Metro 2033 Redux

The Metro universe tells the story of Moscow’s residents, whose city was destroyed by a nuclear strike in 2013. The only refuge was the metro, which had originally been designed as a bomb shelter.

Humanity struggles to survive in stations controlled by various factions, from Nazis to Communists. Some stations are overrun with monsters, and traveling between them alone is dangerous. But the greatest danger is the surface: staying there for long is as good as dying.

The main changes in the Redux version of Metro 2033 are graphical. The game was moved to a newer version of the 4A Engine, with features that were up to date in 2015, also seen in Metro: Last Light:

The Metro universe takes place in an alternate reality and begins in 2013, after a global nuclear conflict in which Russia, China, and North Korea exchanged missile strikes with NATO countries. Climate change turned the northern hemisphere into an icy wasteland, while rising sea levels destroyed all coastal infrastructure. Nations were wiped off the map, and anarchy ruled the world,

In Moscow, where Metro 2033 takes place, people took shelter underground, turning metro stations and bunkers into their homes. But instead of uniting, the small population split along ideological, religious, or self-serving lines, while some simply tried to survive. You’ll often have to fight your way through.

The metro network is abandoned and crumbling, physically isolating the stations. This forces people to venture to the surface, where survival is especially difficult. You have to make your way through ruined buildings while avoiding patrols from local armed gangs, various mutants, dangerous levels of radiation, and artificial psi radiation. With filters, ammunition, and decent weapons in short supply, people who venture out alone get back underground as quickly as possible.

Metro 2033 is almost a corridor shooter. The game’s locations are small but carefully detailed: there is some semblance of life in the stations, where people argue, talk, and trade despite their terrible living conditions and desperate circumstances. Sometimes, you can find side paths leading to interesting events, supplies, journals, or secret passages.

All locations are dark and sinister, perfectly conveying the atmosphere of the post-apocalypse, widespread desolation, and global catastrophe. As they travel between stations, characters may hear strange noises, see inexplicable flashes, and experience other visual glitches.

The Redux version of Metro 2033 added new areas to explore (especially on the surface) and new items (safes and notes), and combined most of the short levels into one.

The main character of Metro 2033 is a young man named Artyom, who grew up at the VDNKh station after the nuclear war and was raised by his stepfather. Like everyone else, he is attached to his home station: he helps its residents, works at the factory, and learns to shoot and defend his home, which lies on the edge of the “inhabited zone.”

This branch of the metro has been troubled for several years. The outer stations are dying out under attacks from the brutal mutants known as the Dark Ones, who come from the surface and torment people with telepathic hallucinations. By the time the game’s events begin, the threat has reached VDNKh too: several of its residents have already died from the Dark Ones’ psychic attacks while on patrol.

Artyom’s stepfather’s friend asks him to report the appearance of the Dark Ones to Polis—the largest and most powerful station in the metro, which is friendly with VDNKh and other ordinary stations—and ask for their help in destroying them. However, VDNKh is far from the metro’s central stations, so Artyom must make a very difficult journey full of all kinds of dangers.

The story of Metro 2033 is linear, like the game itself, and focuses on one man striving to save his station at any cost. Artyom himself tells the main details of the story; others can be learned from cutscenes and dialogue, or by listening in on conversations between locals. Often, the characters simply talk among themselves without distracting the player from the gameplay.

One distinctive feature of the story is its many supporting characters who travel with Artyom. They join him for just two or three missions, then reach their goals, die, or disappear. These ongoing interactions create a sense of a living, open-ended story.

As a standard corridor shooter, Metro 2033 has you move forward and solve most problems with your weapons, but you can also try to play stealthily.

The story is closely tied to the gameplay, since the player gets one of two endings depending on their play style: the main ending or the alternative one. Bad deeds and hoarding resources lead to the bad ending, while good deeds, helping others, sharing resources, and killing as few enemies as possible lead to the alternative ending.

The original game’s stealth mode had some problems, so most players chose to play as a shooter. This was also due to signal traps being placed everywhere. They raised the alarm across the station and triggered attacks by people (mutants). The only way to survive and move on was to shoot them all with a machine gun while hiding behind cover.

In Metro 2033 Redux, stealth was improved with the ability to knock out or silently kill enemies. For the best gameplay experience, we recommend playing the Redux version. Other gameplay changes include two new difficulty modes (“Survival” and “Spartan”).

The player has a small arsenal, made up of commonly found homemade weapons and rare factory-made weapons left over from the nuclear war. There are also grenades and throwing knives. The people of the Metro do not experiment much with weapons because ammunition is scarce.

People have learned to make ammunition by hand, but it has little stopping power. Factory-made 5.45 mm rounds are the local currency. You can trade them for almost anything… or use them against especially dangerous enemies.

Metro 2033 has a varied bestiary based on creatures from the novel. During the conflict, the sides used not only nuclear weapons, but also chemical and biological weapons. The animals changed under their influence, merging into terrifying creatures: mixtures of rats, dogs and cats, pigs and moles.

All mutants have their own habitats. Some are found only in the Metro, while others prefer to live on the surface and rarely appear underground. Others, like the “Librarians” and “Demons,” are simply too big to go underground.

Each mutant has its own behavior. The simplest ones, “Kikimoras,” always attack in packs and scatter when they lose their advantage in numbers. They are quick and nimble. The “Eaglebug” is a bipedal insect with a bird’s skeleton and an eagle’s face, protected by thick chitin armor. It hunts alone, attacks in the dark, and always charges straight at its target. The flying “Demon” tracks its prey, dives down on it, carries it into the air, and drops it. Its size and ability to fly make it one of the most dangerous enemies.

In the Redux version of Metro 2033, the “Eaglebug” was completely removed from the game and replaced with several types of “Spiderbugs”—a cross between a tarantula, a scorpion, and an ordinary spider. They spin webs and attack in groups, never come to the surface, and fear flashlight beams.