Metro 2039 is a grim place to exist, and ultra-satisfying to conquer, as we found out during our brief time with the survival FPS game.
There are some videogame worlds I could see myself living in; those with beautiful environments, friendly people, and a real sense of adventure. Metro 2039 is not one of those games. A real hellhole, where the smallest of victories require the largest of efforts - it's a dour place that reeks of death. I quite enjoyed it.
The Metro series has been going since 2010, telling the story of humanity after catastrophe and how they found shelter underground from the now-uninhabitable surface. It's cramped, it looks like it smells, and not everyone is a ray of sunshine (fair enough, to be honest). Venturing out from this relative safety to explore would be a death sentence for most, with the ambient radiation and packs of monsters a constant threat.
While Metro Exodus was more of a sandbox-y type of deal, with the aim being to leave the dank tunnels, 2039 is a return to the more classic Metro environment. I got to play a chunk of 2039, starting partway through the story, with most of the narrative bits shaved off. I'm back in the tunnels; I'm looking for someone, and a new threat has emerged in my absence.
I started my brief playthrough in one of the biggest surviving human colonies, Sevastopolskaya, which I'm told is an iconic location in the books and something we've never seen before. The place hummed with activity; people going about their day, scrounging a living, as I waltzed through, preparing for my eventual trip outside.
It didn't feel like these were NPCs waiting for an interaction. The station feels like it was there before I turned up, and will continue after I leave. I visited a man who had been cleaning my equipment, which is where I was introduced to the new customizable Metro 2039 weapons.
I'm always fascinated with how these post-apocalyptic worlds handle technology - yeah, it's in the future, but also, you know, mankind has seen better days. Metro has a very distinct, advanced ramshackle quality to it, in that most of my equipment looks homemade, so being able to change that on the fly is a very enticing prospect.
Changing bits of my guns, improving their effectiveness - being able to change parts so they shoot different types of ammo. This gives me options whilst out in the wild, and options usually prolong my life, so I'm all for it. It's an upgrade system with fancy animations, but it's something that makes me feel like I'm making my mark on my survival tools.
سەرچاوەی فەرمی بە زمانی ئینگلیزی: https://www.pcgamesn.com/metro-2039/preview
