all but the last guy? What's the point? Why is this feature even in the game?

 

[Echo Mirage]

Help me out here - what is the point in the last human enemy surrendering? As game functionality, what purpose does it serve? In streams I've watched so far, the player invariably kills the ones who surrender. And what else is there - choke them, so as to not offend the faction? After you've murdered all but the last guy? What's the point? Why is this feature even in the game?

I think in last light killing effected the ending. So I would say that it's the same here. Killing everyone make you ruthless thus a bad ending while being merciful will give you a better one. Or maybe it just makes sense that the last guy surrenders after seeing one guy go through a camp like the reaper goes through corn.

In other news, there is a (mostly baseless) rumour going around that the game is already cracked after all the groups came together to work on it.

 

[AwesomeButton]

I think in last light killing effected the ending. So I would say that it's the same here. Killing everyone make you ruthless thus a bad ending while being merciful will give you a better one. Or maybe it just makes sense that the last guy surrenders after seeing one guy go through a camp like the reaper goes through corn.

I would understand that if it worked only if the player incapacitates a large percentage of the enemies, by sneaking a lot, but once you've eliminated the whole base, the last guy throwing hands in the air feels silly. But enemies' behavior is silly as a whole.

Regarding the game being cracked, that would be welcome, though I haven't bought my 2080ti yet.

 

[Darth Slaughter]

https://www.pcgamer.com/metro-exodus-will-preload-on-steam-but-not-the-epic-games-store/

 

[Gerrard]

I started the original 2033 to check something and I have insane stuttering even at 60+ FPS, the frame time randomly jumps even in a static scene. I never had these problems with my older potato PC.

 

[AwesomeButton]

I've been watching a live stream of this (IGOD88's channel). This game's first hour/hour and a half are almost completley on rails, but this doesn't diminish my desire to play through it. I like the interactive movie so far. Time to get me some decline AAA gameplay I also like the script and writing.

 

[JDR13]

I've been watching a live stream of this (IGOD88's channel). This game's first hour/hour and a half are almost completley on rails, but this doesn't diminish my desire to play through it. I like the interactive movie so far. Time to get me some decline AAA gameplay I also like the script and writing.

Why would you want to spoil that much of the game for yourself?

 

[AwesomeButton]

Some benchmarks are out. Your videocard is gg.

https://www.tweaktown.com/articles/8901/metro-exodus-benchmarked-new-can-run-crysis/index6.html
https://www.overclock3d.net/reviews/software/metro_exodus_pc_performance_review_-_rtx_on/4
https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/metro-exodus-ray-tracing-dlss,5992.html
https://www.pcgamesn.com/metro-exod...a-rtx-dlss-ray-tracing-performance-benchmarks

Metro Exodus RTX performance: Nvidia’s DLSS makes the ray traced apocalypse genuinely playable

 

[AwesomeButton]

Why would you want to spoil that much of the game for yourself?

I saw parts of scenes and little plot exposition. But even if I had spoiled more, I don't much care. I know I won't be playing this game until months after the release date, and I will inevitably learn about the plot. So if I learn it from let's plays, streams or forums makes little difference. I meant to say that I liked the voice acting and script.

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2019-02-13-metro-exodus-review

Metro Exodus review - 4A's post-nuclear shooter widens its horizons without losing its soul
Railgun.

Far from just another map-clearing game, Metro's first above-ground outing is an atmospheric, characterful voyage across a ruined Russia.

There are two sides to Metro Exodus, 4A's third and probably greatest post-apocalyptic adventure - two varieties of space engaged in a hesitant dialogue. On the one hand, there are the wilds of post-nuclear Russia, absurdly splendid, absurdly deadly and moderately open-ended, from dessicated ports where beached tankers jut like dinosaur bones, to ice-locked cities whose sewers have become intestines, clogged with squirming radioactive polyps. Here, you'll act much as you do in other virtual wilderness escapades - trotting to the points of interest you've circled on your paper map, shaking down corpses for crafting resources and avoiding or murdering the many people and things who want to make soup from your thighbones.

