Metro 2039 Officially Revealed By 4A Games

After six years, it's official: a new Metro game is coming.

Announced as part of the Xbox First Look Program, Ukraine-based 4A Games has revealed Metro 2039, the third game in the series, based on the novels by Dmitry Glukhovsky. The game has undergone a complete revision, as the development team revealed "Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine fundamentally changed life at Ukrainian studio 4A Games, particularly for the teams and families based in the country."

Metro 2039 Revealed By 4A Games

A lot has happened since the release of Metro Exodus in 2019. A global pandemic, and perhaps more pertinent for 4A Games, Russia's full-scale invasion of its homeland. This event forced the development team to rethink the story of Metro 2039, shifting it to "focus acutely on choices, actions, consequences, and the cost of securing a future." But while the story may have changed during the six years since the last title, it still looks like a typical Metro title.

4A revealed that 2039's narrative was crafted alongside Glukhovsky, a Russian whose outspoken criticisms of the Ukraine invasion has forced him into exile from his home country, and it will draw on lived experience from recent events, with a Metro spin.

In a new trailer posted as part of the Xbox First Look program, Metro 2039 is set deep in the Metro, under the regime of a new Führer, Hunter. It's set to explore "what humans were before the world ended, and what they became after," and 2039's development team says it's all about the consequences of war.

With its signature brand of psychological horror, Metro 2039 follows The Stranger, a recluse haunted by his violent nightmares. It's described as being "much darker in tone" than previous Metro games, and it takes the series to a place where "the worst of humanity is on display."

The cinematic trailer shows a series of harrowing sequences in which the main character is tormented by visions of dying children and a crumbling world as he makes his way back to the Metro, before we're treated to a typically horrifying gameplay sequence, in which a mutant creature chases the protagonist down below the surface.

Given it's been over six years since the last Metro title, and it's likely to still be a little while longer, appetite is high. The circumstances surrounding Metro 2039, however, mean there will undoubtedly be an unlimited pool of goodwill for 4A to take the time it needs.