At Gamescom 2018 I got to play a one-hour demo of Metro Exodus in a private hands-on. The demo took place in the early game and didn’t contain any story things so no worries, this Preview will be spoiler-free.
I started out near the coast, where radioactivity was low. Armed with a crossbow, submachine gun and sawn-off shotgun I went to my first objective – an enemy camp marked on the map. What immediately stood out is that Metro Exodus is completely open world – unlike its predecessors that were linear.
Previous games were also much darker (in terms of lighting) because they were mainly exploring indoor sections and undergrounds, this time it takes place mostly outside so there’s a lot more color in the game world.
When you press D-Pad Right you can see a compass on your character’s wrist that points you in the direction of the main objective via a red arrow. You can also view the map to see the objective circled. At the first objective I was greeted by two enemies on a bridge. Instead of facing them head-on I went an alternative path and circled around them. Because the world is completely open, it makes for more freedom and you can choose your own approach from where to attack.
I did some stealth kills and was spotted, then ran out of ammo pretty much immediately once bullets started flying and by the end of the demo my ammo count was still near zero. Ammo is extremely scarce; it’s a survival game after all. While I did see options to craft bolts for the crossbow, medkits, and weapon upgrades via my backpack, no crafting existed for bullets by this point in the game. It might be a later unlock or the only way to get ammo is from scavenging and vendors.
Because of the lack of ammo you have to use the (silent) crossbow to kill enemies strategically from afar and sneak up to enemies from behind to do stealth takedowns. When doing takedowns, you can either knock out the enemy or kill them. This cries for a “no kills” run and I hope they don’t make it a trophy as it would restrict gameplay too much.
When you do get spotted and run out of ammo you have to melee takedown everyone, which is not easy and the melee takedown would sometimes bug out when I ran up to enemies. If it doesn’t let you do a melee takedown and you stand in front of the enemy, then they will kill you instantly.
Enemies can also one-hit you early on with their crossbows. They shoot explosive bolts and they kill you in one hit. This coupled with the lack of ammo forces you to play stealthily. There are also a lot of enemies in the camps. So it’s not like in Far Cry where you can take a Sniper Rifle and shoot 8 guys from 300 meters away. You need to be much more strategic because you die quicker than in other shooters and your health does not automatically regenerate. You must use med kits to refill health. These can luckily be crafted from the backpack at any time if you have the resources. It’s a “hardcore” game and not your average shooter. The quick save feature will come in handy here. During the 1 hour demo I died 3 or 4 times. You also can’t save mid-combat, only outside combat.
Exploration-wise, in the part I played it was an empty map aside from the enemy camps. There are stacks of ammo and resources hidden here and there but it’s mostly nature and not an urban area.
The is decently sized. Not too small but not giant either. In an hour I saw maybe 3% of it (and there may well be underground sections). Exploration will go quicker when you have better gear. The best way to get better stuff is from enemy drops. You can loot them and also pick up their weapons. I found an upgraded crossbow with a scope and explosive bolts from an enemy. Crafting it would’ve been much more expensive.
You can carry 3 weapons. The crossbow and two other weapons of your choice – whatever you can find in the wilds.
After shotgun’ing and melee’ing my way through camp number one, I went to the roof and used a zipline to the next area. This was the only way ahead hence the enemy camp was marked as an objective. In the next section some wolves attacked. Expect more dangerous wildlife in the later sections. The best option is to ignore animals if they don’t have to be killed as they only cost valuable ammo.
There was a second enemy camp blocking the path to the next objective. Here things got quite glitchy. Some guys were making a fire and I wanted to sneak up the stairs behind them. On the last set of stairs my character got stuck. Called one of the developers over and he said it’s a collision bug, so the last set of stairs was seen as a “wall”. I eventually managed to jump over the last set of stairs, but not on the first attempt. There’s still plenty of time until release, let’s hope they polish it up a notch by then. My fear is that with a big open world, 4A Games is taking on more than it can chew – a common misstep we’ve seen with ambitious games like Kingdom Come Deliverance or Sniper Ghost Warrior 3, games that had good underlying ideas but were technologically broken.
At the 2nd enemy camp my time with the game ended.
VERDICT: Hype Level 7/10
Going Open World is the biggest change that Metro Exodus brings. The core gameplay mechanics are still much the same. It’s geared more towards stealth than your average shooter, health does not auto-regenerate and you will die a lot. I only hope they change the release date, going up against 2 bigger releases on February 22nd would overshadow Metro Exodus and it looks like they could use more time for bug fixing and quality assurance.