METRO 2039 Isn’t Kidding Around

Summary

• METRO 2039 is the fourth and upcoming post-apocalyptic first-person shooter from 4A games, heading to XBOX Series X|S and XBOX on PC as an XBOX Play Anywhere title in February 2027.
• The series is returning to its roots in the Moscow Metro as its first voiced protagonist returns home to find a fascist dictator has taken over the region.
• We went hands on with 2 hours of combat and exploration, and were wowed by the tough, tense gameplay and incredibly detailed approach to worldbuilding and design.

Last week, I was able to play 2 hours from the middle of METRO 2039, the fourth and upcoming METRO game headed to XBOX Series X|S and XBOX on PC in February 2027. Expanding upon the rich world, crunchy gameplay, and bespoke engine tech that 4A has built up over more than 15 years with the series, METRO 2039 will be a perfect opportunity to finally jump into a series I’ve long meant to check out.

Starting with METRO 2033 in 2010 and based on the novels of now-exiled Russian dissident Dmitry Glukhovsky, the METRO games are narrative-heavy first-person shooters about the people surviving in the Moscow Metro system following a cataclysmic nuclear war that devastated and irradiatied the surface. It’s adjacent to Fallout in the broadest strokes, but substituting kitschy 50s futurism and Americana for grimdark post-Soviet realism. 4A was founded by core developers from S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl, so it’s got a strong lineage from that famously tough and simulationist series as well, which I’ve also long meant to try, having read and enjoyed “Roadside Picnic” and the surreal horror of the “zone fiction” subgenre it inspired.

Notes From Underground

While I’m sure that familiarity with the previous games and books will be rewarded (Hunter, the fascist dictator who’s taken over the Metro that our protagonist is seeking to depose, is a known character) it’s hardly necessary, since the series is built on such a strong and familiar high concept (hardscrabble post-apocalyptic survivors) with its own distinct flavor and setting. My session was light on story and heavy on exploration (and anxiety). It started in the office of an administrator in a Metro station settlement, asking me to help him deal with a local bandit problem. As the bandit leader Kaban is a known henchman of Fuhrer Hunter, we agree that it’s of mutual interest to track him down.

I walked out through the bustling underground settlement, taking in the immense amount of thought and care that 4A have put into every environment. The tunnels are full of people working, talking, or hanging out. Children run around shooting imaginary guns at each other. Approach someone, and they might look up and say something to you. It all feels vibrant, specific, and lived-in – much more like an actual place than your average video game level. In the XBOX-hosted world premiere event earlier this year, the developers talked about their approach to environmental narrative design as “Frozen Stories,” emphasizing the care with which they place every single asset, always considering what specifically happened there previously. Immediately and consistently throughout my entire time with the demo, I felt and greatly admired this rigorous attention to detail.

Once I left the guarded Metro station out into the dangerous tunnels and surface, I learned that this focus on immersive verisimilitude applies not just to environmental design, but also the simulationist crunchiness of the gameplay and diegetic presentation of its systems. Accessing my inventory to craft bullets and gas mask filters meant setting down my backpack on the ground or crafting table and opening it up. The remaining time on my radiation filter is shown on a digital watch that I need to actively look at (or just rely on the menacing beeps when it gets close to the end). There is no crosshair, but a variety of different iron sights or optics that I could craft onto my guns. The map is on a physical folio that I pull up, flipping it over to see my current objectives handwritten on the other side. I save my game by marking an X in a logbook by the exit of the settlement. Whenever possible, gameplay-relevant information or player actions are represented concretely in the game’s world, minimizing reliance on UI.

Devil’s in the Details

I could list these little grounded details for ages, like taking out a lighter to burn away cobwebs, or how striking a windowpane several times with the butt of my gun caused it to crack successively and then break on the third hit. Light was particularly important, with my flashlight being as necessary to see in certain areas as it was a liability for revealing my location at the same time. It all adds up to make the game feel exceptionally tactile, which isn’t just for show. The world of METRO 2039 felt dangerous and alive, and all those details enhancing my sense of physical presence also served to dial up my anxiety as I slowly picked my way through dark tunnels and overgrown urban ruins on the surface.