These are spaces in which life is cheap - cheaper, certainly, than medical kits - and the risk of ambush is unrelenting. Exploring them is a breathless yet resolutely workmanlike experience, in which you'll spend a lot of time crouched in the undergrowth, wondering whether your last three shotgun shells are enough should the bandit upstairs catch sight of your weapon's laser pointer. But running through these vistas is another kind of space, in which other kinds of action - kinder actions, in fact - are possible. This is the mighty steam locomotive that carries protagonist Artyom and his comrades from map to map, as you journey eastward from Moscow's underground in search of a new home. Between lengthy stopovers in each region, usually for the sake of fuel or to deal with obstructive locals, you'll spend an interlude aboard the train - rattling past arid woodlands, poisoned waterways and wilting apartment blocks, in one of 4A's trademark masterstrokes of location design.

Each interlude corresponds to a season - Exodus's 20-30 hour campaign spans a year in-game - and it's a joy to watch those variations play out across the train's dented hull, sand caking the engine in the dry salvages of the Caspian Sea, ice brightening the fittings in the depths of winter. You can even walk along the boiler to the prow to watch the miles disappear under your feet, like Leonardo DiCaprio glorying in the view from the Titanic. But the real triumph of the train is that it's a living place, in each sense of the word - a space that evolves during the narrative as carriages are added to serve various plot purposes, and new faces join your ranks. Metro Exodus is, in this regard, both a quest for home and a story about how journeys create their destinations, as you nourish a haven whose greatest strength is that it's utterly transitory, always in motion.

What begins as a dingy cabin crowded by rowdy blokes in converted welder masks gradually becomes a little village on wheels. Making my way down to the passenger car I find the squad's amateur guitarist, Stefan, playing a melancholy folk ditty, and Sam, our lone American, fussing over a stewpot in the canteen. To the rear somebody is showing a little girl we rescued how to repair a leather strap, while the train's engineer Krest sneaks a cigarette break behind the toilet. It's reminiscent of BJ's submarine headquarters in Wolfenstein: The New Colossus, though 4A doesn't really need the inspiration - the first two Metro games are stuffed with comparably makeshift and cosy NPC settlements, scraped together from the rubble of Moscow's underground stations. And as in Wolfenstein's submarine, you can exert forms of agency aboard that train - "verbs", to lapse into armchair designer parlance - that are seldom available when you disembark.

You can mess around with a radio, for one thing, searching for one of Russia's few surviving DJ stations or to eavesdrop on conversations at your next stop. You can share a smoke with the group's cantankerous leader, Colonel Miller, discussing the previous chapter's events (characters often pick up on your choices in each chapter, especially if it involves bloodshed, though none of these substantially change the story's outcome).You can cuddle up on a bunk with Anna - Artyom's wife and the squad's ace sniper, though she's more often found playing the part of damsel in distress. You can escape, in short, from the well-thumbed fantasy of the apocalyptic world as a kind of post-historical firing range, and explore a prospect videogames seldom really investigate - the reforging of connections in society's aftermath, the gentle process of rebirth.

All of which may sound rather grandiose, and I shouldn't overstate how far Exodus strays from type. This might be a shooter with a heart, but it is still very much a shooter. The weapons are still dirty great handfuls of pipe, wood and wire, and you now have the gratification of clipping them together yourself from scavenged parts - plonking down your backpack to attach and remove scopes, barrels, different magazine sizes and stocks, the effects of which are immediately apparent in the handling. In addition to rifles, shotguns, SMGs and pistols, there's a choice of pneumatic ball-bearing rifle or crossbow as your special weapon. The satisfaction of cranking the former's Super Soaker handle aside, their appeal is that you can craft ammo for them on the go, while bullets, grenades and shells must be manufactured at workbenches that are few and far between.

The general scarcity of ammunition makes for more considered gunplay, as does sluggish character movement and the absence of automatic health regen. There are plenty of stretches in which combat can't be avoided - bunkers full of giant spiders, for instance, and a bossfight with a bear large enough to plough through cover - but Artyom is no Master Chief. Given the choice, you'll probably hold fire more often than not, scouting positions through your binoculars, then sneaking around them after sunset with the aid of night vision and motion trackers. I think there's more, however, to this ethos of restraint than the heart-stopping click of an empty chamber. Like many a video game narrative greased by shooting before it, Metro wants you to question the role violence plays in its world. Unlike most such games, it goes about this convincingly.

