Metro Awakening – Everything You Need to Know

The Metro series has had an impeccable track record thus far, so naturally, excitement surrounding its future is always high, but though it remains to be seen when the follow-up to Metro Exodus from 4A Games will arrive, there’s other things to look forward to as well. Vertigo Games, for instance, has hoped onto the Metro train (heh) and delivered a virtual reality-exclusive in the form of Metro Awakening, which has continued to look increasingly promising since being announced. Now, as players prepare to dive into its offerings, here, we’re going to go over a few key details that you should know about it.

VR-ONLY

As mentioned, Metro Awakening is a VR game- which means it is exclusively a VR game. Fans of the series who have been hoping for a new instalment for years might be disappointed that what’s looking like a promising new entry is locked to VR platforms, but it is looking like it’s using the virtual reality medium in interesting ways, so there’s that. Specifically, the game is available for PS VR2, Meta Quest 2, Meta Quest 3, SteamVR, and Viveport.

STORY DETAILS

We know that Metro’s main story will be continuing with the game that 4A Games currently has in the works, so where exactly does Metro Awakening fit in the timeline? The VR title serves as a prequel to the trilogy, being set before Metro 2033. Starring a new protagonist in Dr. Serdar, who embarks on a deadly quest to rescue his wife. The game tells the origin story of Khan, an enigmatic recurring character than fans of the series will be familiar with.

WRITTEN BY ORIGINAL METRO AUTHOR

Russian author Dmitry Glukhovsky, who penned the Metro novels that 4A Games’ shooters are based on, has always been heavily involved in the creation of the games as well, and even though Awakening isn’t developed by 4A Games, Glukhovsky has still had a major role to play. He is credited as the game’s writer, with the story being an original one penned by Glukhovsky himself- which means fans of the series can expect an authentic Metro experience that slots nicely into the series’ larger lore. 

RETAINING THE LOOK OF THE MAIN SERIES

Developer Vertigo Games has obviously made some fundamental changes to the game design in Metro Awakening, given that its a VR game, but it is still a Metro game also. As such, the studio has ensured that it retains the look and feel of the main series as well, for which it worked directly with 4A Games. Speaking with the PlayStation Blog, creative director Martin de Ronde explained, “We were very happy that 4A helped us fantastically well with supplying all the assets that they have from those games. We were able to either use some of those assets directly or use them as a reference for most of the stuff that we built in the game… it’s helped ensure that the game looks the way it looks.

“There are assets that we looked at, and we wanted to use them specifically because they play a role on the mainland series, we wanted to reuse them again. In our game, you want to also make sure that fans recognise those elements. And then there was obviously stuff that serves the purposes as reference. And then there’s stuff that we’re almost regressing in terms of what would have looked like, X number of years before the events in the mainline series.”

SIMILAR STEALTH-COMBAT LOOP

Another area where Metro Awakening isn’t looking to deviate from the norm too much is the balance that the series has generally struck between combat and stealth, even if you can obviously expect the moment-to-moment mechanics to feel different, being an entirely different medium. That, in fact, was something that the team at Vertigo Games identified early one as a core component of any Metro experience, as per game director Samar Louwe. He said, “Some of the things that we noticed is the dynamic that they have between stealth and combat. And always making sure that you’re on your toes, and that you are never really sure when people are going to spot you. That’s something that works very, very well in VR. There’s just something about creeping up on enemies, listening to what they’re talking about. Of course the nature of VR, you can physically sit behind cover, maybe you can peer through a hole in the cover, and then you can spy on your enemies.

“But rest assured for everybody that is a little bit more trigger happy, there’s plenty of classic Metro action in the game.”

SLOWER COMBAT

Though Metro Awakening’s core loop will hew closely to the main series’ gameplay foundations, Vertigo Games has said that where combat is concerned, players should expect a slower-paced game. You’d expect that anyway in a VR experience, but as per the developers, the reason for that is that, unlike Artyom, who is the main series’ protagonist, Awakening’s protagonist isn’t a trained combat expert, which is why a slower pace makes more sense.

AMMO CONSERVATION

Survival mechanics have always played an important role in Metro, and sure enough, Awakening won’t buck that trend. Specifically, ammo conservation is something players are going to want to keep an eye on, which, again, is very Metro, as fans of the series will tell you. That, in fact, is also what encourages exploration above all else. Speaking to the PS Blog, game director Samar Louwe said, “You’re basically constantly looking for ammo. We have this beautiful environment, we have this beautiful world, our art is made sure that there’s detail to explore. But you also need a reason to explore. And the main reason to explore every nook and cranny is to just find bullets. We figured it would be best to hide those in small packets. So you won’t necessarily find full clips all the time. Instead, you will be finding single bullets out here, a couple of bullets there. And we’ve also made an effort to make sure that in some cases that there’s a bit of environmental storytelling around how that ammo got there, and something that triggers your imagination.

“The philosophy that we’ve taken along for this is also that basically, if you look everywhere, you’re probably going to have enough bullets to get through your combat encounters. If you just look on the critical path, you will probably have to be a better shot. And if you don’t scavenge at all, then you’re gonna have a hard time. Of course, you can always fall back to stealth. If you’re successful at that, then that’s always an option.”

STEALTH DETAILS

Stealth mechanics in Metro Awakening are going to be familiar if you’ve played any other game in the series. Staying hidden in the dark and sneaking up or past enemies will be your bread and butter, as you’d expect, in addition to throwing items to cause distractions, using a crossbow that you get later on in the game for quieter kills, and more. Enemies can also spot you if you keep your flashlight on, which also sounds promising.

UI AND INTERACTIONS

The Metro series loves to keep its UI as diegetic as possible, replacing typically gamified elements and menus with versions that are grounded in the game itself, thus thoroughly immersing players. Metro Awakening is trying something similar, and even takes things further courtesy of the VR medium. To check your bullets, you manually look at your gun’s clip and see how many shots it has left. To put on your mask, you have to first pull your backback off your shoulder and then pull the mask out before equipping it. This is an area where the franchise has always excelled, so it’s heartening to see Awakening leveraging VR hardware exactly as fans would have hoped it would.

LOCOMOTION SETTINGS

Always key in any VR game is its controls and locomotion settings, and Metro Awakening will feature two options on that front, as similar VR games often do. Comfort mode will feature teleportation based movement, while Immersion mode will allow for continuous stick-based movement. Additionally, several additional settings in the settings menu will also allow players to tweak their experience further.

PS VR2 ADAPTIVE TRIGGERS

PS VR2 is one of several platforms that Metro Awakening is hitting, but though it’s not exclusive, it will, of course, leverage the device’s exclusive features. Take its adaptive triggers, for instance, which, according to game director Samar Louwe, have been used liberally across the entire experience, and help heighten the immersion factor that much more. “The adaptive triggers are a great example of how you can boost the immersion even further, because they give you just a tiny little bit of extra feedback as you fire your weapon,” he told the PS Blog. “And our weapon designers actually had a lot of fun implementing it and tweaking it for each weapon. It seems like a really small thing, but it is kind of like those subtle elements that make you forget that you’re playing a game when it’s just there, right? Another example is the haptic feedback. It gives you that little bit of added experience to make the intense things that will happen to you in this game, to make them that bit more visceral.”

LENGTH

Being a VR-exclusive spinoff prequel, Metro Awakening is obviously not meant to be a full-fledged Metro Exodus-sized experience, though that doesn’t mean it’s a bite-sized one either. As per reviews, the game’s main story is roughly 8-10 hours long on Normal difficulty, which is a decent length for a linear, story-driven first-person shooter. That is, in fact, roughly how long the first two games’ main stories were.