Crucially, this focus on minute tactility didn’t go so far as to feel needlessly fiddly. Crafting was streamlined into two main materials, metal and chemicals, which fed into standard items like ammo or filters, and then a special, rarer re and drawers, frustrated that I couldn’t find a particular gasket or whatever. Instead, I had to make discrete, impactful decisions about how to spend finite re

The demo presented a nice representative selection of encounters and experiences. When I first reached the surface, I had to cross a broad area toward the bandit hideout, which was stalked by horrible bear-sized moles (nosalises, a standard enemy for the series). After following my gamer instinct to kill monsters and getting quickly overwhelmed by the pack a few times, I learned that this is much more a game about avoiding conflict except when necessary. Suddenly I was in a frame of mind I recall from playing Sea of Thieves or Arc Raiders solo: like a prey animal on high alert for predators. It’s an electric mode of play that I’ve come to really value in games that feel appropriately dangerous, and it’s all the more impressive that METRO 2039 achieves it in a single-player context.

Into the Zone

Infiltrating the bandit base had a different tone, more akin to Metal Gear Solid V, observing guard behaviors from the bushes and trying to stealthily take out as many as possible before inevitably going loud and blasting my way through the remainder. Both the parts were fun and felt mechanically supported, which is the mark of a good stealth-action game. Kaban was unfortunately nowhere to be found, so I proceeded onward through more buildings and tunnels filled with bandits and monsters to find him.

One memorable episode in the middle involved a turn towards much more explicit horror. I made my way through a haunted school full of ghost children, read notes about some dark, weird stuff that went down there, and solved a little puzzle involving creepy animal masks and lighting candles in the right order deduced from notes. It was all a nice change of pace from the tense, open-ended exploration and fighting, and I am interested in more injections of the paranormal and surreal, which feel like a bit of that Stalker lineage coming through.

I finally got a glimpse of Hunter addressing his forces in a training video that I found in one of their facilities. Clad all in black and a gas mask, gravel-voiced and ranting about how “Dark Ones” are an enemy they must ruthlessly destroy, but coming across more pathetic and insecure than charismatic and intimidating – there is no doubt how I’m supposed to feel about this guy. I was reminded a little of MachineGames’ rebooted Wolfenstein games, which were also story-heavy and graphically impressive shooters that were bluntly antifascist. The developers at 4A have been very open about how their experience of the Russian war on Ukraine has radically affected both their lives and the project, and I find it refreshing for a game with this degree of AAA polish to also be so earnest about its convictions and material circumstances.

My time with METRO 2039 was tense and engrossing. Coming in fresh to the franchise, the team at 4A’s experience and passion was apparent at every turn. I look forward to toughening up and learning what it takes to survive in their world when METRO 2039 comes to XBOX Series X|S and XBOX on PC in February 2027.

METRO 2039

☆☆☆☆☆
★★★★★
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METRO 2039 is the next landmark FPS from acclaimed storytellers, 4A Games. Journey into the dark heart of post-apocalyptic Moscow in a harrowing conflict for the very soul of the Metro.

The year is 2039.

For a quarter century, the last survivors of nuclear war have been locked in bitter conflict deep in the Metro tunnels beneath the poisoned city of Moscow. Now, finally, they have been united by a single leader, a fanatical Spartan known as Hunter.

But this is no peace: Hunter’s Novoreich regime rules through propaganda and fear, subjugating the population in the name of a new war for the surface against a dark and terrifying enemy.

In the wilderness beyond the city, the reclusive Stranger is haunted by violent waking nightmares. When the ghosts of his past force him out of exile, he must undertake a harrowing journey into the shattered ruins of Moscow, to the one place he swore he’d never go.

The Metro.

Experience the most shocking METRO adventure yet in a powerful single-player story that weaves exploration, survival, combat and stealth across a hauntingly beautiful but deadly world with unparalleled immersion.

Inspired by the worldwide best-selling METRO book trilogy by Dmitry Glukhovsky