Partly, that's because it isn't really an open world game, however much it might resemble one. There are only two wasteland environments that feel anything like Far Cry; the rest are roomy canyons or winding, scripted corridor encounters in the style of Half-Life. Nor are these maps systematised to the gills, as in the average Ubiworld: there are no territory bars to fill, no thickets of side-mission categories to hack through, no outposts to cleanse and turn into fast travel points. Each region has its spread of optional weapon and gear upgrades, and as in Far Cry 3, you can tag objects of interest through your binoculars, but all of your objectives are bespoke, part of the main plot or a slight departure from it. If the game is to some degree a response to the open world, Metro's borrowings from that genre are as delicate, as thoughtful as the process of dividing up crafting ingredients between ammo and health kits. As such, it stands firm against the open world's propensity for empty, cyclical violence in the name of piecemeal content drops.

Beyond that, it's a game in which you'll often leave people alive because they appear to be, well, people, even when bluntly labelled "THUG", "TRIBAL" or "BANDIT" in dialogue, and even - or perhaps especially - when committing obscenities. Metro harbours plenty of anomalous mutants, unhinged sorts and predatory animals who can be gunned down with impunity. The writing can also be very clumsy, not least because Artyom only speaks during (lengthy) load-break voiceovers, which means you sometimes feel like a post-apocalyptic Lassie. "What's that Artyom? You say Anna's fallen down the hole into the underground biowaste disposal plant?" But the game's wealth of incidental overheard chatter is good at making you question those dialogue labels, thinking about the grayzone between stranger and enemy.

Besides clownish rants about rape and pillage, you'll hear bandits grumble about their leader's decisions, joke about lazy friends, muse about the lives they nearly led, comment on the weather. Far to the east there's a forest tribe who are undergoing an existential crisis about whether killing can be justified in self-defence: while sneaking around their encampment, you'll overhear arguments about whether to actively hunt intruders or just chase them away. In the Caspian Sea, oilmen turned false prophets have enslaved the surrounding tribes: their followers are fanatical and armed to the teeth, but they are still victims of exploitation, and if you're surgical, there are ways you might spare them.

Stealth is valuable, here, not just because it's more economical or less risky, but because it allows you to get close to these lives, pull the two sides of Metro Exodus together. While touring a treehouse settlement at night I encountered a sentry sitting at a small table, lost in thought. On the table there were books, dented crockery, faded pictures of children - a small, candlelit circle of belongings and memories. I spent a few moments looming over the man, the kill/stun HUD prompts framing the back of his head, thinking about Artyom's own bedside table back on the train, with its sunflower-pattern linoleum and typewriter, and about the miles of hungry emptiness all around us. It doesn't take much to suggest that a fictional construct might have an inner life, a value apart from its value as a pleasing hazard or an inconveniently mobile collection of resources. It's a bit of an indictment of games, or at least of blockbuster action games, that this feeling has become a novelty. We need more experiences like Metro Exodus that know how to resist empty bloodshed and kindle such closeness, finding the warmth in the wasteland.

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2019/02/13/metro-exodus-review/

Wot I Think: Metro Exodus
Off the rails

Danger: mild spoilers ahead.

There’s a pile of bodies twitching under our flashlights. My god, what is it now? Mutant wolves? Crab freaks? Spiders? Please, not more spiders. In post-apocalyptic shooter Metro Exodus, when you walk through a web, there is a terrifying animation of a hand-sized muto-spider as it crawls across your arm, your gun, and your face. I’ve been enjoying the small touches like this in 4A’s not-exactly-open-world shooter, this admirable attention to detail. The button to wipe your gas mask is still there. The gizmo that charges your torch is still there.

I point my torch at the heap of bodies, and it twitches again. A creature bursts out – a giant mole. I’m going to shoot it now, because, sorry mole, this world is not so open that it will accept your freakery. This is still a heavily scripted adventure. I’m just sticking to my lines.

Those who have tunneled through previous Metros know a little of what to expect. Your character, Artyom, is going on another shooty-bang. Yeehaw comrade, as they say in Moscow. But this time many of the levels will be grander jaunts on the surface of a Russia still breathing twenty years after the governments of the world overdid it on the nukes. For reasons too stupid to explain, our favourite post-apocalyptic Spetznaz has alienated his old tunnel allies and escaped the underground aboard a flashy train, along with his sniper wife and a small team of fellow gun likers.



Of course, Artyom is that type of strong, traditional Russian hero who only speaks via loading screen (you’ve read Tolstoy, right?) So he can’t say: “Let’s just go to the country and farm cabbages, pals.” He has to obey his superior officer (who is also his father-in-law) and go on stupid military excursions in cool new biomes. Fine by me. The creators have asked that reviews do not spoil much, but you could spoil the story of this game yourself just by thinking aloud. Your gang falls for obvious traps, characters get conspicuous coughs, and one of the major antagonists is a VHS copy of Mad Max: Fury Road sitting on a throne. I was surprised by that. I didn’t even know you could get that on VHS.



