Russia’s new frontier is creepy, dangerous and gorgeous in Metro Exodus

Sooner or later, Artyom was going to have to leave the claustrophobic confines of Moscow’s subway system. With the post-apocalypse of Russia’s new frontier beckoning, Metro Exodus builds on the larger scope of Last Light to create a bolder and more dangerous world where death always looms close by. At E3, I got to sit down with Metro Exodus for an hour and experience Russia’s dangerous new wilderness.

Here’s a list of thoughts that I’d cobbled together from that session:

Gameplay

• Artyom’s ability to run, gun and sneak around isn’t anything out of the ordinary as he follows the usual first-person shooter ideas of locomotion and mass murder
• Still, there’s a hefty sense of fragility to Artyom. He’s not a super-soldier, he’s a regular man trapped in a dangerous world and he’s all the more human for it
• Which means that yeah, Artyom gets tired after a short jog, but at least he didn’t have any of the Dark Ones whispering into his head during my session
• What Artyom does have though, is a handy backpack that makes him a one-man MacGuyver army
• So long as you can find the scraps in the wilderness, Artyom can craft anything from bullets to medical kits for the rough road ahead
• It has also been twenty years since the end of Last Light, resulting in an older Artyom working off of the good ending from that sequel

Guns

• Sweet Kalashnikov, but Metro Exodus has some dirty guns
• It all ties into the makeshift theme of the world, as each weapon happens to have plenty of customisation options available
• One such example? A shotgun that I modified to have an extra barrel that gave me a fighting chance against the hostile wildlife
• Guns also have a shelf life of sorts. If they get dirty, they become less useful and you’ll need to head back to a workbench to clean them free of gunk
• Ammo is still a premium commodity however and while you can craft on the fly, it’s still best to save your rounds for when you really need them
• Gunplay itself felt easy enough, although a touch insensitive as it became a challenge to lock on to targets
• Hopefully, that’s an issue that can be sorted out soon, as the actual weapons of Metro Exodus have a wonderful weight to them and plenty of character

World

• Our game session took us to Volga, a part of Metro Exodus’ world
• With a moving base to maintain, Metro Exodus doesn’t just focus on a journey towards a brighter future but also on recruiting more useful people to help maintain the convoy
• During one stop on the journey, we journeyed to a nearby church that was populated by the most hostile Amish ever, people who had shunned electricity as a sign of the devil
• Lured in, we made our way to the top of a clocktower while a manic preacher ranted below us and sent goons to halt our progress
• Making our way out and rescuing a mother and child from the clutches, we had two options: Fight hard, or use stealth to take down enemies
• The area around the church was also well worth exploring, as we uncovered abandoned houses that held plenty of crafting items ti help us along
• Metro Exodus has a dynamic weather system, with our trip taking place during a particularly overcast winter day
• With the rain pouring down, our movements were more sluggish, certain enemies looked for shelter and new ones appeared
• Visually, Metro Exodus is looking fine
• Our session took place on an Xbox One X and while some technical hiccups were evident, 4A Games is clearly hard at work to iron these out well before launch

Enemies

• Giant enemy crabs. Yes, they’re bastards
• Human enemies in the church also featured, although by the time I’d killed enough of them the rest had begun to surrender
• In a later part of the world, I encountered ghouls and more rabid mutated creatures that wanted a piece of me
• Also, 4A Games owes me a new pair of brown pants after one sequence saw a mutant grab me by surprise

And that was it! An hour drifted by amazingly quickly, but a session with Metro Exodus had me more informed than ever before. 4A Games is clearly going for a more dangerous mixture of open-world exploration, with a series of locations that re designed to house a number of dangers between points of interest. Gun crafting is a blast, the action options are varied and the entire game is caked in a layer of creepy atmosphere.

Last Updated: June 15, 2018