Skip to main content

Metro Redux review

Metro Redux screenshot 2
Metro Redux
MSRP $60.00
“Metro Redux is the physical realization of 4A Games' impressive, admirable ambition.”
Pros
  • Metro 2033 massively improved by Last Light play style.
  • Tons of game in a single package.
  • Fascinating world.
Cons
  • Metro 2033 human characters didn't get the visual upgrade environments did.

Metro 2033 reeked of zeal and passion when it hit Xbox 360 and PC in 2010. The then-Kiev-based 4A Games made a game that was more than just an adaptation of Dmitry Glukhovsky’s post-apocalyptic science fiction novel. Focusing on propulsive storytelling and world-building through desperate action sequences and smartly drawn scenes of domestic life in the game’s future Moscow underground, Metro felt like a full, living place.

While 4A Games had the yarn-spinning chops of Valve and Bethesda at their absolute best, the team’s technical skill simply couldn’t keep up. On PC, the game was gorgeous but it still played terribly, its body broken in ways that distracted from its beating heart. Metro: Last Light arrived in 2013 addressing all of those mechanical issues with aplomb but it was still somewhat hampered by its predecessor as a direct continuation of 2033‘s story. If you wanted to get the full experience, you still had to wade through the first game’s muddy play.

Metro Redux represents the best possible scenario of a game being remastered and re-released.

Not so anymore. Metro Redux represents the best possible scenario of a game being remastered and re-released, preserving the best aspects of the original and illuminating them through a process of careful refinement. This new package is a physical realization of 4A Games’ impressive, admirable ambition.

Packaged together, Metro Redux is the story of Artyom, a young man living in the Moscow metro system roughly two decades after a nuclear conflict destroys and horrifically irradiates the Earth’s surface. When the story begins, the pig-snouted mutated monsters that roam the surface as well as shadowy psychic beings called Dark Ones are encroaching on Artyom’s home station, Exhibition.

Like all classically styled heroes, Artyom has to leave home and live amongst warring survivors, including Nazis, Reds, bandits, and the benevolent but fiercely militaristic Rangers, all while confronting the specter of the Dark Ones. Last Light, in turn, has Artyom dealing with the aftermath of his journey to the Dark Ones’ colony on the surface, and trying to create a meaningful future for human beings in a world where not only can they barely survive, but where nature is starting to replace them.

Metro Redux screenshot 10

Both chapters in Redux succeed in balancing the story’s most absurd and grounded aspects. If there was a nuclear holocaust that destroyed the world, there probably wouldn’t be giant, oozing pig bears and pterodactyl-winged apes flying around the Russian countryside eating people within a generation of the bombs dropping. There probably also wouldn’t be a race of semi-humanoid psychic freaks that look like they escaped the X-Files, and if there were, no one would call them “Dark Ones.” It would make every conversation profoundly silly or at the very least sound like a conversation from a 1980s arcade game.

Only those beastly conflicts feel cartoonish in Redux, though. The rest of the subterranean world feels exaggerated but affectingly plausible all the same. The Moscow underground really was built to serve as a massive, population-saving bomb shelter and the human conflicts within those walls are all to believable. Bullets are as valued as food and clean water for Artyom and his people. Guns define people’s lives, and good or bad, they’re surrounded by violent, gang-affiliated ideologues.

Wandering through Redux‘s towns like Exhibition, or nightmare strongholds like a Nazi-controlled prison, you get glimpses of the people surviving through these endless conflicts, stuck on the brink of death. The contrast between light–a family sitting beside a campfire, listening to someone play guitar–with the darkness of a place where bullets buy everything is complex and real. Blasting slavering monsters is simple in Redux, but nothing involving people is, and that’s a credit to 4A Games’ craft.

In Redux, 2033 now plays fully like Last Light, making for a far more enjoyable and playable experience.

That blasting is what elevates Redux so far above its original release, particularly 2033. The Metro games are built as survival games rather than Call of Duty-style shoot ’em ups, which plays into the fiction of bullets being a precious commodity. Military-grade ammunition is too precious to use in conflict and is reserved for bartering, even for homemade machine or shotgun shells. Avoiding conflict through stealth is often preferable to getting into a shootout where you might not have enough ammunition to survive.

In the original Metro 2033, this setup made for a game that was miserable to play. Monster and human enemies alike were practically bulletproof, soaking up shots and quickly moving in to kill you in a heartbeat regardless of how big a stockpile you had. There wasn’t even a devoted melee attack in the Xbox 360 version until a nearly-useless knife option was patched in.

Stealth was encouraged, but avoiding fights was nearly impossible in most sections of the game because it was so hard to determine what alerted those enemies. The AI was also far too precise. Step on a metal grate too quickly, and every Nazi in the area would know exactly where you were.

