Metro Exodus Diaries Part One

Following on from my diaries in 2018, I’m back with the latest game in the series, Metro Exodus. I know that I said I’d jump on the game in the final part of my Metro Last Light Diaries, but upon release I heard that it was a little buggy. Thankfully 4A Games has been squashing those since release, including a patch on the very day that I started to write this!

Having read my previous diaries, you’ll know that I got the Bad Ending for both games. So starting Metro Exodus, I’m expecting to see what happened had Artyom lived and not blown himself up in D6, killing seemingly all of the Nazis in the process. I’m hoping for fewer spiderbugs and a continuation of absolutely no more librarians… I’ll be playing on Easy, so your ammo may vary.

Now join me as I head back to Moscow, I have a train to catch…

This is my ongoing exploration of the Metro series, played in release order, where I will chronicle my playthrough like a text-based Let’s Play. This time I begin Metro Exodus.

We started with a brief train ride through the history of the Metro, though not quite a brief summary of the events of Metro, and a frankly breathtaking opening scene in the snow. Then we joined Artyom on the surface as he opened a manhole and climbed back down into the Metro. There were plenty of skeletons littering the pipes as I began to explore, the clicking of the geiger counter getting more sporadic. Entering a larger tunnel, I had to burn some spider webs away, which upset the harmless inhabitants. I flicked open my lighter to burn some more when I was leapt upon!

By one of these...

One quick struggle later, the mutant was dead, but I could hear more scurrying around the place. I entered a train tunnel with one derailed to the left. I found a note and restocked my ammo supplies from a handy cache, and while looking around two watchmen bounded onto the scene. I shot them and turned on a tape player that I had spotted. It told the story of a couple of men who were guarding this tunnel, and fell to a swarm of watchmen, the story punctuated by the howls of present day watchmen to boot.

Climbing aboard the train, I could hear the claws of more watchmen as they ran overhead. I prepared myself to be swarmed, but was only greeted with a growling noise. I decided that this was not a good place to stay, so ran for the door up ahead. As I opened it, behind me there were half a dozen watchmen and one coming up the stairs to meet me. I got through the door in time to catch it’s head while closing it, having to stab it before it would shut.

There was no time for a reprieve, as I was pounced upon again! It received a stabbing, but another was on me instantly. I could hear voices, and bullets rained down at my attackers - then my fellow spartans appeared. They carried me into the station, then straight to the infirmary…

Waking up, I was greeted by Anna, who was quite concerned that I had gone out to search for “that signal” again. Her father, Miller, appeared, and told me off for trying to make Anna a widow - it seemed that Artyom and Anna had wed between the attack on D6 and now. Apparently this had happened on so many occasions that people were unwilling to give me anymore blood to switch out for my irradiated blood. Anna and Miller wandered off while the doctor told me that, so I got up to find them, so we could talk about my posting to Polis.

The ol' ball and chain

There were two men having a chat, which I overheard a little bit of, but after five minutes of nothing much of interest I wandered around. A sick child praised me, before his mother cursed me for filling the lad’s head with stories. As I walked towards the exit, the two men were still talking, but as I reached the door I could overhear Miller and Anna talking about me. Miller was arguing that there was nobody outside of Moscow, which was why my constant excursions were ludicrous - there was nobody to find outside of the Metro. I waited for them to just about finish, before opening the door, and was greeted by the other rangers who seemed pleased to see me up and about. Miller dismissed them, and reminded me that we still needed to speak about Polis.

A few days later, Anna and I were on the surface listening to the radio. We had been there for hours, so Anna convinced me to head back into the Metro, so I followed her downstairs. I made a quick stop in what used to be a kitchen to grab a note, before following her through a gap. As we reached the ground floor, Anna heard something and we proceeded cautiously. I began walking around breaking windows by simply touching them, when two watchmen appeared. We shot them without incident, but had to get a move on in case more were around.

Out on the street, Anna pondered why this area was off-limits to rangers. At that moment, a pack of watchmen started running past, so we ducked behind a car. They went past us - despite Anna saying that it was up to me if we started shooting or not - and we carried on. She had the idea of taking the bridge, so we climbed up to it as a snowstorm blew over us. As it began to dissipate slightly, a loud sound rumbled past us.

Apologies for the official screenshots, the game has no way to allow you to take screenshots, despite having a Photo Mode

It turned out to be an overground train running past, something that it seemed Anna had never seen before. Unless you count the derailed and nonfunctional ones she had no doubt come across. We raced forwards, wanting to catch up to it if possible, when a vehicle came screeching to a halt ahead of us. Assuming it was here to pick us up, and had spotted the train, we jumped in as they opened the doors - and knocked me out.

