This game's world is absolutely beautiful. The art direction itself will inmerse you into this fantasy land of mystery and wonder. While limited in terms of its linearity there is still a little bit of exploration that you can do in certain areas of the game that will reward and punish you so be careful. Gameplay is pretty basic but competent. You will acquire upgrades during the game that will help keep things fresh. I liked the combat which isn't vey challenging but still requires some skill. Also I feel it's important to clarify THIS IS NOT AN OPEN WORLD GAME - it's a linear game with some open -quite small- areas. This isn't Skyrim. You'll mostly be walking down a path from point A to point B. The main problem for me was the constant dialogue. The main character is constantly ranting about what is going on. Even though the VA has a very pleasant voice it got to the point where I would've appreciated a silent protagonist. As if it wasn't enough there is another internal voice who never ceases to make obnoxious remarks about every little thing you do interjecting her already insufferable constant inner monologue. Not only that but I feel the dialogue does not adjust to a fantasy world in that is written in a very modern way. They will speak (and curse) the way modern teenagers do and it's very inmersion-breaking. It's clear the writers do not know how to write characters that live in a different time period and they don't waste any opportunitty to self-indulge by adding input to every little occurence in the game in very patronizing fashion. I do believe eveything about this game is wonderful except the writing. It's so in-your-face that it got in the way of my enjoyment of the game. While it would've benefited from less expository and self-explanatory writing I would still recommend to players looking for and a gorgeous audiovisual and relaxing adventure RPG experience.
I played this on gamepass PC so I only played the main story campaign and not the 2 DLCs included in the gold edition. While this is better than its predecessors in just about every way it's still not a great game. I preferred the narrow corridors and oppressive atmosphere of the previous games. The open world killed the tension for me but made up in one area: this game is absolutely beautiful to look at. The vast open vistas and the dense flora make for an incredibly stunning scenario. The graphics alone are worth the price of admission. If you can run this at 4k you are in for a treat. I could only use 4k for screenshots because of my lower end PC but I can assure you I never used the photo mode on a game like I did with metro exodus. Unfortunately, for me, the story is hampered by the constant monologue diarrhea that NPCs subject you to. The relations with other characters also suffer in my opinion from this because you can't interact or make a decision for once. You are a mere expectator as far as narrative is concerned and I always felt unattached to the events and main characters of the game. This was unchanged from previous games but the richer atmosphere made up for it a bit. I expected a bit of development here. The enemy AI is bad, you have to be extremely careless to get detected. You can cheese you way through most areas by waiting (sleeping) until it's dark and take out entire outposts with your night vision goggles wich provide a ridiculous advantage. Weapons are terrible, as usual, and I stuck with the few that seemed to work the majority of the time. Resources were not a problem this time around, even if you keep all gear in tip-top condition throughout the game. Also I really disliked being called a B every 10 seconds by the opposition. In the end the game felt more like a technical achievement than anything else. Sadly, gameplay and story-wise, I find the Metro series has barely made any progress since the original 2033 released a decade ago.
This is my first review on GOG. I bought this game again as soon as I saw it on this store because I felt it deserved support for bringing it for us DRM free and because this was a surprisingly good game. I'm not very much into games that try to bring emotions forth on the players as I am one of those gameplay-first type of gamers and this one is not free of cliches. While compelling by the end, it leaves a few plot-holes. It's very linear and won't let you try anything that would potentially produce alternative outcomes. Gameplay-wise, combat is very basic and also a bit non-sensical in the way that you are supposed to beat some enemies. I struggled to figure out how to beat the first boss because of how absurdly the whole fight actually plays out. Stealth is the way the go but don't expect this aspect to be very strong either. It's there to get the story moving. I wanted to go for the full pacifist walkthrough but I sadly, the game forces you to fight in many occassions. Other elements like the upgrade system can be ignored as it won't do much else but make an already easy game all the easier. What blew me away was the game's fantastic setting. The medieval, oppressive, plague-ridden environments. Visually the game is stunning with amazing set pieces that really immerse the player into this horrific time in history. I kept wondering what the experience would be like to have souls gameplay on this superbly crafted world. Suffice to say I took lots of screenshots to use as desktop wallpaper. This game is beautiful to look at and the setting is one if not the best I've seen. Also, please consider reading subtitles, I thought the French voicing was awesome. Overall I think this is worth a couple of its 15-20 hour walkthrough mainly to observe in awe the visual set pieces the devs have put together here. Some flaws hold it from being an amazing experience but it is still great for what it accomplishes.
