Metro 2039 Is A Lesson Of What Happens To Our World When We Let The Worst People Win

The Metro series has never been afraid of showcasing how the horrors of fascism, like an irradiated cockroach scrambling around after a swift decapitation, will still be present even as our world succumbs to nuclear devastation. It’s an ideology that is determined to rule, hate, and stamp its boot on the neck of anyone who dares speak up against its twisted vision.

4A Games featured fascists as major antagonists in Metro 2033, Last Light, Exodus, and now the upcoming 2039. I got an early glimpse at the reveal trailer alongside a number of extra details from the Ukrainian development team and was struck by how transparent it is about the harm authoritarian regimes can have on vulnerable people with literally nowhere else left to turn. In this universe, they can succumb to the horrors of nuclear winter and the awful creatures who await on the surface or show their allegiance to a party that preys on the weak and vulnerable to maintain its relevance.

It’s evident that Metro 2039 was developed in the shadow of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in which its development team was forced to flee their home country in order to stay alive, let alone to get this game made. It’s a startling reflection of our modern world and a dark glimpse of a future that awaits us if things don’t begin to change.

A Stranger In A Strange Land

You play as a voiced protagonist known as The Stranger, who throughout Metro 2039 must venture deeper into the titular tunnels than ever before in search of his objective. This goal must also be balanced alongside occasional trips to the freezing surface where a motley crew of mutated creatures and supernatural horrors await.

While I only caught a glimpse of proper gameplay during this brief preview, it feels like Metro 2039 is gearing up to be darker, harder, and far more claustrophobic than what came before. Exodus introduced us to a selection of inviting yet ultimately less terrifying open world zones, but this upcoming sequel is returning to the linear cavalcade of horrors that started it all. It goes to show that bigger isn’t always better.

“For a quarter century, the last survivors of nuclear war have been locked in bitter conflict deep in the Metro tunnels beneath the poisoned city of Moscow,” reads the press release. “Now, the underground factions are unified under one banner - the Novoreich, led by a new Fuhrer: the legendary Spartan, Hunter. The Fuhrer promises salvation and a new life for the people on the surface but in reality, communities remain trapped deep within the Metro, flooded by propaganda and misinformation, suffering under his authoritarian regime.”

The reveal trailer features The Stranger going through a horrific series of hallucinations in which he witnesses a huge group of children being indoctrinated by the Fuhrer’s regime as he’s helpless to speak up against them, washed up in a sea of literal chains as he watches them be taken away in a train cart hurtling towards an unknown location. The imagery here feels deliberately reminiscent of the holocaust and how the Nazi party sought to brainwash the next generation, and if that wasn’t possible, kill them before any opponents could rise up.

Children in the Nazi-occupied classroom are depicted with no eyes, mouth, or other facial features. As if their right to speak or become their own people has been stripped away in favour of a single hateful rhetoric.

It’s never clear what is real and what is simply an unsettling hallucination our protagonist is being put through. It’s a common theme of the series in which the player is frequently thrown into grim scenes in which the supernatural radiation that now permeates this world plays evil tricks on what the human psyche is capable of conjuring.

It was difficult not to feel enthralled by every single scene that played out before me. The narrative journey already feels like a perversion of childhood innocence as piles of clumsy crayon drawings are then replaced by mass graves of children that are better off being put down by their own parents than dragged kicking and screaming into a decimated world in which they are raised to perpetuate a fascist cycle of hate, violence, and prejudice that will only destroy us all over again.

When The Stranger comes back to his senses outside an abandoned metro station, a decaying pile of ash falls from his hands, and he gets to his feet and looks out at the abandoned Russian capital before him. This is where our journey begins. I interpreted the story that this trailer tells as a fear of failing the next generation in a world that has already been all but decimated.

Children are the future, and if we fail to protect them, to put them on the right path, or to stop them being enslaved by a regime just as damaging as the one that destroyed this world, then what is the point in carrying on? Metro 2039 is going to be a fight for that future, one which is mirroring ongoing conflicts in our own world right now which currently sit on a knife edge.

Fight For What’s Right

Once the reveal trailer came to an end, we were treated to a small slice of gameplay where The Stranger entered an abandoned metro station in search of supplies. But sadly he was not alone, with this place long becoming the home of mutated creatures waiting to strike.

He can’t win this battle, opting to run down the nearest escalator towards the entrance of a bustling settlement. A few bullets try to keep the monsters at bay, but it’s useless, and only after the huge doors before him swing open does The Stranger feel a sense of salvation. While brief, this incredibly polished slice of gameplay feels like classic Metro through and through.

Members of the development team who guided our presentation forward were awfully frank about the real-world inspirations behind Metro 2039, and how this game is going to be much darker in tone and storytelling than anything that came before.

If Metro 2039 sets me loose in a large yet ultimately claustrophobic setting and gives me just enough tools to ensure my own survival amidst a slew of terrifying scenarios, I shall be swept up in a heartbeat. There is nothing more thrilling than slowly working your way through metro tunnels in search of supplies knowing that even a single enemy crawling from the woodwork could spell your end. Having to balance health, oxygen, cracks in your gas mask, or making sure there is a constant source of light guiding you forward turns even the simplest parts of this series into an immersive delight.

Part of me also hopes the settlement glimpsed at the end of this sequence is something we’ll be free to explore on our own terms as well. Dodgy voice acting aside, this series does such a fantastic job of presenting living, breathing societies built within the confines of old stations. Entire cultures have formed in the wake of the apocalypse as humanity tries to survive in the most awful of circumstances, but that doesn’t mean the smallest pockets of joy can’t be found in dimly lit subway tunnels where every day could be your last.

Launching this winter, I still have quite a few questions about Metro 2039, but I cannot help feeling excited about the creative vision that developer 4A Games has put forward. Not only does it feel true to the series’ identity, but also a profound reflection of everything its creative team has gone through to make it a reality. It can serve as a reminder that the nuclear apocalypse isn’t just going to destroy the world as we know it, but pervert generations to come through regimes that will refuse to die even as everything else around it does. A powerful message, and more games should be bold enough to put forward.