I’m being very harsh, very quickly. But only because I want to get its single big failing out of the way first. Like previous Metros, this is a by-the-numbers action story starring a walking AK-47, only marginally better than a Call of Duty campaign. There are good moments, even if they are mostly buried in side quests and out-of-the-way places. When I brought back a teddy from the nest of a flying beast and gave it to the train’s resident little girl, she thanked me and ran off to play with it. And when that same wee girl ran out of our shelter following a scripted gunfight to see what had happened, one of my fellow Spetzboyz knelt and gently told her to go back inside. These small human occurrences go some way to redeeming a very dry tale, far more than the mildly branching storytelling does.



I could lambast it for having a tripe story all day, but I’d be missing the joy. And there’s a lot of that here. Metro has always been far more talented at delivering atmosphere than sensible or touching plots. And with Exodus, it again succeeds. In looks alone, it’s laudable. Leaves billow past like an autumn blizzard, power lines flap about, water drips from rooftops into giant puddles, the red light of a flare glows on a mound of corpses. The environments are beautiful and harrowing and – oh my god – outside. We’re outside!



You should know that the expansive levels the creators have been showing off are fewer than you’d expect. There are really just two big levels that could be called “open world”, perhaps “open country” or I don’t know, “open municipality”. One is a swampy coastal area ruled by mutant shrimp who love to spit at you while you row a boat across the water, and the other big level is a desert landscape full of mutant humanoids who blend into the dusty ground and leap out at you when you’re picking up sandy cans of beans.



You get a map of each level, and can mark places of interest by looking at them through binoculars. Some of the game’s finest moments are when you’re left to explore these places. To loot the cargo holds of rusted ships, or navigate a road in a sandstorm. One time, I was ambushed by three punks with a petrol bomb. I enjoyed their company very much, and then I shot them.

I say “only two levels” as if this is a major criticism. It is a very minor one. The levels are vast, especially compared to the rat mazes Metro players are used to running around. As maps, they were like very small Fallouts, and still more than big enough to satisfy my urge to poke my head in every doorway. I even had to leave these places before that urge was satisfied, just so I could get this review done in time.



Another level (a forested river valley featuring some wonderful manchildren) is also quite-big, but it is also “narrower” than the other two. Your path through its caves and bogs and woodlands will deviate from another player’s path much less noticeably than on the desert sands, where your tracks are likely to go off in massively different directions. One of you might barge across the dunes in a van and leap out to get shot by a sniper in a tower. The other might sleep in one of the fast-forwarding beds scattered throughout the map, rest until night-time, then sneak onto a prison ship to bash some slaver skulls.

But there’s something better than the slavers and shrimps and zombie not-men of these large places. And that’s the big scary thing(s) each level likes to dump on you. This is a sort of “environmental boss” that harasses you in most of these places before finally confronting you, the monster equivalent of a headline act. They’re all pretty exciting lads. Although none of them beat the monster of the first big level, that flooded coastal area. Of all the mild things I’ve spoiled, I won’t spoil that fella. Generally, I found this level to be the best showcase of the game’s strengths. Namely, it rewards you for being nosy, but also for asking questions first and shooting later. Not all bad guys shoot back.



Here’s what I mean. After raiding a bandit-controlled train hangar down to a single henchman, I whipped off my backpack and swapped a few mods on my gun. You do this in real time, so you’ve got to do it in a safe, dark place. I changed things up. I went from silent killer with suppressors and throwing knives to murderous rampager with grenades and a long-barreled Kalashnikov. I was going to blast this final bandit into the walls, ha ha. I ran out, pointed my gun at him, and he immediately surrendered. He just put his hands up. At some hard-to-know moment, the enemies in some outposts will lose the will to fight. This is a good game, I thought, and I knocked the bandit out.



But it is also something of a patchwork game. I’ve mentioned Mad Max, and I’m mentioning it again because Exodus is so indebted to its influences I’m surprised George Miller and Andrei Tarkovsky haven’t come over to break its thumbs. There are electrical anomalies, and someone drops the word “Stalkers” at one point. And is that Gordan Freeman’s dune buggy I spy parked outside a mysterious bunker? A nice Easter egg, for sure. One sequence sees you in a vent as some of those big, light-sensitive spiders scurry around and — Hang on, now that you can see them up close, they look a lot like the facehuggers of Alien. And they come out of egg sacs in the same way. And what’s this? A motion sensor attachment you were given a minute ago, it’s beeping on your wristband. 20 meters. 15 meters. Get out of there, Artyom! Something’s coming to serve you a legal takedown notice!



