Metro 2033 Redux

The Metro universe tells the story of Moscow’s residents, whose city was destroyed by a nuclear strike in 2013. The only refuge was the Metro, which had originally been designed as a bomb shelter.

Humanity drags out a miserable existence in stations controlled by various factions (from Nazis to Communists). Some stations are even overrun by monsters, and traveling between stations alone is dangerous. But the greatest danger is the surface: spending too long there is tantamount to death.

The main changes in the Redux version of Metro 2033 are related to graphics. The game was moved to a new version of the 4A Engine, using technologies current in 2015, also featured in Metro: Last Light:

The Metro universe is set in an alternate reality and begins in 2013, after a global nuclear conflict in which Russia, China, and North Korea exchanged missile strikes with NATO countries. Climate change turned the northern hemisphere into an icy wasteland, while rising sea levels destroyed all coastal infrastructure. Nations were wiped off the face of the Earth, and anarchy ruled the world,

In Moscow, where Metro 2033 takes place, people took refuge underground, turning Metro stations and bunkers into their homes. But instead of uniting, the small population split along ideological, religious, or self-serving lines, while some simply try to survive. You’ll often have to fight your way through.

The metro network has been abandoned and is falling apart, physically isolating the stations, forcing people to venture to the surface, where conditions for survival are at their harshest. You have to wind your way through ruined buildings, avoid patrols from local paramilitary gangs, various mutants, dangerous levels of radiation, and induced psi radiation. With filters, ammunition, and decent weapons in short supply, lone wanderers get off the surface and back into the metro as quickly as possible.

Metro 2033 is practically a corridor shooter. The game’s locations are small but meticulously detailed—there’s a semblance of life on the stations: people argue, talk, and bargain despite their meager quality of life and dire circumstances. Sometimes, locations have branching paths that lead to interesting events, supplies, diaries, or secret passages.

All the locations are dark and sinister, perfectly conveying the post-apocalyptic atmosphere, the widespread desolation, and the global catastrophe. As the character travels between stations, he may hear strange noises, see inexplicable flashes, and experience other visual glitches.

The Redux version of Metro 2033 added new places to explore (especially on the surface) and items (safes, notes), and combined most of the short levels into one.

The main character in Metro 2033 is a young man named Artyom, who grew up at the VDNKh station after the nuclear war and was raised by his stepfather. Like everyone else, he is attached to his home station, helps its residents, works at the factory, and learns to shoot and defend his home, which is on the border of the “inhabited zone.”

This line of the metro has been troubled for several years—the outermost stations are dying out under attacks from the savage mutants known as the Dark Ones, who come from the surface and torment people with telepathic hallucinations. By the time the game’s events begin, VDNKh is next in line—several of its residents have already died after a watch shift due to the Dark Ones’ psi influence.

Artyom’s stepfather’s friend asks him to report the appearance of the Dark Ones to Polis—the largest and most powerful station in the Metro, friendly toward VDNKh and other ordinary stations—and ask them for help destroying the Dark Ones. However, VDNKh is too far from the Metro’s central stations, so Artyom must make a very difficult journey, full of all kinds of dangers.

The story of Metro 2033 is linear, much like the game itself, and focuses on one man striving to save his station at any cost. Artyom himself narrates the main details of the plot; others can be learned during cutscenes and dialogues, or by listening in on the locals’ conversations. Often, characters simply talk among themselves without distracting the player from the gameplay.

One distinctive feature of the story is its many supporting characters who travel alongside Artyom. They join him for just 2–3 missions, then reach their goals, die, or disappear. This constant interaction creates the feeling of a living, open-ended narrative.

A standard corridor shooter, Metro 2033 has you push forward and solve most problems with the power of your weapons, though you can try to play stealthily.

The story is closely intertwined with the gameplay, as the player gets one of two endings depending on their play style: the main ending or the alternative one. Committing bad deeds and hoarding resources leads to the bad ending, while good deeds, helping others, sharing resources, and killing as few enemies as possible lead to the alternative ending.

The original game’s stealth mode had problems, so most players opted for the shooter-style approach. This was also encouraged by the alarm traps scattered everywhere, which set off alarms at the station and provoke attacks by people (mutants), leaving you with one chance to survive and proceed: mow them all down with a machine gun while taking cover.

In Metro 2033 Redux, stealth was improved with the ability to stun enemies or kill them quietly. For the best gameplay experience, the Redux version is recommended. Other gameplay changes include two new difficulty modes (“Survival” and “Spartan”).

The player has access to a small arsenal of commonly found homemade weapons and rare industrial weapons left over from the nuclear war. There are also grenades and throwing knives. The metro’s residents don’t experiment much with weapons because ammunition is scarce.

People have learned to manufacture ammunition by hand, but it has little stopping power. Industrial 5.45 rounds, meanwhile, serve as the local currency—you can trade them for just about anything… or use them against particularly dangerous enemies.

Metro 2033 features a varied bestiary based on creatures from the novel. Since the combatants used not only nuclear, but also chemical and biological weapons during the conflict, the animals were altered by their effects and fused into fearsome creatures—hybrids of rats, dogs and cats, pigs and moles.

All mutants have their own habitats—some are found only in the metro, while others prefer the surface and rarely appear underground. Others, like the “Librarians” and “Demons,” simply can’t go underground because of their size.

Mutants have been given specific behavioral patterns. The simplest, “Kikimoras,” always attack in packs and scatter when they lose their numerical advantage; they are nimble and fast. The “Eagle Bug” is a bipedal insect with a bird’s skeleton and an eagle’s face, protected by thick chitinous armor. It hunts alone, attacks in the dark, and always charges head-on. The flying “Demon” stalks its prey, then dives at it from above, lifts it into the air, and drops it. Its size and ability to fly make it one of the most dangerous opponents.

In the Redux version of Metro 2033, the “Eagle Bug” was completely removed from the game and replaced with several types of “Spiderbugs”—a hybrid of a tarantula, a scorpion, and an ordinary spider. They spin webs and attack in groups, never come to the surface, and fear flashlight beams.