Metro Exodus

• 1. Introduction

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  In Metro Exodus, a gas filter lasts exactly one minute. When the minute ends, the player must fit a fresh one, and only if a spare is still in the pack.

  That ticking pressure defines the 2019 first-person shooter from 4A Games, the third entry in a series based on Dmitry Glukhovsky's novels. Its hero, Artyom, leaves the Moscow Metro aboard a locomotive called Aurora and rides across Russia and parts of Kazakhstan.

  The earlier games in the series lived almost entirely in subway tunnels. So how did its makers fit wide-open country into a game built around tunnels? What was Artyom hoping to find out on the surface? And why did an argument over where to buy the game become one of the loudest stories around its launch?

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• 2. Accordion Design

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  Andrew Prokhorov, the game's director, compared Exodus to an accordion. Its levels alternate between narrow, linear stretches and wide, open ones. The idea took shape in 2014, when a team of around 150 people in Kyiv and Malta began work.

  After Metro 2033 and Metro: Last Light, players had asked for larger levels and more room to explore. The team looked back to S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl, released in 2007. Several of them had worked on it at GSC Game World. They wanted its emergent gameplay and large explorable spaces inside a Metro game.

  Blending the two proved harder than Prokhorov and his team expected. They spent between two and three years trying to balance open-ended play with storytelling. 4A says the finished game is bigger than 2033 and Last Light combined. The developers called the large areas "survival sandbox" levels, which lean harder on survival than the linear ones do. The change excited the team, because it let them build far more varied locations than a tunnel setting allowed.

  A full open world was never the goal. The developers decided it would damage the storytelling, so they left out side missions and fetch quests. Instead of quest markers and waypoints, they built striking landmarks that can be seen from far away. They hoped curiosity alone would pull players toward them. Global brand manager Huw Beynon called the result a "thinking person's shooter". The studio wanted players to feel lost and alone, and to reward "thinking before shooting" and "exploring off the beaten path".

  Bigger spaces strained the old artificial intelligence, so the team overhauled it. Human enemies now coordinate better and share what they know about where the player is. Mutants and monsters also interact with one another.

  The script grew just as much. According to the developers, it ran to twice the length of the scripts for 2033 and Last Light combined, and much of it was described as "ancillary". A good share was dialogue that players can overhear from a distance, including conversations between enemies. None of it changes the main plot. The developers believed it made the characters feel more alive.

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• 3. Survival By Hand

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  Three weapons is all Artyom can carry at once. He can swap them for guns found in the world, or break them down for parts and resources. A laser sight, for instance, can be fitted to improve accuracy.

  The arsenal includes pistols, shotguns, sniper rifles and submachine guns. It also includes air-powered weapons such as the Tikhar and the Helsing crossbow, plus Molotov cocktails and grenades. Crafting depends on scavenged "chemicals" and "materials". Artyom's backpack can produce gas filters, medkits and ammunition for the air-powered weapons. Ammunition for ordinary guns can only be made at workbenches on the Aurora. Those workbenches also let players permanently repair a gas mask and clean their weapons. A dirty weapon performs worse and may jam in the middle of a fight.

  The developers pushed the interface into the game world itself. A physical map of each location, clipped to a leather binder, replaces the minimap, and Artyom pulls it from his backpack to read. A timer on his wristwatch counts down the life of the current filter, and a compass showing the way to an objective can be attached to the same watch. His flashlight flickers when the battery runs low. Dirt and blood splatter the gas mask, so the player must wipe it clean. If the mask cracks, duct tape provides a temporary fix. Binoculars mark points of interest on each map.

  In the Volga River level, exploring turns up night-vision goggles. The Caspian Sea level yields a motion tracker.

  Turning off a light can keep Artyom hidden, and so can a thrown can that pulls enemies away. A thrown knife offers a quiet lethal alternative. Enemy behavior shifts with the clock. A camp patrolled by day may have its guards asleep inside at night, which makes infiltration easier. The dynamic weather helps too, because storms and rain mask the sound of Artyom's footsteps. At safehouses, the player can change the time of day.

