There’s Still a Deep, Personal Story
Story has always been one of the key pieces of Metro’s puzzle, and Exodus seems to be very much the same way. The demo we played started with the series’ traditional exposition, a personal paragraph written in Artyom’s voice. While it wasn’t clear how Exodus ties into the previous games, or if any of those supernatural elements might return, this is very much still Artyom’s story.
According to 4A Games the story content of Exodus is absolutely massive, and their representative told us, “Metro Exodus compared to the previous two titles has more dialogue lines than both of them combined. In terms of gameplay length, it’s more than double the length. And in terms of geographical footprint, it’s many many times bigger, as we’ve gone from one city to an entire continent.”
Going along with that huge undertaking, 4A’s headcount has doubled since they started development on Metro Exodus. Our hands-on time first had us investigating a settlement after our train, the Aurora, was attacked. It turns out the settlement was the site of a fanatical cult that tries to trap and kill Artyom, but at the last minute we were saved by a young girl and her mother, also held captive. Going from there we saved the girl and her mother, taking her to the Aurora, which in turn led to information and the mother using her medical skills to help the others in our group. Even though Metro Exodus takes place away from the dank underground tunnels, it’s still an apocalyptic world filled with dangerous creatures and bandits. It seems like the personal stories that took place in previous titles will still be very much present here.
