If there is one thing we love to do, it’s theorizing what the end of the world would be like and, sometimes, how the survivors of the supposed Apocalypse and their descendants would fare in the barren, dangerous world they’ve inherited. There are so many possibilities, it’s no wonder that numerous movies, TV shows, books and video games were made with such a scenario in mind.
The Metro franchise, kicked off with the publication of the Metro 2033 novel back in 2005 by the Russian author and journalist Dmitry Glukhovsky, has come a long way, spanning multiple books, video games, a graphic novel, a tabletop game and even a movie (which at the time of this articles being written is still in production). Of all these it’s the video games of the franchise I’m going to touch on today, as well as what makes them wonderful additions to anyone’s game library.
Explore the Metro and beyond to your heart’s content
20 years after a nuclear war has ravaged the world humanity still clings to survival underground, in the Metro System of Moscow. You, as the main character of the games, have lived most of your life in the Metro, with only faint childhood memories of what the world was like before. Do you have what it takes to fight your way through bandits, Communists and Nazis underground and through mutants on the surface to fulfil your mission and save the Metro from a higher threat? Will you and the Spartan Order be strong enough to put a stop to the conflict between the Metro’s city states before it degenerates into an all-out war threatening to engulf everything? Is your conviction to leave the Metro behind and find a faraway place where people can rebuild their civilization justified or will it lead to certain death? There are many questions, but only you can see everything through to the end and give the right answer.
Though the plot of the games is fairly linear, players can and are encouraged to take little detours from their adventures in order to explore the surrounding areas. Not only is this the primary way of collecting ammunition and other resources, something which is vital to your game progression, but you will also find all kind of notes that unravel the secrets of the past, chatty NPCs more than willing to talk about all kind of things going on both underground and on the surface, ranging from their way of life to conspiracy theories, and side quests that will add a little at a time to the overall worldbuilding of the games.
Do things your own way
Are you the type that likes going in guns blazing and killing everything that moves before it has any chance of knowing what hit it, or do you prefer to keep to the shadow as you silence your enemies one by one? In most scenarios how you complete a level is completely up to you. As long as you have enough ammunition you can mow your enemies down with rifles, shotguns or even gatling guns and flamethrowers. A stealthier approach will see you doing a lot of sneaking around and relying on sniper rifles, pneumatic guns, the simple but effective throwing knives and even your own fists to take out or just incapacitate annoying sentries without raising the alarm. Keep in mind though that the game keeps track of this, and certain achievements are given for completing levels without being discovered and without killing or knocking anyone out, not to say that you actions also influence how your story will end.
That being said, you may not always have this commodity. If it’s a horde of mutants you’re facing just pray you have more bullets than they can take. Aside from specific mutants like Demons and Librarians which you can and are advised to avoid, most mutants encounters are something you have to play through. However, if it’s a challenge (and getting all the achievements) you want, you can take even on those mutants you could easily avoid, though you should be prepared for the ordeal you’re about to put yourself thorough.
Something for all kinds of players
The games have a variety of difficulties to play on. To start with, there are the three standard difficulty settings present in the first editions of Metro 2033 and Metro: Last Light: Easy, Normal and Hardcore. Aside from these, there are also two subsequent harder difficulty settings featured in DLCs: Ranger Easy and Ranger Hardcore. The harder the difficulty chosen, the scarcer ammunition and resources are, the easier it is to be spotted by enemy patrols, more and more elements of the HUD are disabled for the sake of immersion and the easier it is to be killed; on the other hand there are also small mercies in higher difficulties: while your enemies may dish out more damage, they will also take more damage from you.
Following the remaking of the two games into Metro Redux the Ranger Mode difficulties were included in the base games, while two difficulty modes were added on top of the basic game difficulties in order to spice things up. The first of them, Survival Mode, is defined by scarcer ammunition and resources, lower reload speed and tougher enemy AI, ultimately giving the game a similar feel to that of the original Metro 2033 and other survivor horror games. Spartan Mode, however, is based on Metro: Last Light’s game mechanics, meaning that ammunition and resources are plentiful and the game is very action-oriented, turning it into a veritable FPS.
Metro Exodus does away with the Survival and Spartan Modes of Metro Redux, sticking to the standard game difficulties: Easy, Normal, Difficult and Stalker-Hard. There is one thing that sets Metro Exodus apart from the other games in the franchise, and that is its Reader difficulty mode. With superfluous ammunitions and resources and greatly simplified combat, this difficulty mode is ideal for those that only care about the lore of the game, as well as those whose disabilities may make the game even harder to play than it was intended to be.
All in all, these games are nothing short of extraordinary! The story is captivating, the gameplay is fun, and the encounters, while at times a pain in the butt, are nonetheless exciting and challenging enough to make you want to win rather than give up. My only regret playing through the first two games was that they felt too short, but even that became a non-issue by the time I started the third.
If this article has caught your attention, then let me give you one more tip; you don’t have to readily believe me when I tell you how great these games are, you could try them out for yourself. However, if you’re not big on FPS games but you find the Metro universe appealing, I would suggest checking out my other article about the book series the games were based on.
