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Reviewing (mostly) every game (or DLC) in my library, part 193:
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (10/10)
Metro Exodus is one of the most immersive, emotionally resonant, and quietly beautiful games I’ve ever played. It’s not just about survival—it’s about connection, memory, hope, and the cost of trying to live in a ruined world. This game hit me hard. I was totally absorbed by it, from the first step into the frozen Volga to the final cutscene on the Aurora. I think about it all the time. It’s a game about holding onto hope when everything seems lost—about choosing kindness even when it’s easier to pull the trigger. It’s also just damn fun to play.
🚂 Pros:

Gunplay that hits like a brick. Every weapon in Metro Exodus feels handmade, gritty, and powerful. There’s real heft to every shot—guns recoil heavily, reload animations are slow and deliberate, and jamming mid-fight because your gun is filthy? Panic-inducing. This isn’t flashy, cinematic combat—it’s messy and dangerous. Every shot feels like a choice. There's also a great selection, so you can mix and match as you please.
Great immersion. You don’t just open a map. You pull it out. You manually take out your map, shine your flashlight, wipe your gas mask, and charge your battery. There’s no floating HUD, just you and what’s in your hands. The act of surviving is grounded in physical motion, and it pulls you deeper into the world than most games even attempt.
Crafting and gear systems that are tactile and personal. Upgrading and maintaining your gear is never busywork. You clean your weapons to stop them from jamming. You build silencers, scopes, magazines. Everything you do—every bolt scavenged, every chemical looted—feeds back into the survival loop. Your weapons are yours because you’ve kept them alive.
Semi-open world hubs that respect your time. Each level is a semi-open space filled with secrets, side missions, and environmental storytelling. But unlike other open-world games, they aren’t bloated. Exploration feels purposeful. There’s always a reason to stray off the path. Maybe you hear someone screaming, or see a church in the distance, or stumble on an abandoned shack. It’s the kind of exploration that rewards curiosity without overwhelming you.
Dust motes, dynamic weather, and real-time day-night cycles create a living world. Watching dust float in shafts of sunlight inside a ruined train car. Rain battering your gas mask as lightning flashes. Fog rolling in across a swamp. These aren’t just pretty effects; they feel like part of the story. They create mood, tension, and wonder all at once.
The train journey format gives the game emotional momentum. You’re not just completing missions; you’re moving across the continent with people you care about. The train becomes home. Each new chapter is a new season, a new region, and a new challenge. This structure turns Metro Exodus into a real journey, one that grows and changes alongside you and your companions.
The Aurora crew feels like a real, ragtag family. They joke. They smoke. They fall in love. They get scared. You can talk to them between missions, sit beside them around the campfire, listen to guitar music, or just exist in the quiet. It’s rare for a game to give you these moments of stillness, where nothing’s happening, but everything is. These people matter, and losing even one of them hits hard.
Anna and Artyom’s relationship is deeply human. There’s no melodrama here. Just love, worry, affection, and trust. The way Anna gently teases you, the way she pushes you to open up, the way she quietly panics when you’re in danger ... it’s a believable, warm relationship that anchors the whole narrative.
Stealth is tense and satisfying. Sneaking past bandits at night with just a throwing knife and your flashlight off is pure adrenaline. You can knock enemies out, avoid detection, and even avoid killing, and the game rewards that. It’s not just about surviving. It’s about surviving your way.
Moral choices that are subtle but meaningful. There’s no morality meter. But the game remembers. Did you spare a guard who surrendered? Did you help a starving family? Did you kill everyone in a camp, or just knock them out? These decisions ripple through the story and help determine which ending you get. The game never calls attention to it, but it sees you.
Environmental storytelling done right. This game tells its story through corpses, broken radios, blood trails, empty homes, and handwritten notes. There’s almost always something worth finding—and often, it's not loot. It’s context. You slowly piece together what happened in these places, and some of those mini-stories hit harder than entire questlines in other games.
The visual design is breathtaking. From golden sunsets in the desert to eerie fog in the forest, this game constantly stuns. It’s not just good graphics, but atmosphere. You feel the cold. You feel the isolation. But you also feel the hope when you step outside and see beauty in this broken world.
The soundtrack lingers in your soul. Melancholic strings. Sparse piano. Ambient sounds that set your nerves on edge. The score knows when to break your heart and when to disappear entirely. It’s perfect.
The ending absolutely shattered me. No spoilers, but it’s one of the most honest, bittersweet, and earned conclusions I’ve seen in any game. It understands what it’s like to try, to sacrifice, and to hope. Ngl, I cried for a bit. And I’d do it again!

🧷 Cons:

Mac performance is tricky. For 23 hours, life was great. But all of a sudden, I couldn’t even get past the loading screen on Mac without manually launching the game via .exe. This workaround technically worked, but it broke Steam achievement tracking and didn’t log the rest of my playtime. I also couldn't go NG+ because of it.
Artyom’s silence is inconsistent and awkward. He narrates loading screens. He clearly has a voice. But in every conversation? He’s completely silent. It’s jarring—especially in deeply emotional moments where someone is pleading with him, crying, yelling, or laughing, and he just… stares. It creates emotional distance, and I wish he’d said just a few words now and then to bring scenes fully to life.
On launch, there were lots of bugs, but I didn't encounter anymore through my playthrough. Still, buyer beware. There is some jank with movement.