None of this makes me like the game less. The spiders in the vents were great, we had a lot of fun. But it is also an indicator of how hodge-podge the game can feel at times, like it has been cobbled together from a bunch of different shooters. Some of the levels are open-worldy, others are not. Some gunfights are heavily scripted, others are simply your own doing. You’ve got night-vision goggles now, go wild. No wait, you don’t have those any more. This mission demands that you lose all your gear.



There’s a roughness to it that also doesn’t help. You get caught on unseeable crags, or can’t clamber up a foot-high wall under fire because the climb animation doesn’t trigger. Bits of wood float in the air, bullets seem to pass straight through an enemy’s body. Sometimes the prompt to knock out a soldier simply refuses appear in time, and he hollers for everybody to come and look at the idiot who doesn’t know how to punch. This last problem would be more forgiveable were it not for the big flaw: there’s no manual save. Just a higgledy-piggledy hybrid of a checkpointing plus a single quicksave slot. The cool photo mode is also somewhat undermined, given that neither the game nor the Epic launcher has a screenshot button. Whoops.

The last two Metro games also had rough edges, but they were so well-confined that it was perhaps better able to cover up these problems in the darkness of a tunnel and simplicity of a train carriage. When you’re underground, you can’t see the stars magically double. But there’s nowhere for a floating texture to hide in the blazing light of a summer day.



Despite those foibles, I’ve had a good time on the choo-choo ride of Exodus. It’s still very much an on-rails set piece marathon, the action-heavy equivalent to S.T.A.L.K.E.R. It’s just got bigger missions now, which is excellent. But this also has the side effect of making all the non-big levels seem like lesser missions.

During one such return to the linear underground, your commander dad-in-law remarks “we’re in our element here”. And he is blatently speaking for the studio who created him. This is the game’s element, and that is both true and regrettable. Metro’s strength has always been its dogged loyalty to the “full steam ahead” format. But once you’ve seen that the format works just as well above ground, in a big desert or a wide forest, it’s hard to appreciate any return to more constricted tunnel levels. Easy to dismiss those shorter rollercoaster rides, with their scripted enemy attacks and so much time spent watching the back of your squadmate, as being “the bad levels”. Even though, were they any other Metro game, they’d be fine.



Those scuttling returns to straight-line boltholes are not so frequent that they ruin the rest of the open levels. You could argue that they serve to keep the game clacking along at its proper pace (I won’t agree, but you could argue it).

It just feels like a shame to have that freedom suddenly discarded for the old ways. A wankier reviewer than I (there are not many) might read the final hours of Metro Exodus as some sort of Wolfian assertion that “you can’t go home again”. Once off-track, you can’t go back. And if that was the intent (it wasn’t) then let’s give a round of applause to 4A, because bravo, message received. But it’s more likely the developers just ran out of time and, speculation hat on, some other big level had to be scaled down or cut completely.

Regardless of its limitations, Exodus still deserves its place among its underground comrades. In many ways it’s better, and I’m very glad they didn’t just repeat the same subterranean journey again. And yet, for the studio, this installment might also turn out to be a fabulous curse. Because if there are any further shooters set in the Metroverse, they’ll won’t be able to return to a life of tunnel vision. Not when we’ve seen Metro is capable of so much more.

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.pcgamer.com/metro-exodus-review/

METRO EXODUS REVIEW
A whirlwind tour of post-apocalyptic Russia.

After two games spent in the claustrophobic gloom of the Moscow Metro, it's a strange sensation, at least for a Metro game, to suddenly be staring across a vast, sun-bleached desert. Exodus is a post-apocalyptic road trip through a nuke-blasted Russia, and an arid expanse of what was once the Caspian Sea is one of a number of locations visited by Artyom and his band of survivors. But even with blue skies and the closest thing you can get to clean air in this grim, dead world, survival is still an everyday struggle.

