METRO EXODUS
4A Games muscles in on Fallout 4’s post-apocalyptic world
Who’d have thought the frozen wastes of post-apocalyptic Russia would be so welcoming? But every new bit of info we get on Metro Exodus teases us a little further into the game’s future dystopia, plagued by gangs, political intrigue, and mutants… lots of mutants.
Starting with small but crucial gameplay changes, developer 4A Games has revealed the old ‘bullet economy’ of the previous games has been dropped. Instead of collecting rare ammo found in the game’s tunnel camps and overground strongholds to spend on upgrades, you now scavenge for spare parts. It’s a system that raises comparisons to Fallout 4 and suggests we’ll be able to create more bespoke weapons in Exodus than past Metro games allowed. It has also been confirmed that parts – sights, barrels, stocks, and so on – from guns that fall out of your favour can now be stripped and added to new weapons.
There are more similarities to Bethesda’s classic, as we’re told weapons in Metro Exodus will have to be regularly stripped down and cleaned to ensure they work efficiently. The last thing you need when a giant mutant bear jumps from the shadows is a gun jamming.
If you do get stuck with a bust gun at the wrong moment, then the game’s new stealth mechanics will feel like a safety net. Past games lent heavily on stealth, but now it will be easier to perform takedowns. There’s a flip side to making the life of a silent assassin a doddle: the game will track your style of play and factions within the game’s world will react accordingly; some won’t want to align themselves to a sneak.
THE GAME WILL TRACK YOUR STYLE OF PLAY.
BIG COUNTRY
The world, or rather its scale, is naturally the big news in this sequel. The average overground area in Metro Exodus is around two square kilometres in size (previous outdoor environments in Last Light and 2033, available as a Redux compilation on PS4, were 200 metres).
These environments are open world expanses filled with sidequests and loot. Executive producer Jon Bloch told online website Game Informer: “In each of these big
areas, there’s hours of gameplay, above ground, below ground. In general the game itself is larger than anything we’ve ever made before. Larger than the past two games together.”
Die-hard Metro fans needn’t fear the series has lost its head to the open world trend. This isn’t Far Cry Apocalypse – 4A’s game is a set of large sandbox worlds connected by linear missions. The dev is ensuring the game still treads a fine line between the claustrophobic horror of the titular metro tunnels and the open world exploration of future Russia’s frozen cities. And where past games took place over a series of days, Exodus unfolds over a year. It’s shaping into a classic Metro experience, but on a larger scale.