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METRO: Exodus - "Nuclear Winter makes you wish for the Caspian Desert"

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Asuryan said:
Anna feels like she only exists to tell you how cool you are. She has no character or identity of her own, which is both unsettling and annoying.

I actually miss the times when she was just a damsel in distress. You can sense Glukhovsky unleashing his dudebro tendencies all over the story.

That would actually require putting effort into the story and character development. Having everyone obey Miller's dumb orders because reasons is much easier.

My only solace is that games have it much better than the books story-wise.
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Oh god, you're telling me it's even worse in the books?

...well, at least we have Guil. She's basically everything Anna should have been: a cool sniper lady who forms a rapport with Artyom, but who maintains her own character outside of his orbit.

EDIT: in retrospect, it kind of feels like 2033 had the best story of the Metro games. Which is kind of funny, since it barely has a story: for the first 70% of the game, it's "deliver this message to Polis and the rangers," then for the last 30% it's "activate D6 and rain down the missiles on the Dark Ones." This miminalistic story serves as a vehicle for exploring the setting, and results in fewer points of stupidness and headscratching.
 
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Mechasaurian said:
The fact that Miller's leadership is never challenged despite the fact that he literally leads the team into a cannibal den is pretty bizzare.

And Anna's characterization is just...ergh. I don't know where to begin with her.

As for the rest of the train crew...I found them likeable but utterly forgettable.

I do maintain that Exodus is several steps forward in terms of gameplay and several steps back in terms of story and narrative. Each map as an individual vignette is pretty great. The Children of the Forest were a good setting element. The Fury Road knockoff story in the Caspian Desert was really fun. But as whole, the writing is a mess.
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I repeat my past statement that it was just easier to jam beats together within the confines of the Moscow tunnels.

As for Miller . . . I can kind of get it from the perspective that Miller is an old hand who picked and trained most of his men personally. Getting caught up in a trap that was specifically tuned to pray on his personal hopes is somewhat understandable. Especially as it's kind of his main huge fuck up after leaving Moscow and was largely fed by how he had been lied to in Moscow to help maintain the charade. I can't think of him doing anything after that was nearly as objectionable.

Anna though, yeah, yeesh that one gets really awkward. I mean, the only excuse I can think of is that the writers have no experience writing a romance or love interest so they just cranked it up to eleven and hoped you noticed. :V

Asuryan said:
That's when Metro is at at its best - the first book was an edgelord roadtrip through the Moscow, but it worked because the setting was cool. 2034 and 2035 were much more character-driven, and since the characters were bad it failed to connect; Exodus appears to suffer from the same problem.

Anna just appears in Chapter 1 of Metro 2035 out of nowhere, and she only exists to bitch about how stupid Artyom is. Does literally nothing else. As for the story...

1. Last Light is canon for that book, which means Artyom managed to save the Black Ones - but the short story written before Last Light established that Artyom looks for radio signals out of guilt for killing the Black Ones.

2. In Metro 2035 (which influenced the premise of Exodus), Moscow is being isolated by a ring of jammers, which means no radio signals get through. However, in Last Light the rangers of Polis received signals from St. Petersburg and a nuclear station near Murmansk. This was a reference to other Metro2033-verse books, and there was another book where Rangers made contact with Minsk - which means Glukhovsky pulled the entire twist out of his ass a few years prior to writing 2035.

3. The only original female character returns from 2034, only to devolve into an incel's perception of a sex worker. Like, I shit you not all she cares about is getting fucked on the cheap.

4. Metro 2035 "reveals" the story of both games to be a total lie. Black Ones were inbred mutants, Artyom hallucinated talking to them, the battle for D6 between Sparta and Red Line was just a small skirmish that didn't matter, and it was all a hoax by the local Illuminati.

It's pretty bad.
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Wow . . . That's horrible.

If it's any consolation I'm pretty sure the games are considered an alternate universe.
 
Was I the only one thinking that the bullshit made up story would have been a more compelling narrative? Like, yeah, it was obviously false and it should have been pretty fucking obvious to the characters, but if it was true it would have been a far more interesting and engaging story. It would have aligned far more with the theme of humanity's refusal to stop doing what destroyed them in the first place. You have an apocalypse and monsters and all but America is still determined to invade.

In general, it just would have been interesting to see the Americans as the antagonists given how often its reversed for the Russians. How do you feel effortlessly slaughtering American soldiers when you've done that to Russians innumerable times. Perhaps it would have impressed how desirable peace and cooperation is, with the Spartans realizing that the "NATO Occupation Forces" aren't as evil as they been told after all. Maybe they're just stranded far, far away from home now civilizations was annihilated. Interesting things might have come from Sam, who was alluded to have conflicting loyalties, but nothing ever came up from it.
 
Sarissa said:
Was I the only one thinking that the bullshit made up story would have been a more compelling narrative? Like, yeah, it was obviously false and it should have been pretty fucking obvious to the characters, but if it was true it would have been a far more interesting and engaging story. It would have aligned far more with the theme of humanity's refusal to stop doing what destroyed them in the first place. You have an apocalypse and monsters and all but America is still determined to invade.

