Review: Metro Exodus is a haunting, gripping tale of the human spirit
DISCLAIMER: A review copy was provided by the publisher.
Platform: Xbox One, PlayStation 4 (reviewed), and PC
Developers: 4A Games
Publisher: Deep Silver
MSRP: $59.99
What
happens when there’s nothing left yet humans desperately cling to any
hope they can to stay alive? What happens when you’re seemingly one of
the only ones left with morals and mental sanity? How much does it truly
take to break someone’s spirit before they tap out? Metro Exodus is the
third game in the Metro franchise and seeks to shine a light on these
questions and concepts.
Acting
as a standalone entry in the franchise and abandoning the more
supernatural themes of the first two games and focusing on a more human
story, Metro Exodus tells a gripping and harrowing tale that aims to
show you a more real side of the nuclear holocaust.
While
there are still some absolutely horrific creatures lurking in the
wasteland, the threat comes from other humans. Exodus picks up with
Artyom dreaming of a place far from Moscow, mostly untouched by
radiation and the chaos of the war. He has a firm belief that not only
is there habitable places still left in Russia but potentially other
humans as well.

After
pulling back the layers on a conspiracy, Artyom, his wife Anna, and a
small group from the Metro embark on a quest to reestablish life above
ground. Their journey takes them across many different regions via train
where they encounter various groups of people such as crazy
religious fanatics who worship a mutated catfish, cannibals, and more.
As
you travel, you see how people are coping with life long after the
bombs and most of them aren’t coping well. You see what could
potentially come of your people should things grow too desperate, what
could happen if you allow yourselves to be corrupted by greed or chaos.
The
journey is long and it is tough but everyone grows together because of
the physical and mental scars they all obtain in the process. The cast
of characters is rich and you care about each individual person, so much
so you’ll find yourself stretching your neck out to go and do very
risky side errands to make everyone’s lives a bit more enjoyable.

In
between levels, you can move around the train and talk to your friends,
sing songs with them, drink vodka, and more. These small intimate yet
crucial moments help you realize the stakes of the situation you’re in,
there’s no good in this world anymore but perhaps if you succeed with
your mission, maybe you can change that. Maybe there’s hope for a new
and better world.
Metro Exodus also
manages to find a way to blend the themes of the story in gameplay.
Without spoiling anything, as things get more and more intense and
desperate in the story, you feel that desperation in the way you play.
Scavenging for any possible thing you can because you lack bullets or
even a throwing knife, holding on for dear life as you burn through the
air filters on your gas mask in a densely radiated city, the final act
of the game showcases all of this beautifully and it’s nothing short of
powerful.
The
gameplay as a whole in Metro Exodus is quite good, not perfect but it’s
good. Those who didn’t like Red Dead Redemption 2’s gun maintenance or
Far Cry 2’s gun jamming mechanics may want to wade carefully into
Exodus. Upkeep is very important, your ARs will overheat, jam up, and
all your guns collect dirt and grime that needs to be cleaned off to
ensure it performs at peak performance. This is a survival game after
all but some may find this somewhat intrusive during really intense
firefights.

If
you’ve played the series before, you mostly know what you’re in for.
You’ll stealth around enemy bases and take down as many enemies as you
can before having to go guns blazing. Carefully counting your shots and
panicking anytime you waste an unnecessary bullet, making note of
whatever you have before you enter an enemy encampment, etc.
This
is all enhanced by the fact that there are no vendors or people to buy
things from, everything is handcrafted so it’s no longer a matter of
looting and saving up to buy a nice new gun, you have to make
everything. Crafting is one of the best features in Metro Exodus because
it’s done quite creatively. You have the basic crafting resources that
you find but the attachments and weapons you unlock are all from picking
them off other weapons.
Say you kill an
enemy and notice he has a red dot on his gun, you can take that and add
it to your gun. Maybe a guy has a double barrel on his revolver that
makes it a powerful shotgun, take it and make it yours. It’s a neat
twist and most of this goes into your backpack so you can switch
attachments out on the fly as opposed to trekking back to a workbench.

