After my journey through Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order ended, which you can read my review of here, I decided it was finally time to tackle Metro Exodus.
Background
The Metro series was something I neglected for a long while. I was under the impression that I didn't enjoy single player FPS games and that gameplay through linear levels would be boring. That being forced in one single direction with little choice all the time wouldn't be any fun. I was wrong.
Sometime last year while browsing through a sale on Steam I found the complete Metro collection at a decent price. I decided to go for it. I started the first game, Metro 2033, pretty much immediately. This one had med hooked from the start. I played through the story in only three days and I was enjoying the game so much that I decided to go for 100% completion and collect all achievements. This required replaying most of the levels to find collectibles and also doing another full playthrough to get the other ending.
After finishing up I jumped straight into Metro Last Light. This was pretty much more of the same. Following the same formula which worked so well the first time, albeit with a story I didn't manage to get quite as engaged in. I went back and found all the collectibles but didn't bother to do another playthrough for the other ending. I left the game behind with 17 hours played and 28/49 achievements. Maybe I'll go back one day.
I decided to wait a while before starting Metro Exodus. The Metro games are great but damn are they dark and depressing. I decided I had had enough doom and gloom for a while.
The initial disappointment
The rest of this post contains lesser spoilers about the setting which shouldn't ruin any gameplay experience.
Metro Exodus started out great. It picked right up on that familiar formula. Linear and well crafted levels with a lot of details that reward you for being thorough. Albeit longer levels than the first two games. No worries, that just meant less loading screens and more game time.
By the second level we're leaving the doom and gloom of the metro to venture out into the world. The prequel to Metro is atomic war. A war which has pushed the inhabitants of Moscow into the Metro to live a life underground while the world above has been overrun with mutants. Most of the two first games take place in this underground and travelling outside into the city in considered extremely dangerous and a huge risk. Now we're suddenly leaving this fascination behind. Sure, it'll be interesting to see how the world beyond has adapted. Disappointment number one.
Disappointment number two comes shortly after when the second level is an open expanse, completely opposite to what the Metro games used to be. At first I accepted it and started exploring. The level was just a pain to navigate. Slow, empty and unrewarding. The disappointment really started setting in at this point. It got to a point where I felt like I had to force myself to keep playing. That's never a good sign.
I kept going until I had played for a total of 10 hours. I felt exhausted due to hating it so much. I just had to stop.
The turnaround
I had a hard time accepting the disappointment. I let the game be for a full day before giving it another go. I decided to leave the exploration behind and focus on the main story instead. Instead of exploring at will I would explore the surroundings of the locations the story took me. This approach just felt much better. The story takes you all around the map with great opportunity to explore the immediate surroundings. And as an added bonus it turns out the main missions you get throughout the story function as smaller linear levels within the level. You explore linear well crafted and interesting compounds throughout the map. The game was back on track. Still, it's a shame you have to trudge through this slow and boring expanse between the good parts but oh well.
They have also introduced certain survival elements which wasn't a part of the earlier games. You have a backpack which basically functions as a crafting station. Instead of finding medkits and air filters you craft them. The same goes for ammo. The plus side of this is that you can modify weapons as you go. In the earlier games you had to mod them in shops which would show up in limited quantity and often far in between. This does allow you to adapt your approach to certain situations as you go. Changing between stealth and firepower as you see fit.
Reflection
I'm glad I gave the game another chance. I'm really enjoying it now. It's pretty much my own mentality that's ruining it for me. I expect the game to be just the way that I want it, just like the old games were. You probably noticed that I mentioned the "earlier games" a lot. I need to change my lookout and enjoy the game for what it is instead of what I wanted it to be. I guess I just wanted more of the same in a sense.
Luckily this game also has photo mode which is keeping me plenty occupied. You can see some shots taken with the mode in this post. Photo mode really is a great way to capture the mood of the game and to save and store some extra memories of it for later use.
I'm gonna soldier on and return here with a full review after finishing the game. The story is solid so far. The characters are enjoyable and the setting is still full of the good old doom and gloom.
All pictures in this post are taken by myself using the games in game photo mode.
I hope you all have a great weekend. See you around the HIVE network!