I know it sounds like I'm criticising an FPS for having too much S, but if you're going to give me this big, fascinating, beautiful world to explore, I feel like there should be more interesting ways to interact with it. But it's not long before the Aurora is speeding out of the fallen capital, along the Volga River, and into the wintry countryside.

New York,

I don't usually mind a bit of amateurish acting in games, but here it's so exaggerated and overdramatic that I actually found it distracting. Even though you've left the Metro, there are still moments where you have to equip your gas mask: radiation leaks, sandstorms, poison gas, and other nasty stuff. But it also makes Exodus, in some ways, rather disappointing in its lack of ambition.The context, stakes, and location will change, and there are some fantastically dramatic set-pieces to be found in here, but it's a shame how, fundamentally, every encounter in Metro boils down to shooting people.

And there are too many scenes where you have to stand and wait as people heap big spoonfuls of exposition into your ears, talking interminably about what you're going to do next rather than just letting you, you know, Between major locations you can explore the Aurora as it hurtles along the tracks to its next destination, and it's here where the real heart of the game lies. Or, if I found myself up against a more mobile set of enemies, it was always handy to tweak the components of my shotgun in order to increase its stability.In fact, steady aim is more crucial than ever this time around since human enemies seem noticeably smarter, communicating with each other during a firefight and intelligently maneuvering around to flank. Every location the Aurora stops at feels wonderfully hand-crafted and the weather, atmosphere, and lighting regularly change as the story spans the seasons, making for an excitingly varied game.But this variety extends mainly to the setting and structure.

But even with blue skies and the closest thing you can get to clean air in this grim, dead world, survival is still an everyday struggle.I say road trip, but your primary mode of transport in Metro Exodus is an old Soviet-era steam train called the Aurora. There is the option to switch to Russian voices, which feels more authentic to the setting, but there's so much crosstalk that keeping track of the subtitles while playing is impractical. And every moment you spend in this toxic air, a timer ticks down, meaning you have to find a steady supply of replacement filters to stay alive. If you climb somewhere high, such as a rusty old crane near the Volga that rattles violently in the wind, you can scan the horizon and zoom in on points of interest, marking them on your map.

You won't know what it is until you travel there, which makes for some fun exploration, even if it's usually just more things to shoot at.

The weather can change suddenly and there's an ever-shifting day/night cycle, which you can speed up by sleeping at campsites. But Exodus makes up …

Metro Exodus blends the survival elements and carefully constructed levels that the Metro series is known for with a dynamic world that's as beautiful as it is dangerous, to stunning results. Explore vast, non-linear levels, lose yourself in an immersive, sandbox survival experience, and follow a thrilling story-line that spans an entire year in the greatest Metro adventure yet.

This is your first taste of the open world in Exodus, which is made up of several large, self-contained areas, rather than one continuous sprawl.Metro has always been a rigidly, sometimes suffocatingly linear shooter, but now you have the opportunity to venture off the beaten path, scavenge, and explore.

For one, the English voice acting is, for the most part, terrible. Please deactivate your ad blocker in order to see our subscription offerIf it’s set in space, Andy will probably write about it. The sense of community aboard the Aurora, of family, is palpable—which gives those moments when these mostly likeable characters are in danger added weight.By leaving the tunnels of the Moscow Metro behind, the artists and world-builders at 4A Games have created something pretty incredible here. The brutal, kinetic first-person combat and lightweight survival elements that define the Metro games haven't changed in any significant way. 8.5. Review. And this time, it's gone open-world. Comments; Shares. From the frozen banks of the Volga to the dried-out Caspian Sea and beyond, the setting is constantly surprising and hauntingly beautiful.

Freed from the dark maze of the Moscow Metro, the environment artists at 4A Games have achieved something remarkable here. An incredible trip through a stunning post-apocalyptic world, let down by some uninspiring FPS combat.After two games spent in the claustrophobic gloom of the Moscow Metro, it's a strange sensation, at least for a Metro game, to suddenly be staring across a vast, sun-bleached desert. By Andy Kelly 13 February 2019. Metro Exodus is the third game in the post-apocalyptic shooter series based on the novels of Dmitry Glukhovsky.

I do like how each map is littered with stories. But the novelty of shooting hordes of crustaceans, bandits, and mutants soon wears off, and after a while I found myself yearning for more depth.A new mutant type, the ridiculously named 'humanimals', are zombie-like drones who rush you in packs, clambering over scenery and occasionally throwing bits of rubble at you. He spent around 20 hours with the PC version of Metro Exodus and about three hours testing out the PS4 version.

This means, despite the spectacular change of scenery, it still feels like part of the series.