If
you notice you might want to use a long range weapon, deconstruct the
parts on your current gun, add a longer barrel, a 4X scope, and a nice
stock to your weapon and snipe away. While guns do have base classes
like SMGs, shotguns, and whatnot, they can be manipulated to be more
multipurpose due to the flexible nature of attachments.
In
the first two Metro games, this wouldn’t have been super valuable as
they’re much more claustrophobic. This is where Metro separates itself
from the others, it’s semi-open world. There are several regions that
you’re introduced to after each “level” in the story, all divided by a
season.
You
start in Moscow in the winter, end up moving to the desert in the
spring, and so on. You travel by rowboat, rickety cars, and of course,
by foot where you will be on constant edge. Now, I say it’s semi-open
world because you’re still following a rather linear story.

There
are only a few side missions in the game and the remaining side
activities are clearing out outposts that you find around the regions
you’re in. Of course, the whole point is that the world is desolate so
it’s to be expected there aren’t fully functioning cities but it
would’ve been nice if there was more to do as it ends up feeling quite
large and expansive with not a lot of content to fill it.
That’s
not to say it feels super empty, the atmosphere in Metro Exodus is
second to none. Creatures stalk you as they prowl around, waiting for
moments to strike, you can stare them down and stand your ground to
invite a battle or cause them to flee from your confident and
intimidating nature. There are loads of stories hidden within the
environment through both collectibles and finding places such as the
grim remains of a clinic treating people for radiation poisoning.
Even
though there’s not a lot to do in the world, it captures a sense of
neverending danger. There are few safe spaces, it’s infinitely predatory
and nerve-racking.

Exodus
even features changes in weather with snow, rain, and sandstorms,
though it appears to be more scripted and comes at key triggers. That
said, when it rains it’s absolutely beautiful and leaves an impact. The
intensity of the storms feel dangerous yet you don’t want to hide from
them due to their awe-inspiring presence.
Whether
you’re in the confines of a dark abandoned building littered to the
brim with freaky spiders or in an intense gunfight as raindrops create
small rivers down your gasmask and lightning strikes the ground around
you, Metro Exodus creates a captivating world worthy of your time.
My
biggest gripes with this atmospheric survival game stem from many of
the technical aspets. An unstable frame rate, poor audio mixing, long
load screens, and more plague this game on the standard PS4. I can’t
speak for other versions of the game but it wasn’t a super smooth
experience for my review.

During
more chaotic moments where there’s a dozen or more enemies on screen in
a gunfight or
various visual effects like weather or smoke, Exodus
began to really chug. FPS would dip way below 30 frames and interrupt
the flow of the action significantly, it’s not just once or twice
either. It happens very consistently throughout the whole game and
ruined some really great moments of spectacle by breaking the immersion
with a sluggish frame rate.
The audio in
Metro Exodus is also all over the place. Guns and standard sound
effects sound pretty good but dialogue sounds really terrible. From bad
line readings to awkward pauses in conversation to bad sound mixing, it
was hard to listen to. Sometimes you’ll be standing a few feet from
someone but the way it’s mixed makes it sound like they’re far away or
in an entirely different room.
If
you’re not standing in the right spot or looking at them from a certain
angle, the audio may just come through one side of the speaker like 3D
audio with headphones. When characters’ dialogue overlap in a cutscene
because everyone is talking over each other in an argument or something,
it sounds incredibly unnatural.

It’s
very obvious no one is being recorded together, it’s a bunch of
performances poorly stitched together. No one is bouncing off of each
other from the energy of another actor and it comes off as incredibly
awkward. It really deflates some of the momentum and emotional weight of
specific scenes which is a shame because the writing itself is great
but the performances don’t always highlight that.
The Verdict
Despite
shortcomings like a rather by the numbers level of quality of side
missions, poor performance both visually and audibly, Metro Exodus still
manages to deliver a compelling experience. Thanks to its meaty
crafting and gun customization, a beautiful character-driven story
focused more on humans than the fantastical, and a world built around
fear, desolation, and tension, Exodus will definitely be one of 2019’s
most talked about games by the end of the year.
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