Metro: Last Light Redux PS5 Review – Still Bleak, Still Brilliant

This substantial technical overhaul for Metro: Last Light for modern consoles brings with it improved visuals, a smoother overall performance, support for the DualSense controller, and a range of other more specific fixes that make revisiting appeal to even those who have explored Moscow’s underground several times already.

When remastering an older game for modern hardware, it can be hard to find the balance between staying true to the original and still managing to fix the elements that held the experience back from greatness. This new version of Metro: Last Light Redux attempts to do both, and it manages to strike that balance pretty well for the most part, thanks to a substantial visual overhaul, performance improvements, and a lengthy list of bug fixes.

"These enhancements make a game like Metro: Last Light even more immersive than a simple resolution upgrade ever could."

This next gen update supports true 4K at 60 FPS, along with an upscaled 4K mode targeting 120 FPS on compatible displays. PS5 Pro owners also benefit from PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution (PSSR). Further improvements to the game include updated geometry, textures, lighting, shadows, particles and character animations.

These enhancements make a game like Metro: Last Light even more immersive than a simple resolution upgrade ever could. The Metro series has always relied heavily on its playable locations feeling oppressive, which is only helped along by this latest update. This is why the way that the dev team have utilised current gen hardware is so effective here. In a game like this built so heavily around atmosphere; its visual identity depends on the presentation of the game environment, as much as the environment itself.

Obviously, there has been a lot of effort put into the various visual elements onscreen, but the clearest is the upgrade to the lighting and shadow system. In a game like this, darkness is essential especially for players who prefer a stealthy approach, so improvements to that lighting are particularly appreciated.

Its various tunnels, abandoned interiors and makeshift settlements depend on convincing the player that these were once well-lit places full of people living busy lives, completely unaware of the bleak end that humanity was about to face. Therefore, superior lighting, shading and environmental details actually add to the narrative element of the game and improve the level of player immersion too.

The next gen update also introduces Screen Space Global Illumination, higher-quality post-processing, improved rendering materials, more detailed geometry and support for higher-resolution textures. When taken together, these changes definitely help the game’s environments feel more cohesive, from the way that light is used sparsely in claustrophobic spaces to the surface detail of the player’s equipment and physical surroundings.

"Superior lighting, shading and environmental details actually add to the narrative element of the game and improve the level of player immersion too."

Character animations and sound quality have also been improved. While these elements may be less obvious to the layman than the visual overhaul, both undoubtedly contribute to the game’s overall feel and presentation, allowing players to feel even more immersed in the game’s fictional world. Performance options have also been included in this next gen update, and allowing players to make tweaks like these to best suit their system is always a welcome inclusion.

This new update also makes the most of the DualSense’s adaptive triggers, utilising them dynamically to give the PS5 version another way to immerse players. It is far from a gamechanger, but it is a worthwhile addition to a game in which weapon handling and resource management are essential parts of the moment-to-moment experience.

Beyond presentation improvements to the game’s sound and visuals, fixes addressing technical stability, save reliability, control functionality, display issues and gameplay problems across the various platforms where the game is playable are significant and noteworthy because they improve the player experience.

In a game built around surviving against the odds to reach the next checkpoint, upgrades to long-standing issues like save corruption, certain areas being prone to hard crashes, and infinite loading screen triggered by specific checkpoints in various chapters are invaluable. Another notorious issue has been solved where players would be locked into a checkpoint where they would indefinitely be stuck in a death loop because they had insufficient remaining gas-mask filter time when reaching the checkpoint.

Stealth is obviously the preferred approach for many fans of the Metro series, and those players will be pleased to know that a fix has been applied to resolve the issue of enemies being able to inexplicably detect the player through solid objects or walls. Again, this was an issue that previously broke player immersion that has been remedied.

As much as it is nice on the eyes that the next gen update makes the game look better, the way it plays is just as important, if not more so. The fact that so many technical problems that previously undermined the tension that made Metro Last Light feel so distinctive from its contemporaries released within the genre in the same era have been addressed, makes for a superior experience overall. It is due to this that the next gen update is now the definitive way to play Metro: Last Light Redux.

"Stealth is obviously the preferred approach for many fans of the Metro series"

Players being able to trust that the game’s systems are going to function properly also makes the game more attractive to younger players, who were perhaps too young to appreciate the game’s bleak, existential narrative tone the first time around. It may be an updated version of a game that is more than a decade old, but it won’t be unfair to the player and punish them for mistakes that aren’t their fault.

The next question is how well does Metro: Last Light Redux hold up as a game in 2026? Improved technical aspects are plentiful and relevant, but if the underlying game feels dated in its structure, enemy encounters and design, then there wouldn’t be much point in revisiting it in the modern era. Thankfully, Last Light has aged a lot better than Metro: 2033 has. Where 2033 feels like looking into a time capsule while wearing rose-tinted glasses, Last Light feels like a competent action-shooter that bolsters a narrative that is still intriguing in 2026.

While this next gen update doesn’t fundamentally change or reinvent the nature of the linear narrative adventure that underpins the way that Metro: Last Light plays, it doesn’t have to. The strengths of the original game still shine to this day showcasing a palpably oppressive atmosphere, satisfying weapon handling, and well-integrated stealth sections that keep players on their toes.

Things like requiring players to wipe dirt and blood from the visor of your gas-mask in order to maintain visibility, or having a function to check your watch as a means of keeping track of the dwindling time left on your gas mask filter before it unusable, make survival feel immersive, rather than just feeling like arbitrary busywork.

If anything, these positive elements aren’t just retained in this next gen update, they are accentuated due to the fact that they now sit alongside a package that is even more technically impressive overall.

In summary, Metro: Last Light Redux delivers an experience that is able to stand up to more modern shooters in terms of its performance, while still retaining a somewhat nostalgic feel that places it in a very specific beloved era of first-person shooters. For returning players and newcomers alike, this version represents the ideal way to experience one of gaming’s most atmospheric post-apocalyptic fictional universes.

This game was reviewed on PlayStation 5.