Metro Redux screenshot 6

Metro: Last Light addressed all these problems, streamlining the interface and rebalancing combat to be quicker and more realistically brutal. Enemies no longer absorbed bullets like walking concrete walls. In Redux, 2033 now plays fully like Last Light, making for a far more enjoyable and playable experience. Now when you’re discovered, it’s clear why, and it’s possible to actually escape and regain the advantage in small confrontations.

2033 also looks as good as it plays now. The original Xbox 360 version of the game was by no means ugly, but it wasn’t up to par with the far superior PC version of 2033. A massive touch up of the first game, including the use of environment and art assets from Last Light to rebuild parts of 2033, makes for a profound improvement. Characters, unfortunately, didn’t receive the same treatment. Last Light‘s people look a whole lot more human than the occasionally Uncanny Valley-fied 2033 population.

That’s the biggest criticism that can be leveled against this package, though. Metro 2033 was a game clearly made by a talented team that simply couldn’t make a game that was as engaging to touch as its world was to follow. Last Light found them matured, but missing their crucial first chapter. Now Redux is a single package that elevates 4A Games’ series to championship status, a heavyweight on par with the likes of Wolfenstein: The New Order and Half-Life 2. Now’s the time to head underground.

This game was reviewed on a custom-built gaming PC using a Steam code provided by Deep Silver.

Highs

  • Metro 2033 massively improved by Last Light play style.
  • Tons of game in a single package.
  • Fascinating world.

Lows

  • Metro 2033 human characters didn’t get the visual upgrade environments did.

Editors' Recommendations

Contrary to speculation, ‘Metro: Exodus’ will not be an open world game
metro exodus not open world

Everything we've seen so far from Metro: Exodus suggested the upcoming entry in the post-apocalyptic shooter franchise would open the game world up for exploration. That's true to an extent, but Exodus will not be a traditional open world game, according to Game Informer.

As illustrated in each trailer so far, Exodus will abandon the claustrophobic underground tunnels featured in both Metro 2033 and Metro: Last Light in favor of above-ground open spaces. There will be four sandbox areas, each one representing a specific season. The sandbox areas will feature linear missions, exploration, and side missions. Once you finish an area, you will move onto the next, much like linear level-based games. Interestingly, you won't be able to go back and explore an area once you make the decision to move on.

Read more
‘Metro 2035’ author says another game is on the way in 2017, publisher demurs
Deep Silver: Don't expect a new Metro game in 2017
metro redux combines 2033 last light ps4xb1 release summer 003

A sequel to the underrated apocalyptic shooters Metro: 2033 and Metro: Last Light appears to be in development, according to the website for the series' latest novel.

The official site for Metro 2035, which is now available in English after its original Russian printing, says that reading Dmitry Glukhovsky's novel will let fans "get a head start before the sequel arrives" -- the "sequel" referred to here is a video game, and there is a picture of a controller right above the text.

Read more
MultiVersus to shut down in June ahead of relaunch in 2024
Batman holding Shaggy.

MultiVersus' Open Beta is getting shut down on June 25, but the game isn't shutting down for good. Instead, developer Player First Games and publisher WB Games are taking MultiVersus offline ahead of a planned relaunch in early 2024.
MultiVersus - Open Beta Update
The fighting game, which is Warner Bros. version of Super Smash Bros., launched last year to some acclaim from fans and critics. Despite an initial wave of popularity, the game's active player base tanked in 2023, dropping by 99% at one point. Now, the game will largely go offline while the developers work towards an official 1.0 release. Game director Tony Huynh explained the unusual move in a video and FAQ detailing what's next.
"There is still a lot of work to do, and we have a clearer view on where we need to focus, specifically on the content cadence of new characters, maps, and modes to provide more ways to enjoy the game, along with netcode and matchmaking improvements," says Huynh. "We’ll also be reworking the progression system and looking at new ways for players to connect with friends in the game ... As part of this process, we’ll be pausing updates and taking the game offline as we prepare for the launch of MultiVersus, which we are targeting for early 2024."
After June 25, those who have MultiVersus downloaded will only be able to play offline modes like training and local multiplayer. The game will no longer be available to download and premium currency Gleamium will no longer be available for purchase after April 4. To compensate, MultiVersus' Season 2 battle pass is being extended until March 25, and all purchased items and progression will be carried over to next year's launch. 
While players got the impression that MultiVersus was going to stay live from open beta through its 1.0 launch, that is apparently not the case. Hopefully, Player First Games and WB Games stick to their word and do eventually re-release the game, as it could be better with some much-needed improvements. 
MultiVersus' Open Beta ends on June 25, with the full game's launch slated for early 2024. 

Read more