Metro Exodus

I finished the game quite recently and have been putting off the review for a long time. The game gave me too many emotions, and even now, 2 weeks after completing it, I still don’t know where to start, because I’m overflowing with emotions. This is quite an exciting adventure (in my humble opinion), and a rather unique product on the market from Ukrainian developers. And I’m very glad that at least someone in the post-Soviet community can produce decent AAA-level products.

I don’t want to talk too much about history. Let me just say that this is an exciting road movie, where we move from point A to point B, in search of a new life outside the metro, while overcoming adversity with the team. We will visit the deserts of the Caspian Sea, the forests of Taiga, the snows of Novosibirsk, we will meet new unusual groups, behind which there is always an interesting story that is revealed either in the dialogues of the characters or in notes. So I don’t recommend skipping them, it helps a lot during immersion.

And the characters don't seem stupid. Each of them has its own goal, motivation, experiences, and sympathies. And I promise you, you will remember the name, face and personality of each character. They will become your family and you will sincerely worry about them and listen to them with interest. Personally, I couldn’t just pass by and not listen to their dialogues (well, of course, I can’t participate in them). They are so lively, luminous, soulful that I just sat and listened to them like an audiobook, and thought about one thing - “I believe.” And Aurora is worth something. Throughout the game, the train itself, the atmosphere and setting on it are constantly changing, and around the summer it becomes a home that you don’t want to leave.

Since we got out of the metro tunnels, the shops have sunk into oblivion. It was replaced by crafting - now one of the most important components. Now everything you need, namely cartridges, grenades, first aid kits, is made from extracted resources. You can also remove all sorts of modifiers from the found guns and sculpt them onto your prodigy, be it a magazine enlarger or a silencer with optics. So there are special upgrades for the suit, such as additional pockets for ammunition or first aid kits, or a reinforced gas mask. But all this needs to be looked for in open locations. There are always resources there, and some piece of history can be found there.

Cons:

1. The game has quite big problems with sound. In short, it is poorly staged: there is a complete imbalance of volume levels in certain moments, in other places it sounds cardboard and inexpressive. In addition, Exodus uses the same sounds as in previous parts, and they moved here in the same form and quality, which does not benefit the game at all.

I’ll also attribute here the wildest out-of-sync of the sound and animation of the characters. As examples: a character speaks some kind of expressive or aggressive speech, and at this time is very active, but when the speech ends, he still continues to gesticulate, as if he were continuing to speak. Or when a character just sits and speaks in a very dejected and calm voice, but at the same time on the screen he shakes his head and waves his arms as if he is experiencing a bee attack. This hits perception quite hard.

2. My second main complaint is that the main character is again completely silent. I can't understand why the developers are so desperate to voice him. Do they think this will disrupt the established order? Or maybe I was just too lazy to write dialogue for him. Look, talking Isaac Clarke from Dead Space only benefited the game. Why not do this now? Moreover, the hero has a voice. After all, we constantly hear it in downloads. It looks especially stupid when the secondary characters directly turn to Artyom and ask him questions, but the answer is only “touchy silence.” But no... he can still hum. But that's all.

And from me, 4A Games personal thanks for such magnificent characters as the Cross, or the Admiral in the swamps, for the delightful Aquarium song “Train on Fire” that was discovered for me, and just a cool drinking scene with the Captain in “Sem’s Story” (seriously one of the best scenes in the game)