As I awoke, Anna was bitching at the men in the front, safe behind a mesh screen, while a man and an elderly woman were in the back with us. Anna explained that we had been picked up by Hanza, a faction friendly to the rangers, so had struck me due to a misunderstanding. The two other passengers revealed that they were from a village outside of Moscow. Anna finally realised that I had been right all along, but we didn’t have much time to rejoice, as the vehicle ground to a halt and the driver and two others got out.

The side door was opened, and the two civilians were pulled out and lined up to be shot. I jumped on the gunman’s back, struggling to save their lives, but in the tussle I was shot and fall backwards into the pit followed by the civilians. Anna cried out, but was bundled back into the truck and they drove off. However, I wasn’t quite dead yet, and pulled myself from under the two fresh corpses, finding myself in a mass grave.

This is the final official screenshot, as I found a third-party way to take screenshots

Quite injured by this experience, I struggled forwards in my quest to rescue my wife. Crawling beneath a fallen tree, I found a medkit and jabbed myself with one of the tiny needles. Of course, I was now in hostile territory, so kept my head down as I continued on into a pipe which led me to a trainyard. Men were watching one of the exits, having apparently heard a noise, so I went the other way only.

This is where I encountered a man called Yermak, who had been arguing with one of the soldiers before being confined to the room I had just reached. Of course, he thought I was a mutant and almost whacked me with something, but it turned out that he was a bit friendlier than the others. He bid me to follow him out of the room, where I shut off some lights to enable my sneaking around a bit.

I’ve got to admit, at this point I was worried that we’d have another Pavel (from the previous game), and that he’d wind up stabbing me in the back. It never paid to be too trusting in the Metro…

Yermak steered me around the place, up a ladder and across a gantry crawlspace to knock out a guard. He told me to throw a can to distract a guard, so I did it before going through a door and into another crawlspace. It exited into an office, where I could hear Anna arguing with what I could assume was the local commander. Anna screamed that her father would make him pay for this, though he seemed to be under the impression that Miller knew all about this place.

As things heated up, I burst into the room and shoved the commander into the next room. Anna, overcome with relief that I was okay, revealed that the token which Hunter gave me before I left Exhibition a couple of years ago, is what stopped the bullet. Unfortunately, she distracted me long enough for the man in charge to come around and jump me. He grabbed a rifle and in the struggle pulled the trigger, unloading a magazine into some huge computer which adorned the wall.

Not so tough now, tough guy!

Anna belted him, and interrogated him before an alarm went off. Cursing, he got up and discovered the damaged computer. He had destroyed the Universal Broadband Jammer - the one thing keeping signals from reaching Moscow, as well as leaving it. The reason was that we were still at war, so the risks were too great - but with the jammer out of action, the map above the console was lighting up to show incoming transmissions from across the globe.

Plot twist!

We didn’t have time to bask in that particular victory, as the commander called out to someone in the next room and resumed our tussle. Luckily, within moments they were subdued, and Yermak came blundering in, almost getting shot by Anna. He told us that he was the train engineer, and that we should meet him in the train shed to steal it, so we left and Anna climbed up onto the roof while I took the scenic route on the ground.

Sneaking behind some crates, I waited for two nattering guards to pass as an announcement went out that the jammer was back online. I continued on into the yard, narrowly avoiding being spotted by a flashlight before heading over to where someone was working on a sparking panel. I knocked him out, then went up a ladder into a tower where I found some throwing knives. Anna gave me a fright by shining the laser from her sniper rifle at me while saying that she could see me. Calming myself, I headed out across the scaffold connecting two towers.

Knocking out the guy in the other tower, I checked that the coast was relatively clear of the patrolling guards before heading down and sneaking beside one of them. Once he stopped, I knocked him out, frisked him and went for the door into the shed, where Yermak met me.

Near this beauty

Unfortunately for Yermak, he was captured, as he had been acting suspiciously. He was tied up next to the train, which was where I needed to go. I snuck around without alerting anyone, miraculously, and then went all the way around the train before distracting Yermak’s guard with a can. I then knocked the guy out, and freed Yermak, which was when Anna decided to rejoin me.

Yermak said that he was going to get the train prepared, and that we should activate the turntable in the control room upstairs. Unfortunately, as we went upstairs, the alert went out and men swarmed us. I took out most of them, then turned the switch. Then things went a little crazy.

There was a gantry hanging in front of the control room, which men began running along to shoot at us. Seeing barrels there, I decided to fire at those - but nothing happened after I had expended far too much ammo on them. I helped Anna kill the men, as we had to get to the ground level to manually turn something for Yermak. Then the barrels exploded.

This is why I don't take you anywhere nice!

The control room collapsed beneath us, sending Anna and I to the ground. We dusted ourselves off and, avoiding fire and bullets, shot our way back to the train. Together, we turned the crank and quickly climbed aboard the train. We came under fire, but were fairly safe inside the steel locomotive.

We cheered and congratulated ourselves on a well done escape, and I wondered where we were headed. Then some flashbangs were thrown in through a window…