I say road trip, but your primary mode of transport in Metro Exodus is an old Soviet-era steam train called the Aurora. The game begins in familiar surroundings—the shattered, radioactive ruins of Moscow and the labyrinth of tunnels beneath it. But it's not long before the Aurora is speeding out of the fallen capital, along the Volga River, and into the wintry countryside. This is your first taste of the open world in Exodus, which is made up of several large, self-contained areas, rather than one continuous sprawl.

Metro has always been a rigidly, sometimes suffocatingly linear shooter, but now you have the opportunity to venture off the beaten path, scavenge, and explore. It's a restrained freedom, limited by the size of the maps, but there's something refreshing about an open world that focuses more on detail than size. Every location the Aurora stops at feels wonderfully hand-crafted and the weather, atmosphere, and lighting regularly change as the story spans the seasons, making for an excitingly varied game.

But this variety extends mainly to the setting and structure. The brutal, kinetic first-person combat and lightweight survival elements that define the Metro games haven't changed in any significant way. Ammo and gas mask filters are still precious commodities, and Artyom still spends the majority of the game in scrappy, tense firefights with other men in gas masks. This means, despite the spectacular change of scenery, it still feels like part of the series. But it also makes Exodus, in some ways, rather disappointing in its lack of ambition.

The context, stakes, and location will change, and there are some fantastically dramatic set-pieces to be found in here, but it's a shame how, fundamentally, every encounter in Metro boils down to shooting people. I know it sounds like I'm criticising an FPS for having too much S, but if you're going to give me this big, fascinating, beautiful world to explore, I feel like there should be more interesting ways to interact with it. Sometimes you can approach a situation stealthily, tossing tin cans to distract guards and quietly killing or incapacitating them, but that's about as exotic as it gets.

The furiously paced combat can be thrilling, especially when you start modding your guns, transforming puny revolvers into freakish weapons of mass destruction. But whether you're fighting mutants or humans, the AI is never particularly sharp or reactive, and constantly scrabbling for ammo can be a chore. The guns feel great, and I love how you can strip enemy weapons and attach the scavenged parts to your own at a workbench. But the novelty of shooting hordes of crustaceans, bandits, and mutants soon wears off, and after a while I found myself yearning for more depth.

A new mutant type, the ridiculously named 'humanimals', are zombie-like drones who rush you in packs, clambering over scenery and occasionally throwing bits of rubble at you. I think they were going for something similar to the creatures in I Am Legend, but they're clumsy, slow, and a drudge to kill, rather than some relentless, savage force to be reckoned with. Most of the mutants are generic, snarling monsters, and quite boring to fight, but there is one towards the end of the game that is actually kind of terrifying.

As for the survival elements, they do add some welcome texture to the game. Even though you've left the Metro, there are still moments where you have to equip your gas mask: radiation leaks, sandstorms, poison gas, and other nasty stuff. And every moment you spend in this toxic air, a timer ticks down, meaning you have to find a steady supply of replacement filters to stay alive. There's crafting too, which makes scouring the world for materials to build ammo and repair your mask and guns an important part of your routine. None of these systems are invasive, however, and the light-touch survival management reinforces the fiction without ever being overbearing.

Outside of combat there are some other new features, including the ability to use binoculars. If you climb somewhere high, such as a rusty old crane near the Volga that rattles violently in the wind, you can scan the horizon and zoom in on points of interest, marking them on your map. You won't know what it is until you travel there, which makes for some fun exploration, even if it's usually just more things to shoot at. I do like how each map is littered with stories. Some are relayed through diary entries and tape recordings, but it's the ones told by the environment that are the most vivid: a crashed plane with its skeletal pilot still at the controls, or an abandoned school littered with mouldy textbooks and colourful kids' drawings.

There are a few vehicles too, usually reserved for the larger maps, and slightly silly ziplines straight out of a Far Cry game. The weather can change suddenly and there's an ever-shifting day/night cycle, which you can speed up by sleeping at campsites. If you go somewhere at night there may be fewer enemies to deal with, but you could also be harassed by a deadly ball of lightning, which seems to be the Metro equivalent of the anomalies in the STALKER series. But this idea is underdeveloped, and I would have liked to experience more weirdness out there in the wasteland, to make leaving the relative comfort and familiarity of the Metro feel more alien and frightening.

What makes Exodus special, and the reason it held my interest all the way to the end despite the weak combat, is the journey. Freed from the dark maze of the Moscow Metro, the environment artists at 4A Games have achieved something remarkable here. From the frozen banks of the Volga to the dried-out Caspian Sea and beyond, the setting is constantly surprising and hauntingly beautiful. We've seen post-nuclear wastelands in a thousand videogames, but there's something about 4A's take on the concept that really creeps under your skin. A subtle air of hopelessness and melancholy that emphasises just how woefully tragic the state of this world is.

