The city of Moscow left scorched by nuclear holocaust was no longer a livable space, even if it was possible to deal with the hordes of deadly mutants the air itself turned toxic and forced everyone deep underground. And even in these underground Metro Tunnels of Moscow, the human spirit still perseveres, they want to live like they always did and bring with it all the good and bad. The hope for the future even in this irradiated wasteland not letting go of the very things that makes us human, and on the other hand reigniting a century old deadly conflict of ideologies. Stations putting up an united front against all the odds to protect everyone and people dedicating themselves to looting and senseless violence.

Seeing it all in our journey to protect our home station and by extension the entire Moscow underground Metro against the Dark ones who seem to be affecting our strongest asset our minds, but in all this comes a question of the human soul, in all that a need to go forward and a call to answer to maybe grasp something exceptional or maybe human nature will foil us again.

Metros atmosphere and story does an incredible job of putting forward these themes in a surprisingly complex system of internal politics underneath a hostile world.

And all this works despite the gameplay’s attempts to break my will to continue playing, it tries to be a cinematic linear experience but it doesn't have the chops to produce the cool moments and setpieces needed for that to work, it just breaks up the gameplay again and again for dull moments like turret sections, following someone for extended periods of time, or pressing switches. The cutscenes breaking up the flow is all the more weird because Artyom is a silent protagonist in cutscenes and dialogue but he speaks in chapter transition screens? Why give him a voice but notably voice him in sections where his input would have elevated the scenes, its a weird compromise that feels like the worst of both worlds. And I can say that for the game play as well, the gameplay has the jank of something more open, expansive and ambitious but wants it to feel like a curated linear experience.

There’s some good systems here and there. The guns feel nice to shoot and have instant impact, the enemies when placed in a well calibrated manner makes for a very fun and tense experience, if you play on Ranger Easy or Hardcore, otherwise it's kind of easy and the enemies bullet spongey . But that’s the issue, it's extremely poorly balanced, the ammo is meant to be rare but on some levels I would get a ton and other times I won't get any. Same for gas filters I was softlocked multiple times because I couldn't take off my mask during certain sections and when I actually needed it was empty, in fact there was a section where I died cause the game just wouldn’t let me put on the gas mask.

And the less said about the stealth the better, the game doesn’t have a stealth system, it just pretends it has one. Sometimes enemies will be alerted from far beyond and with random shit. It just doesn't work in any capacity beyond just hope you don’t run into the enemies, you have no stealth tools, environmental interaction is minimal and it’s just not enjoyable when enemies don't even have a cooldown.

The world does call to me, I will be back in the Metros to play Last Light but I would love to never face the amoebas ever again.