Metro Exodus Review

Metro Exodus was reviewed on a PS4

Think back to the last First Person Shooter you played, I’ll bet my top dollar that it’s the latest installment of either Call of Duty, Battlefield or Doom. Metro Exodus is a kickass return to the golden age era of First Person Narrative driven shooters, most notably Half Life 2.

Ironically, the game shares many of the outdated mechanics of Half Life 2, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the gameplay itself is outdated. Blending the right amount of horror and atmospheric exploration, it’s a superb ride through the desolate wastelands of Russia.

What is Metro Exodus?

Metro Exodus is the latest entry in the cult classic series of Metro games. Based on the books written by Dmitry Glukhovsky, the Metro games revolve around the lives of the inhabitants of the Russian metro. Forced to retreat underground following a nuclear apocalypse, the characters of Metro have long abandoned their dream of living on the surface.

I still remember the words of a child in 2010’s Metro 2033, where he describes the sky as a moving painting. Having spent his whole life underground, the child had never seen the sky. Metro Exodus is full of great dialogues as well — even more so than the old games at times. The characters in Exodus often contemplate their lives, and they often discuss philosophical and existential questions that haunts them.

A favorite character of mine is a soldier they call Idiot, not because he’s dumb or slow, but because of his love for Dostoevsky’s The Idiot (Which is also a favorite of mine). I love the references the game makes to Russian culture, and it helps in giving it a charm that’s often missing in other post-apocalyptic games.

Our protagonist, Artyom, still has hope that there is a life outside of the dark tunnels of the underground railways. He still dreams of the day where he and his friends and family can freely roam the surface, and in Exodus, his dream finally becomes a reality.

A Journey On The Aurora

Artyom and his band of Spartans leave the confines of the metro to venture into the outside world aboard the Aurora, their newly acquired train. The Aurora acts as the game’s hub area, allowing you to listen in on intimate conversations, to cuddle with your loving wife, Anna, and to listen to some Russian tunes on the radio.

Aboard the train is where you read your journal, which contains Artyom’s diary, a bestiary of all the creatures you’ll face off against, as well as the backstories of your teammates.

Voice Acting And A Silent Protagonist

Similar to the previous installations, he’s still a silent protagonist, which can get a bit silly. While being berated by a colonel early on in the game, he says that if he hadn’t kept a certain secret from him, Artyom would’ve spilled the beans and told everyone about it, which seems wildly conflicting. 

Despite being silent, Artyom still narrates the loading screens and lets out a weird grunt each time you make him jump, so I can’t help but wonder why they wouldn’t just give him a few dialogue lines.

At times, I wished some of the other characters would go silent instead. The voice acting and the heavy Russian accent is downright unbearable at times. On a few occasions, they sounded as if they’re doing a Borat accent, and not a very good one.

After a few hours, I tried switching to the Russian accent, which was better but the fact that the characters’ voices constantly overlapped, and the subtitles were unable to keep up with all of the dialogue that’s going on, made me switch back to English.

Coping With The Apocalypse

The following In-game shot that I took perfectly sums up the world of Exodus —Dark, brutal and unforgiving. The human life in Metro has such low value that people are often shot and killed, enslaved and mutilated in this world.

The game’s vague karma system also reflects this. Making a return from the previous games, you’re still responsible for your actions in Exodus. The game will push you to act stealthily whenever possible. Characters will praise you if you avoid unnecessary bloodshed, and would scold you if you kill for no reason.

If I had to describe Metro Exodus with one word, it would be immersive. Artyom’s movements are heavy and realistic. The way he interacts with the environment is unlike anything I’ve seen before. As he wipes the glass screen of the fuel gauge on an empty generator, tapping it softly. The way he unpacks his backpack and how his fingers pump his flashlight’s chargers.

Each movement Artyom makes feels impactful and lifelike. It’s hard not to be immersed in the world that 4A games built. I often imagined myself in Artyom’s shoes because of the top-notch animations.

Combat Can Be Cumbersome At Times

Unfortunately, this realism in movement doesn’t benefit the combat much. It’s extremely difficult to dodge your enemies’ bullets when Artyom moves at such a slow pace. I’d recommend you set the difficulty at a lower difficulty than you usually play other games, since the combat can take a bit to get used to, which can be frustrating at a harder difficulty since you’ll die often and have to endure tons of loading screens.

Sometimes, your enemies surrender after you kill too many of their friends, which is a nice touch that adds to the realism of the game. You’ll also be battling more human enemies than monsters during your playtime. There’s a lot of variety in enemy types, both human and non-humans, which helps in keeping the game fresh throughout its lengthy campaign.

Resources are extremely rare, and you’ll often find yourself running out of ammo. When that happens, it’s practically a death sentence if you’re surrounded by enemies during a shootout. The lack of a proper cover system and an option to lean and look around covers only makes the combat more challenging than it needs to be.

Stealth is extremely satisfying. You have the ability to turn off and on any light source you come across. You’ll spend some time sneaking around enemy camps, turning off their lamps and lanterns one by one, as you watch them carry on their duties from afar. You have the option of non-lethally neutralizing your foes as well as lethally.

Keeping in line with the plot, Artyom’s gang and their ride aboard the Aurora takes them all across the nation, looking for a new place to thrive and survive. As the world opened up for Artyom, it did so for us as well. Exodus, for the first time in the series’ history, features an open world.

A Varied Open-World

Each of the locations that Artyom visits are distinct and varied. From the deserts of the Caspian Sea, to the frozen lakes of Volga. The game is filled to the brim with interesting locations to explore and side objectives to complete.

If you’re thinking that Metro abandoned its atmospheric and tense specialty in favor of a cookie cutter chores filled open world, then you can’t be more mistaken. The game retains its hauntingly claustrophobic locales, as the open worlds are bleak and devoid of any life besides the usual bandits and mutated monsters.

The Caspian Sea is the most enjoyable of the game’s varied environments. A stark contrast to the snowy rivers of Volga, you’ll feel the agonizing heat and the sifting sand beneath your feet as you cross the desert landscape. Even the indoor locations that you explore in this section are some of the best in the game.

The Audio Glitches

Audio glitches are constant in Metro Exodus. The audio would absolutely go silent at times, often for a few minutes at a time. Pausing the game a bit seemed to fix it though. The chatter between the characters would often overlap. The game would also switch on and off the combat music for no reason, which was often frustrating. The characters at times would stop talking mid-sentence, even during the cutscenes.

The music on the other hand, is on point, loud when it needs to be, subtle and atmospheric when you’re walking through the claustrophobic environments of the wasteland. The sound effects are also some of the best around, all of the guns pack a heavy punch and sound as good as they feel. Giving an extra oomph to combat encounters.

Overall,

Metro Exodus is a slow methodical approach to post-apocalyptic games. While there are a few set pieces here and there, it retains the same qualities that made the previous games such an impressive experience. Fear not the open world, as Exodus doesn’t use it as a crutch to fill your playtime with padding. It rather builds the same confining, oppressive indoor environments and weaves them into the open world, seamlessly transitioning between the two.

The audio glitches can get frustrating at times, but within mere moments, the game would suck you in again into its world with its immersive animations and the quiet moments of reflection. I absolutely enjoyed each minute I spent in Metro Exodus, and I can’t wait to see where 4A games takes the series next.

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