But by reaching out into the wider world, Metro loses some of its identity. The Moscow Metro, and the weird communities and cultures that developed there after the bombs fell, is one of the most interesting things about the series. Some of what you encounter on the surface in Exodus is just as imaginative, particularly the origins of a strange tribe you encounter in a lush boreal forest. But elsewhere it feels a little like a post-apocalypse by numbers, with shanty towns and bloodthirsty raiders straight out of Mad Max, and a general feeling that you're treading familiar irradiated ground.

Metro Exodus also has some problems with storytelling. For one, the English voice acting is, for the most part, terrible. I don't usually mind a bit of amateurish acting in games, but here it's so exaggerated and overdramatic that I actually found it distracting. There is the option to switch to Russian voices, which feels more authentic to the setting, but there's so much crosstalk that keeping track of the subtitles while playing is impractical. And there are too many scenes where you have to stand and wait as people heap big spoonfuls of exposition into your ears, talking interminably about what you're going to do next rather than just letting you, you know, do it.

Between major locations you can explore the Aurora as it hurtles along the tracks to its next destination, and it's here where the real heart of the game lies. The overarching plot is enjoyable enough, but it's the interactions between the characters, and how they spend their downtime on the train, that I found the most resonant. You'll see one character serenading another with his guitar; someone looking wistfully out of a window as the scenery rolls by; people telling jokes and shooting the shit in the communal area. The sense of community aboard the Aurora, of family, is palpable—which gives those moments when these mostly likeable characters are in danger added weight.

By leaving the tunnels of the Moscow Metro behind, the artists and world-builders at 4A Games have created something pretty incredible here. This voyage through a bleak Russian wasteland, from abandoned cities and burning deserts to autumnal forests and freezing tundras, is full of surprises and stunning scenery. It's just a shame your interaction with this brave new world largely consists of shooting at it. Metro Exodus is, in many ways, a pretty rote FPS attached to a setting that deserves much better. But when the Aurora's brakes screech as it pulls into the next station, the excitement of what lies ahead always makes up for its shortcomings.

THE VERDICT
78

METRO EXODUS
An incredible trip through a stunning post-apocalyptic world, let down by some uninspiring FPS combat.

 

[JDR13]

Me wants it

 

[Gerrard]

Some benchmarks are out. Your videocard is gg.

https://www.tweaktown.com/articles/8901/metro-exodus-benchmarked-new-can-run-crysis/index6.html
https://www.overclock3d.net/reviews/software/metro_exodus_pc_performance_review_-_rtx_on/4
https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/metro-exodus-ray-tracing-dlss,5992.html
https://www.pcgamesn.com/metro-exod...a-rtx-dlss-ray-tracing-performance-benchmarks

Metro Exodus RTX performance: Nvidia’s DLSS makes the ray traced apocalypse genuinely playable

>RTX off avg FPS
>1080p
>2060: 51


Can't wait for Digital Shilldry to tell me what amazing technology it has.

 

[toro]

Leaked 10 hours gameplay. It will be probably taken down.



Edit: The idiots activated streamers's keys early.

 

[Kem0sabe]

Around 14 hour campaign according to ACG. Sounds about right for this.

 

[Melcar]

Some benchmarks are out. Your videocard is gg.

https://www.tweaktown.com/articles/8901/metro-exodus-benchmarked-new-can-run-crysis/index6.html
https://www.overclock3d.net/reviews/software/metro_exodus_pc_performance_review_-_rtx_on/4
https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/metro-exodus-ray-tracing-dlss,5992.html
https://www.pcgamesn.com/metro-exod...a-rtx-dlss-ray-tracing-performance-benchmarks

Metro Exodus RTX performance: Nvidia’s DLSS makes the ray traced apocalypse genuinely playable

>RTX off avg FPS
>1080p
>2060: 51


Can't wait for Digital Shilldry to tell me what amazing technology it has.

And it looks like smeared diarrhea too. People are either fucking blind or just huge shilling homos when they praise DLSS.

 

[passerby]

What's up with having to use a flashlight inside buildings with several windows, when there is very sunny outside ?

It's winter and with less than quarter square meter of window uncovered I can see everything in a room...