Why Metro Exodus world design couldn't (and shouldn't) have been any other way

Last Friday, Metro Exodus, 4A Games' latest championship in its post-apocalyptic shooter series, was released to the world. As expected past many, it garnered tons of acclaim from both critics and fans. However, one common affair a lot of people see as a fault of Exodus is its decision to have a more open-concluded, non-linear world design. While I can understand disliking this new direction, I believe that Metro Exodus wouldn't have been as expert if it was designed whatever other style, especially with the story it's trying to tell. Here's why.

To paradise we get

Metro Exodus

Explore a healing world

Metro Exodus is the next game in 4A Games' epic postal service-apocalyptic shooter serial, offering a thousand story and a sprawling narrative about exploring a healing world.

Gameplay and story working together

In story-driven games, something that makes or breaks the narrative design is how well what yous're doing in the gameplay fits with what you do in cutscenes and the plot. When these two things barrel heads and go against each other, information technology'southward called "ludonarrative noise." A skilful instance of ludonarrative dissonance can be found within the Uncharted series. At the end of Uncharted: Golden Abyss, the principal character Nathan Drake exclaims how much it would pain him to leave a human being to die. Still, up until that signal, you lot've been using him to kill hundreds of people and none of information technology has phased him in the slightest. Information technology doesn't add together upward.

While this detail example focuses on character traits, the ultimate truth is that everything most a game and its world can influence how gameplay and story mesh together. In Metro Exodus's case, I think the strongest influence is the way the earth is physically designed.

Metro's gameplay has always been characterized by its claustrophobic and hyper-linear focus as the protagonist Artyom works his style through Moscow's mutant-infested metro tunnels, trying to make information technology to his side by side objective and just barely surviving by the skin of his teeth. The plot compliments this perfectly — Artyom always knows where to get and what to do when he gets in that location. The struggle to actually get in that location is where Metro has always shone brightly. Much of the series has always been about the struggle to carve out an being, rebuilding society whilst hidden away from the radioactive surface and the dangers that prevarication there.

However, Metro Exodus is different. For the kickoff time in the franchise, the focus shifts from the metro tunnels to the world that lies beyond them. As the characters of the story realize that the world isn't the hopeless wasteland it one time was, the narrative turns into a story of exploring a healing world, not hiding away from the horrors of a expressionless one. And since the story has changed, so too has the earth we play in. There are definitely all the same claustrophobic, linear segments in Exodus, but the main focus of its design is to support that story with not-linear areas that requite Artyom and visitor room to breathe. Without this change, the story and the gameplay experience would be in conflict. After all, a story about exploring the world needs a world to explore, right?

Not entirely unexpected

It's worth highlighting that this direction hasn't come out of left field. It'due south actually something that the series started to build upwardly to in the previous game, Metro: Final Light. In that game, Artyom spent more time on the surface than he did in the original Metro 2033, and multiple characters remarked how natural events in the game, like the dawn of the spring season and rainfall, were things they never thought they would see again.

Metro: Last Lite hinted to us that the globe was recovering, and its sequel, Metro Exodus, has capitalized on that setup. So while I tin understand fans and critics missing the tight, dreary experience of traversing the metro tunnels, I ultimately call back that Metro Exodus has taken the series and brought its gameplay to new heights that mesh perfectly with its writing. Metro's trademark tension and semi-horror atmosphere aren't gone — they're only implemented into a world that trades bleakness and sorrow for promise and recovery.

Your thoughts

What do you think about Metro Exodus's open design? Let me know.

Metro Exodus is available now for $threescore on Xbox One, or for $50 on PC via the Epic Games Store.

To paradise we get

Metro Exodus

Explore a healing world

Metro Exodus is the adjacent game in 4A Games' epic post-apocalyptic shooter series, offering a k story and a sprawling narrative about exploring a healing world.

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