Ten years ago Metro 2033 was an unexpected pleasant surprise. It was a scripted linear stealth FPS that cared about its storytelling, its world and characters more than about making you feel cool, something that was commonplace for the tightly scripted big budget titles of the time. It was as if Escape from Butcher Bay was based on a Russian post-apocalyptic sci-fi novel. And despite a lot of its issues, it was unforgettable and wonderful.
Ten years from then, Metro Exodus is trying to turn Metro 2033 into Far Cry. Results are far less disastrous than one might expect.
I feel like I need to give some context to the series here. When Metro 2033 got released it was a complete surprise. The desire among the Ukrainian developers to create “our own national Fallout” which eventually led to S.T.A.L.K.E.R. has been almost extinguished. Most of the big name developers that attempted it were either gone or switching to something less ambitious, GSC Game World it its original iteration was almost dead, Deep Shadows were pretty much gone, Creoteam (granted Collapse was similar to Fallout in setting only) were rethinking their future. Even the other biggest developer name on Ukrainian market, Action Forms, didn’t get the success with Cryostasis everyone expected them to have and went into “hibernation” that they’re still in. Then suddenly, Metro 2033 comes out and it’s the first ever project on this level to actually deliver what was promised. The storytelling was solid, the visuals were stunning, the gameplay was serviceably good and even the similarities to the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. were the positives, as the game and its world (as the book it was based on) felt very different. It was a hit.
It’s not surprising then that Last Light was greenlit for development. That it became much more streamlined, much tighter, much flashier, more “heroic” and also, inevitably, more predictable, more “by the book”. Yet it still retained a lot of what made the original as good as it was, it still understood that solid gameplay is there only to serve the story. Sure, gameplay sequences weren’t as varied this time, sure the action adventure feel was almost gone in favor of more pure action. But it still worked, still held on to the world, the characters, the atmosphere.
It is exactly the reason why I simply do not understand why anyone thought that basing Metro Exodus almost entirely on gameplay would be a good idea, without rethinking said gameplay completely. But that is what happened. Exodus has several story sequences/levels that work almost exactly like the previous games – highly scripted stealth FPS with forced action moments. And then most of game is set inside open maps/open levels which are essentially tiny open world locations with several locations for you to explore at your own pace. Except, most of those, if they have any kind of quest attached to them, work exactly like what I’ve described with the older games. Which is completely at odds with the open nature the game is trying to have at the same time, simply because that core gameplay was never particularly fun in the first place.
See, Metro games were never good FPS or stealth titles, if you boil them down to mechanics specifically. Those worked to create the tension necessary for the situation, for the story. Those worked in conjunction with the moral choices you had, with understanding that you must ration your ammo, your filters, your medkits. Mechanically, it was boring and basic. Stealth was almost always the “intended” way to go, but it was relatively not annoying specifically because you just had to follow the “intended” path and everything will work out. Shooting was fine for short sequences, because the unorthodox weapons had neat little touches to them that made them unique. Metro 2033 and Last Light were great because these mechanics served a purpose of telling the story.
Metro Exodus jumps between telling a genuinely atrociously stupid story and outright refusing to tell the story unless you beg it to say anything. The story, as it is, is just boring, but the fact that you essentially have an all new cast, while the main character is still a mute dummy isn’t helping. The obnoxious “love interest” from Last Light returns and is, in fact, the main focus of the story in a way, her dad, redesigned completely yet again, returns as well. But apart from them, the rest of the cast are all new and all forgettable, all lacking personality. With Artyom being the biggest personality void of all. In 2033 he was just a guy who suddenly got an important task assigned to him and went on a journey that changed him and who managed to change the lives of those around him as he went. In Last Light he was closer to your typical soldier character, a “hero”, yet it still fit the story. In Exodus, he is simply not a character at all. He has all these relationships, all of these desires, yet he, as a character, is just absent and nothing in the story or the gameplay builds him at all.
What’s worse is when you need to ask the game to tell you things. Do you know how most character developments, most critical expositions that build the locations you visit happen? You need to find a character who is willing to share those and stand near them. Just literally stand near them. Doing nothing. For up to 5-10 minutes. Listening to Exposition Podcast. With things mentioned there that are vital to understanding the situations and motivations. Who thought this was a good way to tell a story in a story driven game?
But then again, Metro Exodus tries hard to not be story driven and to be gameplay driven and it just doesn’t work. The joy of Far Cry, or Just Cause, or whatever other similar titles is in the fact that you can do really fun things with the core systems, the core mechanics of the game. Heck, even Gears 5, with similar open level design, is good because its core shooting is, and always was, good. Repetitive, but good. Very few things in Metro Exodus are mechanically interesting, yet the open level design forced the studio to cut down on the actions and the weapons, so they could reuse those in the most efficient way, as often as possible. And it’s just boring to go through. And on Ranger difficulty, which is, as usual for the series, in many ways the intended experience, the scripted sequences feel about as fine as they used to before, except now in the open exploration you can randomly die to something unexpected and then learn that the last checkpoint was 10 minutes ago and before you did all of that boring “collect crap, craft crap, upgrade weapon crap” stuff that is common to the Far Cry games. No challenge, just annoyance.
There are good things in this game, however, as little as there are. Some of the stories you encounter are genuinely interesting. The whole “morality system” is least obtuse here and feels surprisingly well integrated into the story. Visually the game is astonishing even without the Ray Tracing features and locations are consistently beautiful at any time of day that is dynamic as is the weather. And even though it’s considerably less inventive with its storytelling than the original was, it still has some really good moments.
Two story DLCs for the game aren’t particularly exciting either. The first one, The Two Colonels, feels closer to what Last Light and especially its DLCs were about, but otherwise tells a rather unimportant part of the backstory. It has some interesting moments, it has a flamethrower as a main weapon, but otherwise it’s not very good. Also extremely poorly optimized for Ranger difficulty where you will most likely often randomly die to something. The second one, Sam’s Story, does the same open level design as the main game, but its story is as bland and unimportant as of the first DLC. It is essentially just “more of the same”, except with an even stupider story.
Oh yeah, also the game can still be incredibly buggy. I personally encountered mostly animation bugs, with characters and things randomly teleporting around or things getting stuck in other things, but a few times things went completely off rails and I had to restart the checkpoint. Also, it’s been 10 years, and the PC settings in the game are as basic and crap as they were in 2033 – just a couple of presets and no manual control over what enables/disables what. It doesn’t even say what each preset does, which is especially obnoxious since it seems that the last 2 presets are basically the same in terms of settings and its just that the highest one uses supersampling (renders the game at a higher resolution and downsamples from it).
I didn’t actively dislike Metro Exodus, but unlike the previous two entries in the franchise, I didn’t enjoy this game at all. Most of the time I just wanted it to end so I could move to something else. It looks great, it has a few good moments, its post-apocalyptic world, while expanded, is still curious and Tihar is still one of the most interesting guns in gaming history, despite its simplicity. But it’s also primitive and bland as a story driven game, rather limiting and linear for an exploration focused open level game and not particularly exciting for a stealth action title. Also, the music is downright terrible this time around. How far from the wonderful music of 2033 we have come. Honestly, instead of playing Metro Exodus I’d suggest checking Metro 2033 again, in original or Redux versions. I kinda wish I did.
P.S. If you still plan to play it and your PC can handle the Enhanced Edition. play that version specifically. The ray traced visuals are something else.