  Diary entries and postcards scattered through the world add lore. Not every survivor is hostile. Some offer valuable information and open up new points of interest, and some join Artyom's crew. The game keeps a hidden karma score. Helping non-playable characters earns it, as does talking to survivors with the gun holstered, and so does sparing enemies who surrender. The tally is never shown, yet it decides which of two endings Artyom reaches.

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• 4. The Silenced Country

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  The story opens in the harsh nuclear winter of the Moscow Metro in 2035, one year after the events of Last Light. A nuclear war has left much of the world uninhabitable, and survivors have split into peaceful and hostile factions. The narrative covers a single year.

  After the battle at D6, Artyom leaves the Spartan Order, disillusioned by infighting and corruption in the Metro. He becomes obsessed with proving that other humans survive beyond Moscow. His wife Anna and her father Miller insist the search is futile, yet he keeps making expeditions to the surface.

  During one of those trips with Anna, the couple see a train running on the surface. Hansa soldiers capture them before they can follow it. The soldiers shoot Artyom and take Anna hostage. Artyom survives and tracks them down, and in the process he destroys a signal jammer that had been blocking all radio traffic between Moscow and the outside world. Transmissions begin to arrive, and the couple realize humanity has not gone extinct. They escape in a stolen Hansa locomotive and later name it Aurora.

  When the Spartan Order moves in to retake the train, its members are stunned to find Artyom and Anna there. Miller knows Hansa will kill everyone who learned the truth, so he decides the Spartans must flee Moscow. Outside the city, he explains what he knows. Many Russian cities were bombed, but the war never ended, and NATO has occupied what remains of the country. To keep NATO from attacking Moscow, the Russian leadership secretly jammed all communications, so the outside world would believe nobody had survived.

  A radio broadcast from Moscow Defense Command then calls survivors to the "Ark" at Mount Yamantau. Miller believes the government has rebuilt itself there. The route crosses the Volga River, controlled by a technophobic cult, and the Spartans pick up a passenger cart and a railcar along the way.

  The Yamantau base is a trap. Its service-and-construction crew has devolved into insane cannibals who lure survivors in with a false promise of safety. Artyom and the Spartans fight their way out. A map recovered there leads them to a satellite communications center in the dried-out Caspian Sea, now ruled by slavers. They hope to use satellite scans to find habitable land. After helping the local resistance fight the slavers, they take on fuel and water and move on, still without a place to settle.

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• 5. Family on Rails

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  According to Glukhovsky, Exodus tells a more personal story than the earlier games, centered on Artyom's bond with his wife Anna and his father-in-law Colonel Miller. The game continues from the "Redemption" ending of Last Light, and it is a sequel to the book Metro 2035.

  Glukhovsky worked as a consultant, staying in close contact with 4A so the tone matched his books. He gave the studio freedom with the narrative. Still, he sometimes clashed with the developers when they rejected his suggestions because of resource or technical limits.

  Miller, who led the militaristic Spartan Order in earlier games and novels, returns. So does Anna, a major figure in the preceding game and in Metro 2035. Artyom's Spartan comrades are Alyosha, Damir, Duke, Idiot, Sam, Stepan and Tokarev. Along the way four more people join the Aurora crew: an engineer named Yermak, a nurse named Katya, Katya's daughter Nastya, and a mechanic named Krest. The locomotive serves as the hub where players talk with them.

  Anna falls ill after breathing poisonous gas at the Volga. Hoping to settle, the Spartans scout a taiga forest valley and meet a tribe of local survivors who call themselves the "Children of the Forest". They then discover that the dam shielding the valley from radiation is about to break. When Artyom gets back to the train, Anna's condition has worsened.

  The Spartans detour to Novosibirsk, a heavily irradiated city where an antidote may exist. Miller and Artyom go in alone. In the Novosibirsk Metro they meet Kirill, a young boy who is the last survivor there. He explains that his father left to fetch a map marking a clean, habitable area. Miller goes after the map while Artyom hunts for the antidote.

