Metro Exodus

4A Games decided to try something different with Metro Exodus. You're no longer trapped in linear metro tunnels, the majority of the game instead taking place on large surface maps. This fact seems to have chased off few fans of the previous games but the open world isn't as lame nor scary as some may think. There are no copy-pasted points of interests; everything is meaningful and following the main objective can still offer quite a linear experience. Taking the time to visit the few optional locations is very much worth it, though, for weapon accessories and suit upgrades.

Immersive masterpiece

The story uses Dmitry Glukhovsky's Metro 2035 novel as its basis but quickly diverts from it. Like in the novel, Artyom and Anna are now married and have left the Spartan Order. Artyom is doing his trips to the surface to search for signs of life via radio. Anna also joins him (one time at least) -- unlike in the novel -- and they discover the reason why there has been nothing on the radio.

They also discover that the Order knew about it (at least the past few months) as they stumble upon a group that includes the Order's leader and Anna's father, Miller himself. Family and brotherhood bonds turn out to be stronger than the group's loyalty to the people who keep the Metro in the dark, and they end up having to flee Moscow on a locomotive (later dubbed Aurora) to a world that is not as dead as was believed.

I love the premise of Exodus: a train trip across a post-war Russian landscape. There is a plausibility issue with the idea, though -- I forced myself to suspend my disbelief and not think about it too much. The problem is that while railway tracks are kind of made to last and the game's tracks probably haven't seen all that much traffic if the war took out most of the civilization in the country, 20 years is still a damn long time for them to have been exposed to the elements. And it's unlikely that anyone has been doing any kind of maintenance out there.

Like, how likely it really would be for a railway to be in a condition for safe passage for any longer distance after two decades? If the tracks fail under the locomotive, they would have no way of getting the vehicle back on it. And even if they spot damaged railway ahead of them, how would they repair it? But let's just ignore that and enjoy the ride.

The weakest parts of the writing are again characters doing long monologues because Artyom doesn't speak. They really do like talking in this one. The writers could have also used a whole lot more subtlety in writing Miller falling for the trap in Yamantau. Anyone listening to that conversation (at least in English) can immediately tell that it's not a Major from Supreme Command on the radio there. But Miller buys it 100% in his desperate need to find a higher purpose.

In Exodus, Miller finally sounds and looks like I imagined him to. Although, I think the same VA did him in Last Light already. Miller was shown to have lost his legs at the end of the last game and it took me awhile to realize he was walking about. Then I realized he does actually have prosthetic legs in this one -- and he moves pretty well on them. They might not be always visible, though, covered by armor and such.

Improved player agency

Originally there was going to be a lot more of the Metro's people joining the exodus. Ultimately the developers decided to instead focus on a smaller, tighter group to be able to give individuals more depth. That was a very good decision, in my opinion. 4A also improved the morality system to be more dynamic: this time you see the effects of your actions along the journey already.

Each of Exodus's three open maps is its own separate morality section with a good and bad outcome that counts for the ending. You need at least two positive ones to get the good finale. I have to say that the good outcomes feel so much better than the bad ones. Especially the third one can be rough. Paraphrased: "They were just kids, Artyom! How could you kill them!?" *gets hit by a crossbow bolt*

It is interesting how exclusive the good and bad finale scenes are. But definitely go for the good one if possible; it is so rewarding to complete missions like a professional. Avoid detection and unnecessary killing. Help those in need.

In Exodus, you can finally holster (lower) your weapon to not appear threatening to non-hostiles. Enemies can also surrender and you can then knock them out. For once it's Artyom who gets to do that.

I was somewhat surprised that I never accidentally killed a surrendering enemy (which causes morality loss). They are pretty good at announcing and showing it, though. And on the hardest difficulty it's usually only the last enemy standing, if any, that will ever surrender.

Regardless of your ending, the short section before it is yet again a prime example how music is what makes an atmosphere. I nearly got teary eyed there, driving Artyom, Miller, and Kirill through the frozen dead city back to the train.

A fair challenge for completionists

I played Metro Exodus on Steam, meaning I had to -- self-imposed -- go for actual 100% completion. And that is not exactly a walk in the park in this one. There's a hard limit of it requiring at least two full playthroughs, and if you do aim to do it in just two, the first one has to be on the hardest difficulty, right out of the gate. You really don't want to your New Game+ Iron Mode run to happen on Ranger Hardcore because the mode disables all but chapter saves, which are very few in this one due to the much larger levels. On Ranger HC, the hardest difficulty, enemies have so heightened senses and accuracy that having only chapter saves to restart at is pure madness.

Doing your first run on Ranger Hardcore -- while going for other miscellaneous achievements as well -- is not recommended either. Exodus has manual saving for the first time in the series but it is disabled on Ranger HC -- naturally. You do get three autosave slots, though, which is nice. Not being able to abuse quicksaves at some tough section does make things more arduous but not overly so. You can autosave at will by sleeping in safehouses. I did wish, though, that merely entering them was enough -- they're already fewer in number on Ranger HC. Going through the time change scene just to save is bothersome.

