If you couldn't tell, Metro Exodus is starting to turn heads around here at Gaming Nexus. Not sure if it's that particularly cold and rugged Russian brand of nuclear fallout that appeals. Or if it's developer 4A Games' virtually unshakable devotion to the Metro series as a whole. Or if it's the not-so-secret fascination America has always had with Russia. Either way, Metro Exodus is pinging on my radar in a way that the rest of the series never quite has. That's a personal shortcoming, I know, but here we are.
This "Uncovered" trailer for the upcoming Metro Exodus takes us on a ride. It's a ride that explores something beyond the tunnels and tundra that have become staples of the Metro series. It's a ride that hints at a jagged and broken world existing autonomously beyond the reach of our cone of fire. And always with the series' penchant for overcrowded scenery, be it junkyard piles of abandoned cars on a frozen stretch of highway, or above-ground architecture that's as claustrophobic as the sewers and subways below. But there's always rails. This time it appears a steam train is your raft and the Trans-Siberian Railway is your Mississippi River (if I may utterly butcher a needless Tom Sawyer analogy). The people in-game were misled to believe everything beyond the wreckage they lived in was nothing but more wreckage. That was wrong. There are, like, deserts and forests out there, too. There's an entire calendar year of seasons to wade through. Rangers to lead across the continent, reforging Russia's equivalent of the Oregon Trail. I'm no Metro expert, but despite the presence of literal on-rails gameplay, 4A Games seems to have made a concerted push into greater open-world territory.
The video cites combat, exploration, and survival as the three pillars the open world is built upon, but we'll see what they mean by "survival." With an entire genre of games built upon a recognized concept of survival—meaning hunger, thirst, and body temperature management—we'll see if Metro Exodus will have you picking flowers and crafting at campfires, or if "survival" is just their word for "don't die in a gunfight, bro." Which is what this video makes it look like.
Compared to American post-apocalyptic gaming, like Fallout 76, Rage 2, or Far Cry New Dawn, I have to admit that that ol' Russian fascination is starting to well up inside me.
Metro Exodus launches on February 15 on PC, PS4, and Xbox One.
