It sounded too good to be true and it actually was. The official site for Metro 2035, the final book in the trilogy that inspired 4A Games’ acclaimed video game series, revealed that a new game would be coming in 2017. Deep Silver hadn’t formally announced anything but it’s now confirmed in a new Facebook post that a sequel isn’t coming.

“As the exclusive rights holder to video games set in the Metro 2033 universe, Deep Silver has ambitious plans for the hugely successful Metro series. But just to manage our fans’ expectations – releasing the next Metro game in 2017 is not one of them. When we have more news to share, we will.”

The Metro 2035 website has now been updated to reflect “An untitled Metro project” which states: “But the Metro saga doesn’t end where the books leave us…An era of great discoveries lies ahead!” There’s no release date for this sadly.

4A Games has been quiet on whether we’d see a new game in the Metro series but the official website for the novel Metro 2035 has been updated to confirm a sequel for 2017. You’ll see it at the bottom as “The next Metro video game” slated for the coming year.

Metro 2035 will be the final book in the trilogy and sees Artyom leading his people back to the world above. It promises characters from all books and games eventually meeting up and the world turning upside down as a result. After that though? As per the website, “It all adds up to something. Where the books end their story, the game will pick it up. An era of great discoveries lies ahead…”

4A Games has been on a VR title called Artika.1 for some time now but indicated that it was only one of two projects that were in development. We’ll wait for more confirmation from the developer and publisher Deep Silver in the meantime.

4A Games are supremely talented- this is immediately apparent when you consider just how great Metro 2033 and Metro: Last Light really were. But they have also been worryingly silent for the last couple of years, prompting many to wonder exactly what it is that the studio might be working on next.

In an update shared by the community manager today, 4A acknowledged their long absence, and teased two ‘exciting’ projects that the team is currently working on, although they declined to share any information whatsoever about these new games- I suppose we can presume that at least one of these is a new Metro game.

4A Games has also grown, apparently, and expanded- which makes sense, if they have two games in development simultaneously. They could hardly do it before with how small their team was then. Whatever this team’s new projects are going to be, though, I am looking forward to them- the Metro games were incredible, and I can’t wait to see what 4A Games pulls out of its hat next.

In December, Metro: Last Light developer 4A Games had to put a new project they were working on to bed and because they didn’t officially announce it, we never really knew why the game had been canceled. Now it appears that project or an entirely new one is going to be revealed at this year’s E3.

The company hasn’t exactly announced they are working on another Metro game, but that seems to be the odds-on favorite after one of the development team was asked whether or not they were heading to E3 this year.

The rumors began swirling when someone asked one of the development team about the possibility of heading to L.A. in June on the Gameinator forums. Originally, the employee answered that  they “are going to,” according to WCCFTech.  Since that original post was entered, the response has been changed to a non-committal emoji. Because of that, we’re going to have to guess at a new Metro game coming down the pike at some point.

4A Games are a really talented bunch- their Metro games are some of the most unique, intense, gorgeous, and just plain atmospheric shooters to have released in the last few years. The Metro universe has been wonderfully realized by 4A Games- and it was always an exciting prospect to consider the developers taking on some other new IP for themselves. Especially when it was rumored earlier this year that their new IP would be a space IP- surely they would be able to do justice to something like that!

Unfortunately, it seems like we will never know. The same LinkedIn profile that originally leaked the new IP now seems to be listing the new game as cancelled. It’s really a damn shame.

On the other hand, it also seems to confirm that a new Metro game is being worked on at 4A- hopefully it is announced soon. Seeing a new Metro game developed from the ground up for the current gen spec would be pretty awesome.

Thanks, OnlySP.

Now that most of the fans have experienced the immersive atmosphere, story and believable mutants, what can 4A Games do with Metro 3 to make it even better and more immersive than ever? We’re going to talk about 5 things that I think could make Metro 3 the best entry in the series yet.

Next-Generation Visuals and New Engine

With the power of new hardware and future tech on PC, we’d love to see what 4A Games can do with the third entry. Metro 2033 and Metro: Last Light had great visuals that immersed the player in the post-apocalyptic Moscow that was filled with horror, survival elements and challenging mutants. Given the studio’s history, the game will most likely use a new in-house engine in order to completely blow away the previous games and other first person shooters out of the water. But by the time Metro 3 comes out, there will be a ton of impressive stuff on the market, so 4A Games has some work to do.

Virtual Reality/Oculus Rift

Virtual Reality has been getting a ton of praise from recent events such as CES 2015. Assuming that virtual reality devices will be a force to reckon with, it would be interesting to know if 4A Games games would be willing to use this technology to make the game even more atmospheric than ever before.

Crescent Bay which was shown of CES 2015 was running at 1440p resolution and 90 hertz/fps. However, currently there are no actual specs of the hardware due to the fact that Crescent Bay is still a prototype and not finalized yet. Having said that it is a huge improvement over the previous Oculus Rift developer kits. If Metro 3 gets any kind of official virtual reality support then we’re in for a treat and we absolutely cannot wait to experience it.

Story Development

The Metro series has a strong story narrative from the start of Metro 2033 and to the end of Last Light. While the game is based on the book written by Dmitry Glukhovsky it has done a great job of bringing the story to interactive entertainment. Without spoiling anything here it’s interesting and exciting at the same time to see where the story will go and what parts of post-apocalyptic Moscow will we venture next. Metro 3 has a great opportunity to make the story even more mysterious and exciting than ever before.

Open World/Open Ended Exploration

This one is tricky, but if done right I think Metro 3 would benefit greatly from an open world design. While the typical corridor shooting mechanic works really well for story-oriented first person shooters I still think there is a chance for the future game to be even better than your room-to-room exploration.

Just imagine a dynamic eco-system with mutants and random events along with virtual reality and strong storytelling. Some people may think it would be too similar to previous post-apocalyptic games such as S.T.A.L.K.E.R or the Fallout series, but I still think the world of Metro can be unique and gorgeous in its own way. Maybe not completely open world, but more open-ended with a bigger emphasis on exploration.

No Multiplayer/Co-op

I might get butchered for saying this, but I think Metro is one of those games that’s best left alone without having any kind of multiplayer, similar to the previous two games. If you’re going for a pure story-oriented first person shooter and immersive atmosphere to create an amazing single-player experience then you absolutely don’t need to bring in any kind of multiplayer.

Adding multiplayer will also ruin the horror/survival elements, Metro was always about you being alone in this world and trying to find help, escape from danger and complete your mission. If anything, putting in a multiplayer mode via a DLC would be a much better idea than having it in the main game and messing up the quality of the single-player experience.

Conclusion

Overall, we’re looking forward to see what 4A games will do with Metro 3 and we believe that a new engine, virtual reality, open world, better and bigger story and a complete focus on a strong single player experience will make this game better than the previous ones in the series. We already like the balance of shooting, horror and survival elements from the previous game and we don’t think it really needs any tweaks in that regard. However, addition of new weapons, new mutant designs and characters to interact with, and of course new places to explore would be necessary to make Metro 3 intriguing.