Metro Exodus

The gameplay, story, setting, graphics, atmosphere, music, sound design and character design are all on point for Metro Exodus. It is unfortunately let down by a few bugs and poor design decisions, but still absolutely worth your time and money. Its amazing how all the different mechanics interact and weave into the main story to make a compelling playthrough, and it is one of the few games I found that I could play almost non-stop. The stealth is top-notch. It gave me early Theif vibes, sitting in the darkness, listening to bandits talk to themselves, or listening to them lose their s**t as I went full batman and picked them off silently one by one. Having the last enemy surrender to you is just the icing on the cake, when they realise that you've taken everyone out and haven't taken a shot. The story is really well told and acted, and the characters seemed human, and believable, unlike the woke trash we get in most games these days. Some bugbears though. I played through first time on Ranger Hardcore on a controller, as this honestly feels like the way the game is intended to play (minus the controller). However, it also bought me face to face early on with the true boss of the game, the autosave system. Note you can save in other game modes, but in Ranger Hardcore, you're reliant on the autosave system which goes from being ridiculously generous to amazingly stingy. Once you know how to work with it, it's not too bad. But losing a whole bunch of progress due to a BS death since you got stuck on a piece of scenery, and on Ranger Hardcore you die from one to two hits, can get pretty old. The stealth can also be a bit hit and miss. I've had times when I was sure I'd be spotted, and just breezed by, and times where I was hidden in complete darkness, around a corner and got one shotted in a second. Which, with the autosave system, can be really frustrating (on Ranger difficulty). Still, absolutely excellent job by 4A games, must buy if you're looking at it.

the metro series is always one of my go to games

Awsome gameplay, atmonsphere and characters, totally worth.

The only way to improve upon it would be coming up with a game that does not glorify the country that is actively mudering Ukrainian civillians. I do realise it was developed before the war, hence 5 stars for the game.

The Metro series is not for usual gamer, newbies will find it difficult, even undoable, they will cry and tell mechanics are absurd, or the game is boring or anything else. Truth is those series are not for everybody, just like Deus Ex. If You are vet at shooters/rpg/openworld games etc. You will find this beautiful and amazing!