Metro: Last Light Redux

Metro: Last Light is a direct sequel to Metro 2033 and, unlike its predecessor, it has a completely original story, though Dmitry Glukhovsky did work on it as well. Interestingly enough, the author also used many of Last Light's details in his Metro 2035 novel later: for instance, Miller's daughter Anna.

A very solid yet somewhat overly safe sequel

Last Light assumes the bad ending for the previous game. Not all of the Dark Ones perished, however: a youngling survived. The Spartan Order wants it dead too but Artyom, tasked to hunt it down, has second thoughts. As Artyom, you chase the Dark One as its fate gets tied to a war brewing in the Metro.

About everything in Last Light Redux: its structure, engine tech, and game mechanics, all are very much like in 2033 (Redux), with few minor improvements here and there. The biggest improvement is maybe in the pacing: the change isn't tangible but I finished the campaign with a feeling of it being a more solid experience. It helped that the story was new and I didn't know what exactly to expect. I did notice the similarities with the last Metro book afterwards, though.

There are again two endings. This time the good one is canon so you better gather all those moral points. They are more numerous but you probably also need more of them to hit the threshold. There are also few straight up game-pausing binary choices to make, like whether to kill some named character or just knock them out. From what I've read afterwards, you don't have to go for the nonlethal option every time but the lethal ones do take a lot of your points away at once.

I played again on Survival Ranger and had easier time thanks to knowing most of the controls now. The game does still throw surprise interactions you won't know without HUD, like the Regina railcar requiring spacebar to start up -- a unique use case, I believe. Gasmask filters did not become a problem but I did wish there had been few more medkits before the bear boss fight. I had few desperate attempts until the successful one -- it's wasn't that hard of a fight after all, as it turned out. Mutant fights were less awkward, though there were times they did still get to my face.

The Red Square ambush was nigh impossible with my close combat setup. I eventually stopped trying and restarted the chapter to pick up the scoped rifle earlier in the level so that I could easily take out the snipers before all my medkits were gone. I think I otherwise kept using the AKSU and the Shambler through the whole game up to the final showdown, although I possibly switched the latter for a Saiga at some point because it uses a magazine unlike the slow-to-reload Shambler.

Ammunition I never really ran out of but in the Catacombs chapter, or I maybe in the previous one already, I had accidentally switched to military grade and spent about 300 rounds of it before finally realizing what had happened. I had been wondering why mutants were suddenly catching on fire but not connecting it to the premium ammo, which I did know to be incendiary. I guess I never thought it possible for me to have accidentally switched ammo type, even if it only takes holding down R for too long once. I wish it was visually easier -- or even possible -- to tell what the magazine is holding when Artyom is putting it in. The MGA is allegedly shinier but I couldn't tell.

Last Light has a collection of DLC missions of varying length. Some add another perspective to an event in the game from a different character's eyes while others try new stuff. I tried a couple but then decided that I didn't have the motivation to beat them. Maybe if I had needed their relative achievements for 100% completion but as I was playing an offline GOG copy, there was none of that.