I have recently gotten very into the post-apocalyptic survival horror genre taking place in a soviet era winter, namely the Metro series and S.T.A.L.K.E.R., and I believe that Metro Exodus is the current pinnacle of that type of game.
The story is relatively strong, especially as you get towards the end, but the way it plays out can be a bit of a drag. You leave home with the Order, with hope of finding somewhere to live on the surface away from the Metro. I can honestly say I don't remember a single character in the game outside of Anna and Colonel Miller, and the odd villain/new ally here and there. The crew of the Aurora are as generic as they come, but they don't drag the story down, they just don't add anything to it . The issue I found that made the story drag wasn't the characters as much as it was the gameplay loop. Don't get me wrong, this game plays very well, but the loop of 'go to new area, find out what's wrong with it, help the locals overcome the problem and leave' got a bit repetitive by the 3rd or 4th new area, which by the way, are all varied and beautiful and wonderful to explore.
The way this game immerses you and makes you take it slowly is something to be proud of. There was never a moment where I felt the need to rush forward; I wanted to find that teddy bear for the little girl back at my train, and I would take my time and go out of my way to do so. The game encourages exploration, looking for loot in every nook and cranny and maybe you'll stumble across something handy, like an upgrade for your night vision goggles or a new weapon part.
That brings me to the crafting. When I first started the game I loved the crafting - it added depth to the weapons that the previous entries didn't have. Out in the world you could fine someone with a modded weapon, strip those mods off and then apply them to your own weapon. It's a fantastic system that really encouraged you to try different weapons and builds for different scenarios. What I DIDN'T like, however, was the rest of the loot system. The loot felt entirely meaningless outside of crafting materials. And you might think "well lot's of games give you crafting materials as loot!" and you'd be correct, but where I think Exodus misses a step is that ALL YOU GET is crafting materials. There are two types of materials, liquid and hardware, and you mix them together to make either ammo or medkits/filters. I hate this system, and would much rather find ammo and medkits on dead bodies than materials to make my own whenever I want. It made looting tedious, forcing you to go to every dead body to pull mats off to then craft ammo for your weapon type once you get to a crafting station.
The rest of the game is mostly great, aside from the touch of eurojank everything has in it. I don't hate eurojank, but found myself losing immersion whenever my character glided across a surface from running too fast, or from sound effects just simply not playing, or characters speaking over eachother during dialogue in un natural ways. None of it ruined the experience for me, but it did succeed in reminding me I was playing a videogame.
All in all, this game is a really great experience and I'd recommend it to anyone that loves this style of game, as of right now I don't think I've played a better version.
The story is relatively strong, especially as you get towards the end, but the way it plays out can be a bit of a drag. You leave home with the Order, with hope of finding somewhere to live on the surface away from the Metro. I can honestly say I don't remember a single character in the game outside of Anna and Colonel Miller, and the odd villain/new ally here and there. The crew of the Aurora are as generic as they come, but they don't drag the story down, they just don't add anything to it . The issue I found that made the story drag wasn't the characters as much as it was the gameplay loop. Don't get me wrong, this game plays very well, but the loop of 'go to new area, find out what's wrong with it, help the locals overcome the problem and leave' got a bit repetitive by the 3rd or 4th new area, which by the way, are all varied and beautiful and wonderful to explore.
The way this game immerses you and makes you take it slowly is something to be proud of. There was never a moment where I felt the need to rush forward; I wanted to find that teddy bear for the little girl back at my train, and I would take my time and go out of my way to do so. The game encourages exploration, looking for loot in every nook and cranny and maybe you'll stumble across something handy, like an upgrade for your night vision goggles or a new weapon part.
That brings me to the crafting. When I first started the game I loved the crafting - it added depth to the weapons that the previous entries didn't have. Out in the world you could fine someone with a modded weapon, strip those mods off and then apply them to your own weapon. It's a fantastic system that really encouraged you to try different weapons and builds for different scenarios. What I DIDN'T like, however, was the rest of the loot system. The loot felt entirely meaningless outside of crafting materials. And you might think "well lot's of games give you crafting materials as loot!" and you'd be correct, but where I think Exodus misses a step is that ALL YOU GET is crafting materials. There are two types of materials, liquid and hardware, and you mix them together to make either ammo or medkits/filters. I hate this system, and would much rather find ammo and medkits on dead bodies than materials to make my own whenever I want. It made looting tedious, forcing you to go to every dead body to pull mats off to then craft ammo for your weapon type once you get to a crafting station.
The rest of the game is mostly great, aside from the touch of eurojank everything has in it. I don't hate eurojank, but found myself losing immersion whenever my character glided across a surface from running too fast, or from sound effects just simply not playing, or characters speaking over eachother during dialogue in un natural ways. None of it ruined the experience for me, but it did succeed in reminding me I was playing a videogame.
All in all, this game is a really great experience and I'd recommend it to anyone that loves this style of game, as of right now I don't think I've played a better version.