Republished on Wednesday, tenth August, 2022: We’re bringing this overview again from the archives following the announcement of August’s PS Plus Extra, Premium lineup. The authentic textual content follows.

4A Games is likely one of the most proficient groups within the business, however the PS4 model of Metro: Exodus – as famous in our authentic overview – severely outpaced the know-how of its time, even on the extra highly effective PS4 Pro. This next-gen model – obtainable as a free PS4 to PS5 improve – feels just like the expertise that was meant in 2019. Running at 4K with a silky easy 60 frames-per-second, Exodus additionally delivers 3D audio and ray tracing, that are all welcome enhancements. The leap ahead in efficiency is sort of placing, comparable in some ways to Remedy’s Control – one other massively improved PS5 improve.

Minute-to-minute gameplay is clearly equivalent, though the added responsiveness provided by the DualSense is welcome. In a run-down, apocalyptic world, it makes a substantial amount of sense to have fluctuating set off stress, and the nuance supplied by the controller feels immaculate. Meanwhile, the gameplay and mechanics stay as they have been: good. The identical goes for the extent design and pacing, that are each distinctive and beautiful throughout protagonist Artyom’s 20-plus hour journey.

All that mentioned, the title’s most spectacular accomplishment stays the writing. Exodus takes Artyom and Anna’s satirically under-developed “relationship” from Last Light and transforms it into not simply one thing significant, however essentially the most compelling side of all the recreation. Their relationship serves because the driving power for a lot of the title, and feels genuine in a manner that exceedingly few video games can pull off. The forged surrounding these two are not any slouches both, offering a motley assortment of troopers, mechanics, and refugees that dwell and develop alongside each other, throughout the title’s year-long journey.

The finish result’s a vastly improved model of what’s by far the perfect title set in Dmitry Glukhovsky’s apocalyptic Russia – even when the voice work, in English not less than, is uneven to place it kindly.