Metro Awakening Receives New Gameplay Details and Gorgeous Screenshots

The next Metro title from 4A Games may be a ways off, but in the meantime, fans of the series can look forward to Vertigo Games’ Metro Awakening. With an original story by author Dmitry Glukhovsky (who penned the novels), the prequel focuses on Dr. Serdar in 2028 as he explores Moscow’s metro to find his wife.

In a new PlayStation Blog post, creative director Martin de Ronde and game director Samar Louwe shared some new screenshots and details on the gameplay. Promising “plenty of the classic Metro action,” de Ronde said the pace of the combat will be slower compared to the original series since “our protagonist is not necessarily a combat expert.”

4A Games assisted in development by providing assets. These were either directly used or served as a reference to “ensure that the game looks the way it looks.” Since it’s before the events of Metro 2033, de Ronde notes, “We’re almost regressing in terms of what would have looked like, X number of years before the events in the mainline series.”

When it comes to ammo, players will constantly be on the lookout. “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 find bullets,” said Louwe.

However, you won’t always find full magazines but those few bullets could be the difference maker depending on your play style. The development team isn’t randomly sprinkling them either, ensuring 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 that if you look everywhere, you’re probably going to have enough bullets to get through your combat encounters. If you look on the critical path, you will probably have to be a better shot. And if you don’t scavenge at all, you’re gonna have a hard time. Of course, you can always fall back to stealth. If you’re successful at that, that’s always an option.” Players will have the option to physically hide behind cover and even peer through holes to spy on threats.

Metro Awakening launches later this year for PlayStation VR2, Meta Quest 2 and 3, and Steam VR. Stay tuned for more details on how it’s leveraging Sony’s hardware, including the adaptive triggers, shortly.