Isn’t it always the way? You spend so long yearning to leave home, to strike out and make a go of it all by yourself, but the second you step foot out the door you start missing it. All of it. The camaraderie and the rows, the shared meals and the constant, privacy-smothering proximity, and—of course—the mutated beasts from the overland, intent on your complete and utter destruction.
This is how I imagine it went for 4A Games when it came time to make Metro 2039, the fourth mainline game in the Metro series. Artyom is gone—he took a train off into Russia’s carcass in Exodus, but Moscow and its metro endure, and 4A has returned to them for 2039.
In Artyom’s absence, you play someone new: The Stranger, a gruff and—in contrast to the previous three Metros—chatty protagonist who’s on a quest to find and kill Hunter, the former legendary Ranger hero and (it seems) current overlord of almost the entire metro.
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Things have gone to pot since Artyom went interrailing. The metro’s many fractious stations have largely been brought under one banner, but it is a fascist banner, ruled over by Hunter with an iron fist. Someone should probably put an end to that.
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I’ve spent roughly an hour in The Stranger’s shoes in a sliver of Metro 2039, and I’ll say this: it really is a pleasure to be back in the metro. Even streaming the game (a necessity for the demo), it looks lovely, and retains all the thunking physicality that makes the setting distinct and memorable. We are still whipping out a contraption and repeatedly whirring it to make our torch shine brighter, gang. We are back.
But just because we are back in Moscow does not mean we are leaving the innovations of Exodus behind. The bulk of the demo I played consisted not of linear tunnels with the odd secret squirrelled away—as was the case in Last Light and 2033—but an open and above-ground area that invited you to explore and pick through it at your leisure. Or, well, kind of at your leisure. At the leisure of your gas mask filters and your access to resources to craft new ones.
This is a positive development. Metro is a series of small details, and poking into its crannies to find them has always been one of my favourite parts (that and pointing at the screen and telling people when I’ve been to one of the depicted stations in real life—at which they are always incredibly impressed). Nosing around the area I uncovered modded-up new guns, slices of story, blueprints for new weapon parts, resources and general goodies, locked doors guarding rooms of treasure that I had to suss out the codes for, and multiple angles to tackle my objectives.
It’s packed with mutants, of course, who you are encouraged to take on with a degree of stealth. I recommend not doing this at least once, if only to experience the feeling of seemingly the entire map turning and looking at you with murder in its eyes the second you let a non-silenced gunshot crack out. I then recommend, ah, doing it from there on out, as they are still pretty annoying to fight, constantly darting about the map and out of your reticule.
When I was not getting distracted by troves of materials hidden behind locked doors, the first actual objective Metro 2039 gave me was to pick my way through a building of bandits, to access the tunnels beneath it. My first time, I did this the way I usually do anything: without thinking about it even a little.
I promptly ate it. My one-man assault, armed with a silenced pistol, a pneumatic rifle, a shotgun, and an SMG (no bullets) could not quite measure up to the task of storming the fortress in front of me. I figured I would take a break. My gas mask filter supply was high—I could afford to nose around the neighbouring buildings to see if there was anything of use.
There was. For one thing, there were ways into the building that were not ‘literally the front door,’ which is probably handy for infiltration. But much more useful was the wrecked apartment complex to the base’s right. As it turned out, this had been the outpost of a stalker who had been keeping an eye on the bandits in the base I was trying to get into. The stalker was dead, but his scoped Kalashnikov remained propped up on the balcony. The bandits’ headlamps bobbed about the building until they didn’t, winking out one by one as I put the AK to its purpose. This was very satisfying.
Down low
Once you’re back in the tunnels, what you find is fairly familiar Metro. You’re at one end of a tunnel and you’d like to be at the other. Between you and it stand many armed men of an irascible disposition. You can start blasting, if you like, or stalk through, taking out sentries with throwing knives and putting out lights with a silenced weapon (your watch will glow blue when you are visible, as in previous games).
My experience assaulting the bandit base fresh in my memory, I opted for stealth. Now, I’ll admit it: it’s been a while since I last touched a Metro game, and it’s possible my memories of the series’ stealth are coloured by the bastard of a time I once had trying to get through Metro 2033’s Frontline mission without ever being spotted, but 2039’s stealth felt more forgiving than I remember. I was able to sneak through and clear practically every room of enemies with just my throwing knives and some gumption, never getting seen once.
And when it’s not men, it’s mutants. Nosalises and whatnot (mostly whatnot) inhabit everywhere that the metro’s human inhabitants haven’t squeezed into, and will menace you as you attempt to navigate through cramped spaces and wreckage. This is, for the most part, entirely fine—a little action to break up the haunted spelunking, but the game is enthusiastic about springing boss fights on you. These aren’t too hard, but I cop to muttering a quiet ‘Really, again?’ when the game dropped a big hulkin’ brute on me to fight after picking up a blueprint.
Stranger, danger
I muttered a little louder when The Stranger, having defeated that big hulkin’ brute, dropped his post-battle one-liner: “I guess someone stronger than you finally showed up.” I had a good time with Metro 2039 and am very eager to play the full game, but I suspect I will be doing that in Ukrainian.
The Stranger is comically gruff. Much like Skif in Stalker 2, his English voice acting scans more as an action-hero parody than post-nuclear survivor, to the point that I found myself sometimes missing dear, mostly-mute Artyom.
But that’s not much of a complaint, is it? And since it’s my biggest gripe coming out of Metro 2039’s demo, I’m firmly in the ‘interest piqued’ camp for 4A’s return to Moscow. It’s a joy to be back cursing at my ramshackle weapons and burning enormous spider webs with my lighter again.
