Metro Exodus - Gold Edition

I haven't been hooked to a video game for a long time. Until Metro came along. I decided to do a complete run of the series starting with Metro 2033 and ending with Exodus. While the first two Metro games are amazing and unique in their own regard, Exodus takes everything that was good about those two and makes it even better BUT you need to play the first two to understand and appreciate Exodus fully. So go and play those first if you haven't. Also: play the Metro games at night in a dark room for maximum immersion. The storytelling in Exodus is amazing and the characters and dialogue is extremely well done. I ended up bonding to the characters and feeling like those were actually my friends. It felt like they were real people. I never had experienced something similar with a videogame before. Also I enjoyed the exploration and lore a lot. If you do not rush the main quest and go off to explore every corner of the open world levels you will find so much detail, notes that tell you about the world and its inhabitants, audio recordings, encounters with locals, environmental storytelling and upgrades for your gear that you can only find once in the whole playthrough. For people who like to take it slow and immerse themselvers in a believable well built world that puts emphasis on storytelling this game is perfect. Especially since each level has its own lore and history that you can slowly piece together through enemy dialogue while sneaking, notes and many other ways. As for the time it takes to beat the game: it hugely depends on your playstyle. I really took my time and tried to experience everything the game has to offer and listen to every skippable/missable/optional dialogue. For the campaign and Sams Stroy DLC I needed around 53h. Currently playing the other DLC. That'll add up a few hours on top of that. To sum up: Get. This. Game.

I played the first 2 metro games on the PS3 and on steam, exodus is the buggiest of them all. From floaty jump that don't let you grab ledges you should be able to grab to random super jumps that kill you because of the fall damage and inconsistent fall damage. The worst bug I just encountered is the one from the Caspian Sea chapter. The Damir Glitch, its been over a year since the game released and the developers have refused to fix it. It hard locks progression and they suggest restarting the whole chapter losing all progress you've made. I like to clear the map before progressing the story so this really ruined the game for me. Going to try to get a refund.

I guess I was hoping for something more like STALKER with open world and survival elements. It has couple of bigger maps, but overall it's a pretty linear game. It's very much a modern shooter with uncontrollable cutscenes and guick time events. The story is forgettable and people just talk, talk, talk and yet have really nothing interesting to say. I did beat the game and it's DLCs, so I guess it wasn't all bad. It was an ok experience, althought I wouldn't have missed much if I decided not to buy it.

I'm stuck with Damir at the Caspian caves. What a bug!

The Good: + Great graphics + At times very atmospheric + Likable characters + Two large sandbox hubs to explore + Shooting feels good and responsive + Weapon mods can be used for more than 1 weapon + Finally subtitles for almost every conversation + Spider Bunker & Dead City + Day/Nighttime cycle + DLC The Bad: - Metro's confined gameplay doesn't really work for open world - Story doesn't make any sense if you think about it - Hilariously bad English voice-overs - Artyom still is a silent protagonist in-game! - Artyom has no stamina and is tired after running 50 meters - Extremely dumb enemy A.I. - Too many unskippable cutscenes - QTE's for literally every movement (crawling, opening doors etc) - The Caspian is a big and boring Mad Max-like hub with very little to do - Yamantau is an on-rail shooting gallery - Can't sleep/rest on the train! - Waaaay too much talking!! - Stealth is too easy - Invisible walls - Annoying bear boss fight (again!) - Bugs, bugs, bugs The Ugly: - Realizing that still no game can beat S.T.A.L.K.E.R.'s immersion and A-Life.