  Artyom finds it, but a mutant gravely wounds him and he takes a heavy dose of radiation. On the way back, Miller gives Artyom the anti-radiation serum meant for himself and dies of radiation poisoning. The rest of the Spartans donate blood for a critical transfusion. Anna recovers, and with the map in hand the group settles on the shores of Lake Baikal, which is free from radiation.

  In the bad ending, Artyom dies. The Spartans and a grieving Anna hold his funeral, while Artyom and Miller awaken as spirits on a dilapidated Aurora, where they remain for eternity in a ghostly purgatory. In the good ending, Artyom survives and Miller is buried. Artyom is chosen to replace Miller as leader of the Spartan Order, and he plans to return to Moscow and reveal the truth to the people of the Metro.

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• 6. Two Expansions

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  Two downloadable expansions each add a new playable character. The first, The Two Colonels, arrived in August 2019 and plays like the series' first two games, with claustrophobic environments. It is a prequel, following Colonel Khlebnikov as he tries to reunite with his son Kirill in Novosibirsk on New Year's Eve.

  The backstory is grim. A year before Miller arrives, Colonel Vyacheslav "Slava" Khlebnikov guards the Novosibirsk Metro while raising Kirill. The Metro's government, OSKOM, plans an evacuation, but there is not enough anti-radiation serum for everyone. OSKOM confiscates serum from civilians, and unrest follows. Civil war breaks out, and Slava must defend OSKOM headquarters from the rebels.

  Slava's superior, General Anatoliy "Tolya" Vinogradov, uses poison gas in the battle. When Slava confronts him, Tolya reveals that OSKOM's leaders have already taken the remaining serum and fled. Before leaving, they flooded the Metro with poison gas to kill everyone left behind. Bitter at being abandoned, Tolya destroys the evacuation train. He kills himself after learning of his son's death.

  Slava has no choice but to descend into a mutant-infested bunker for the map leading to Lake Baikal. He finds it, but loses his dose of serum and succumbs to radiation poisoning. In the present, Miller enters the bunker and finds the body and the map. He tells Slava he did not die in vain and promises to evacuate Kirill.

  The second expansion, Sam's Story, was released on the 11th of February 2020 and returns to larger, more open levels like the main game. Samuel "Sam" Taylor is a former Marine Security Guard. After the Spartans settle at Lake Baikal, he decides to go home to San Diego to learn whether his father survived the war.

  In the port city of Vladivostok he meets Captain Eduard "Ed" Baranov, who points him to an intact nuclear submarine named the Mayflower. Sam is captured and brought before Tom, a fellow American. Tom says he was an arms dealer stranded in Russia after the attacks. He needs Ed, the only person who knows how to refuel the submarine.

  Ed distrusts Tom, especially because the Mayflower still carries nuclear missiles and its crew is missing. Sam persuades him to negotiate anyway, and the two raid an abandoned naval base for the fuel rods. Ed then asks Sam to sabotage the vessel, even at the cost of his own way home. Tom's lieutenant Klim betrays him and attacks the Mayflower, forcing the three men to cooperate. Sam kills Klim, and the Mayflower sets sail.

  The player decides whether Sam sabotages the ship. If he does, the Mayflower explodes and sinks, killing Ed and Tom. Sam stays in Vladivostok, content that nobody can use the missiles, and resolves to find another way home. If he leaves the ship intact, Tom takes him to San Diego as promised, with the vessel's firepower at his command.

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• 7. Epic Exclusive Row

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  On the 11th of June 2017, 4A and publisher Deep Silver announced Metro Exodus at Microsoft's press conference during E3. The game was first due in late 2018, but it was delayed to avoid competition with other prominent titles. On the 2nd of December 2018, 4A announced the game had gone gold, meaning it was being prepared for duplication.

  It reached PlayStation 4, Microsoft Windows and Xbox One on the 15th of February 2019. A Google Stadia version followed on the 19th of November 2019 as part of that system's launch, and Linux and macOS versions came on the 14th of April 2021. Buyers could choose the "Aurora Limited Edition", with a steelbook case, an artbook and an expansion pass. Deep Silver also sold a "Spartan Collector's Edition", which includes a statuette of Artyom.