In general, it just would have been interesting to see the Americans as the antagonists given how often its reversed for the Russians. How do you feel effortlessly slaughtering American soldiers when you've done that to Russians innumerable times. Perhaps it would have impressed how desirable peace and cooperation is, with the Spartans realizing that the "NATO Occupation Forces" aren't as evil as they been told after all. Maybe they're just stranded far, far away from home now civilizations was annihilated. Interesting things might have come from Sam, who was alluded to have conflicting loyalties, but nothing ever came up from it.
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I was personally hoping for the Russian Enclave, but American warlords in Russia would have been neat too.
 
Sarissa said:
Was I the only one thinking that the bullshit made up story would have been a more compelling narrative? Like, yeah, it was obviously false and it should have been pretty fucking obvious to the characters, but if it was true it would have been a far more interesting and engaging story. It would have aligned far more with the theme of humanity's refusal to stop doing what destroyed them in the first place. You have an apocalypse and monsters and all but America is still determined to invade.

In general, it just would have been interesting to see the Americans as the antagonists given how often its reversed for the Russians. How do you feel effortlessly slaughtering American soldiers when you've done that to Russians innumerable times. Perhaps it would have impressed how desirable peace and cooperation is, with the Spartans realizing that the "NATO Occupation Forces" aren't as evil as they been told after all. Maybe they're just stranded far, far away from home now civilizations was annihilated. Interesting things might have come from Sam, who was alluded to have conflicting loyalties, but nothing ever came up from it.
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Mechasaurian said:
I was personally hoping for the Russian Enclave, but American warlords in Russia would have been neat too.
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Seconding Russian enclave would have been cool. For one thing, a NATO intact enough to project force to the far side of Europe would not have been deterred by their scout teams mysteriously vanishing into a radio black hole around Moscow. In fact, the more you think about it, the less it makes sense. Radio Jammers, don't just magically silence radio signals, they are a strong source of randomized EM interference that flood out other signals. Coming from all directions, from within Moscow, this might convince the natives that all they're receiving from beyond is the ghostly fallout of a dead world. From outside of Moscow it would be a blazing beacon that someone was doing something in the ruins.
 
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Metro Exodus will hit Windows Store this week, according to new listing

Article:
Metro Exodus was among the first games to cause a stir due to its exclusivity to the Epic Games Store. Originally available as a pre-order on Steam, the shooter was later removed in favour of Epic's storefront. While the game will still launch on Steam in February 2020, it looks like another storefront will get it even sooner: it's just appeared on the Windows Store, with a release date of June 9.

It's interesting timing: Microsoft has confirmed its Xbox Game Pass subscription service will launch on PC, and the release date for Metro Exodus perfectly aligns with the date of Microsoft's E3 2019 press conference. We don't know yet when Game Pass will launch for PC, but in the event that it launches during that press conference, it's not too big a leap to expect that Exodus will be one of the featured titles.


Guess that exclusivity was not that exclusive.
 
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DLC 1 released
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    • The first of the two planned DLCs went live today.


    From Rock Paper Shotgun:
    The first expansion, due out this summer is The Two Colonels, and puts you in the shoes of Colonel Khlebnikov, a character briefly mentioned in the main game. It'll be a linear, tense adventure in the style of the first two Metro games, and send you into the dying city of Novosibirsk, a year before the events of the main game. On a mission to reuinite with his son for New Year's Eve, Khlebnikov will have to delve into some claustrophobic and dark environments, but will at least have a flame-thrower to clear the way. That probably means atomic hell-spiders, so buckle up.
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    • Mechasaurian said:
    I was personally hoping for the Russian Enclave, but American warlords in Russia would have been neat too.
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    Probably spoiler? Whatever. In any case, for a franchise that seems to be steeped in at least some historical metaphor and plenty of symbolism (at least I think so, but really I haven't played that much of Exodus even), it'd be fitting--it wouldn't be the first time an American army, or a coalition of western nations including the United States, invaded and maintained a military occupation of portions of Russia and Eurasia, at least on a limited scale.
     
    Gotta admire the Two Colonels DLC for allowing you to
    Gun down dozens of desperate civilians after you ransack their homes and take away the anti-radiation drugs that they need to survive.

    Though it became comedic at how far the backstabbing went, with the General first gassing his own soldiers and the rioting citizens to ensure his spot on the evacuation train with the council, only for them to have already left without him and killed his son, making him order the last remaining goon to fuck the train up with an RPG so nobody leaves Novosibirsk alive.
     
    Asuryan said:
    4. Metro 2035 "reveals" the story of both games to be a total lie. Black Ones were inbred mutants, Artyom hallucinated talking to them, the battle for D6 between Sparta and Red Line was just a small skirmish that didn't matter, and it was all a hoax by the local Illuminati.
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    Are you fucking kidding me?

    I've seen stories go off the rails, but damn.
     
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