GameCentral plays the sequel to Metro: Last Light and talks to the producer about the difficulties of surviving a post-apocalypse Russia.
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Everyone knows the months leading up to Christmas are crazy with all the new games being released, but if anything spring next year is looking even worse. In the first three months of the year youve got everything from Resident Evil 2 to Kingdom Hearts III, Devil May Cry 5, The Division 2, and Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. But February 22 is the craziest day of all when Anthem, Days Gone, Crackdown 3, and Metro Exodus are all due for release at the same time.
Actually, it seems Microsoft may have backtracked on Crackdown 3, which is now listed only as February but clearly that is a very busy week and it seems inevitable that some of those games are going to suffer for it. We hope its not Metro Exodus though, because its looking like one of the best games to be released in the whole of next year – let alone just that week.
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A follow-up to Metro 2033 and Metro: Lost Light, Exodus is based on a series of Russian novels that deal with a particularly grim post-apocalyptic future. In the previous games the mere act of venturing outside was extremely dangerous, requiring all kinds of precautions and protective gear. By the time of Exodus things have got a little easier though and so the story involves a team of survivors traveling east away from Moscow, in an attempt to find more hospitable living conditions.
The journey is taken by train and takes a whole year, with the game starting in Moscow during the (nuclear) winter and ending with spring on the other side of the continent. You play as a young ranger named Artyom, as you try to protect the train and ensure that it and all its passengers get to their destination. This immediately makes the scope of the game much larger than either of its predecessors, as you move across country and explore a series of different open world and linear maps.
At first sight Metro Exodus looks like a fairly standard first person shooter, something like a prettier (or at least more detailed) version of Fallout. But while there are some surface similarities Exodus is still an action game at heart and while there are role-playing elements the major genre crossover is with survival games. Much of the landscape is still radioactive, so you have to ensure a constant supply of filters for your gas mask, as well as health packs and ammo – all of which have to be crafted on the go from your backpack.
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Youve a wide variety of weapons to use, including modern machineguns, but the most practical is a pneumatic gun whose ammo is easier to craft but needs pumping up with pressure every few shots. There are some situations in the demo where you cant get out of a fight but for the most part the sensible situation is usually to approach stealthily and at least scope out the area before you start anything.
The game certainly encourages you to take a more careful, stealthy approach to scenarios. But the game also does react to how the players plays the game, executive producer Jon Bloch told us at Gamescom. We want players to step into the shoes of Artyom and really define his personality through their actions and choices as they play. Exodus will react to the player as well and there are more opportunities along the journey where players will see that reaction and the consequences to their actions.
One of the most impressive examples of this open-ended approach is how many of the human characters you encounter are not necessarily enemies. If you greet them with your gun holstered most are unlikely to shoot first, even if theyre still not willing to let you pass. Theyre also not committed to being standard cannon fodder enemies and will actually try to surrender if its obvious the tide has turned in your favour.
We want players to have choices in how they play it and how they approach situations, says Bloch. In previous games theres a lot of themes of morality intertwined with the stories. So its who you are as a person and who we are as human beings, particularly in this post-apocalyptic world. And how your choices, whether theyre large choices or small choices, they all have consequences.
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Our script this time is larger than both 2033 and Last Light and all the DLC combined. We allow players to play through guns blazing and running through the environment, but we try to encourage the more careful, thoughtful approach – absorbing the world, the story, the atmosphere.
We put this to test in the demo by fighting our way through one heavily defended village but then try a more diplomatic approach with a nearby fisherman who give us useful intel and warns about a mutated bear terrorising the region. The first sign of the creature is a pack of reindeer careering towards us, clearly terrified of something. At first we assume its the mutated dog creatures that follow them, until we realise that theyre also running away.
Theres still no sign of the bear though, as we make our way through some rocky outcrops and are then promptly caught in a net trap by people that probably wouldve been more friendly if we hadnt fought their friends back at the village. Luckily for us thats the point the bear decides to show up, although how exactly we get out of the net we never find out as thats also when the demo ended.
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We were very impressed by the experience, which suggests a game of considerable depth and flexibility. But the nagging concern is whether itll be overlooked during such a busy release period and whether more casual gamers are prepared for a game that offers so much choice and so little hand-holding.
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I think our approach, as a developer, is more about making the experience that we wanna make, that we want to play ourselves, says Bloch. And I think thats more where our focus is, on the game itself. And yes, making something thats unique and interesting and stands out on its own. And sticking to those core design values that we established for the series over the past decade. Thats whats important to us.
Things like market viability and all that… it might come with the territory but out focus lies in the game and the experience itself. And the marketing guys can deal with all that other stuff!
Formats: Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC
Publisher: Deep Silver
Developer: 4A Games
Release Date: 22nd February 2019
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