In more focused stealth games with a double takedown -- like Dishonored, Batman: Arkham, and the newer Deus Ex games -- two enemies talking is usually your time to strike. But in Metro, it is almost a forced exposition moment in most cases. Trying to get past them during the dialogue only leads to trouble. I'd say the only actually sketchy stealth moment was towards the end of the Volga level when getting on the traders' boat. There's a guy right next to the entryway to the boat, looking almost straight at you but I guess he's so focused on fishing that he doesn't notice you. The other guy going in circles there also has a trigger to start walking towards the bow but he seemed to become blind for that moment as well. I got extensive testing on the part because I failed a later section repeatedly and without quicksaves had to keep on boarding the boat.

The autosave feature feels slightly inconsistent, too. A couple of times I got past a point without the game saving and then getting a save there on a following attempt. At quite a few points Exodus also seems to save every few steps so that all your three autosaves become practically the same save.

The lack of quicksaves and perceptive enemies is a particular problem on the third open map, The Taiga, when going for the level's special achievement called Forest child: never touch a human and never be detected by anyone either. According to various comments, the big problem spot is the final camp where getting on a canoe is very likely to get you seen. I must admit that I used a spawn-skip shortcut without ever trying how it would be to properly stealth through. Still, I have a feeling it wouldn't be quite as difficult as advertised.

The skip also puts you past a bear -- that you need to beat there for the first time for another achievement -- and a collectible. The collectible can be fetched after the skip but there's another spawn trigger for the camp on the way -- managing your autosaves on Ranger HC can be a hassle.

The Professional achievement glitched for me, being only at 8/10 at the end of the game. I read that reloading a chapter may reset the counter, and the unique guns you've gotten kills with won't count anymore. I don't recall specifically loading a chapter save but I may have done that by restarting the Volga from an autosave. And the achievement did start counting again on NG+ and was unlocked after I had gotten a kill with the Shambler and the Kalash.

With or without HUD

HUD visibility is not entirely tied to the difficulty setting in Exodus. You can choose between faintly visible and completely invisible. I'd recommend the former for a first time run even if you've played the previous games because Exodus has an expanded loot and crafting system. Without the interact prompt, you will be oblivious to a lot of lootable crafting materials. Action hints will be disabled regardless of the HUD setting -- I learned a bunch of things only when doing NG+ run on the easiest, Reader difficulty.

Without the HUD, it would have taken longer for me to realize that lethal takedown's hotkey had changed for Exodus. It now shared the button with medkit instead of being melee like in Metro 2033 and Last Light.

I love how Artyom takes off his backpack when you craft stuff -- either at a workbench or in the field. It's such an immersive detail. Weapons getting dirty is less so. It seems only the currently wielded weapon gets muddied, thus you keep only a chosen weapon out while wading in Volga's muddy shores, and then take another out when you actually want to shoot something. On easier difficulties it doesn't matter as much because you have more plentiful resources to clean your guns with.

In Exodus, even on Ranger HC you can finally carry three weapons. One of the slots is reserved for the Tikhar or the Crossbow but that is acceptable. I reckon they wanted to ensure that you're always carrying a silent weapon.

Enhanced

Metro Exodus comes with a separate Enhanced Edition that requires raytracing support from your hardware. My graphics card does barely fill the requirement but I wasn't certain about the increased CPU requirements: I didn't want any possible stability issues that could come with and I played the standard version -- which has a setting for raytracing as well.

The game did seem to run almost as well with it on, having just a tiny bit of slowdown at times. I turned it off, though, again for the same reason. With that, the game was perfectly stable for me, which was very nice for the Iron Mode run. You wouldn't want the game to crash at the end of one of the open maps and replay the whole thing again.

Even without raytracing, Exodus is plenty pretty. It's impressive 4A managed to push bigger levels and more detail out of their engine.

The Volga level often reminded me of Disco Elysium: I half-expected to see the Insulindian Phasmid in the many reeds.

Great DLC

Metro Exodus has two pieces of DLC. The Two Colonels is a slightly more narrative focused one, putting you in the boots of Kirill's dad, Colonel Khlebnikov, who is only mentioned in the main game. In cutscenes the game shows our Miller, the first colonel, searching for Khlebnikov for the map he went to fetch.

In Sam's Story you play as Sam who is one of the rangers aboard the Aurora. The DLC takes places after the main game's story has concluded. Sam -- who is an American soldier that got trapped in the Metro when the bombs fell -- wants to return to the USA -- or whatever remains of it. The English VA for Sam is Steve Blum with his recognizable voice -- I kept hearing Mass Effect's Grunt in there.

Sam drives to Vladivostok and discovers that sailing across the Pacific isn't as simple these days. There is a way but he needs to get involved in the local happenings to get a ride. I'll have to replay the DLC some time to see its other ending. The DLC plays a lot like the open maps in the main game.

4A Games did their own exodus in 2014. As per the game's credits, the studio relocated from Ukraine to Malta, either foreseeing what the Crimean Annexation would lead to or wanting softer taxation -- or maybe both. There has been no news on what they've been working on after Metro Exodus. Something good, I  bet.