  On the 28th of January 2019, barely two weeks before launch, the publisher announced that the Windows version would be exclusive to the Epic Games Store for one year. It cited the platform's more favorable revenue split. Pre-sales stopped on Steam, though existing Steam purchases were still fulfilled.

  The decision caused controversy. Many players called for a boycott, and some review-bombed the franchise's earlier games on Steam. Valve wrote on the game's Steam page that its removal was "unfair", especially after such a long pre-sales period.

  The gaming press also criticised one of the developers, who said on a forum that if Metro Exodus sold poorly on the Epic Games Store, its sequels might become console exclusives. 4A said in a statement that these views did not represent the company. The game reached Steam on the 15th of February 2020.

  In March 2019, 4A released a patch called the "Ranger Update". It added a New Game Plus mode in which players can adjust individual elements, such as persistent radiation and the number of weapons Artyom can carry. It also added developer commentary in the form of a collectible named Green Tape Players.

  Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition added ray tracing and global illumination. It came to Windows on the 6th of May 2021 and to PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S on the 18th of June 2021. Owners of the original version received it as a free upgrade. In January 2023, 4A went one step further and released the game's software development kit to owners of Metro Exodus.

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• 8. Reception and Sales

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  Game Informer's Matt Bertz called the game's pacing its "greatest triumph", because none of the large regions overstays its welcome. Metacritic recorded "generally favourable" reviews. The game was nominated for "Best Action Game" at The Game Awards 2019, for "Outstanding Technical Achievement" at the 23rd Annual D.I.C.E. Awards, and for "Technical Achievement" at the 16th British Academy Games Awards.

  Critics mostly liked the more open structure. Bertz praised the diverse biomes, which kept the experience fresh with new characters, enemies and factions. Austin Wood of GamesRadar called the locations "gorgeous" and singled out the Caspian Sea and Volga River levels as two of the game's strongest points. Andy Kelly of PC Gamer admired the way 4A put attention to detail ahead of sheer size.

  Michael Higham of GameSpot was less impressed. He was disappointed that exploring earned little reward, and he called fights with mutants a waste of time because they drop no resources. Bertz and Higham both noted that Artyom moves slowly, which the bigger levels make worse.

  Wood described the gameplay as "a varied mix of rock-solid gunplay and tense stealth missions". Higham liked that players choose how to approach an objective, and the weapon customization drew praise for making combat flexible. Tristian Oglivie of IGN found the gameplay "refreshing" for rewarding patience and planning. He also liked that the lack of menus and on-screen markers grounded him in the world. Brendan Lowry of Windows Central described the physical interactions as "incredibly immersive".

  Kelly disagreed on one point. He summed the game up as "a pretty rote FPS attached to a setting that deserves much better". He praised the atmosphere of "hopelessness and melancholy" but felt the game loses its identity once it leaves the underground.

  On the story, Higham found it more grounded than the previous game, with the "best parts of the story" on the locomotive among Artyom's crew. Astrid Johnson of Polygon wrote that, unlike earlier entries, Exodus brings hope, and she called the train conversations "captivating". Bertz compared the campaign to the Wolfenstein games from MachineGames, but he said weak performances from the cast blunt some emotional scenes. Oglivie complained that there is no central threat and that the ending "grinds to a halt". Critics also faulted Artyom for being a silent protagonist.

  In the United Kingdom, the game debuted at number two in the weekly charts and sold 50% more than Last Light. It entered at number one in the Swiss retail charts. In Japan, the PlayStation 4 version sold roughly 17,513 physical units in its launch week, the seventh best-selling retail game of any format. In February 2019 it ranked ninth in the United States, and its launch month set a series record.

  By the end of March 2019, the game had earned €58 million for Deep Silver. Parent company THQ Nordic said physical sales matched expectations while digital sales exceeded them. CEO Lars Wingefors said the "absolute majority" of sales came from console players. Once the game reached Steam, it sold more than 200,000 units in two days.

  Six million copies had sold by February 2022, and over 8.5 million by March 2023. As of February 2024, the total passed 10 million. In November 2020, 4A announced a sequel with Glukhovsky involved, and Metro 2039 was officially announced in April 2026.

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