4A Games and Deep Silver have shown the first gameplay trailer for Metro 2039 and named a date: February 2027. The game is coming to PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S.
Artyom is gone
The biggest change for the series: the game has a new protagonist, and he speaks. He is called the Stranger, and his internal monologue is used as a storytelling device. Artyom, silent through three games, is left behind.
It is set in 2039, a quarter of a century after the nuclear war. A new regime has taken hold in the Moscow metro: power has been seized by a fanatical Spartan named Hunter, and his Novoreich state runs on propaganda, fear and a war against an enemy it invented itself.
Combat has been rebuilt
4A Games promises the combat is noticeably different from the earlier games. The emphasis is on tactical freedom and working with the environment: not a rehearsed exchange of gunfire, but a choice of how to approach the situation.
Technical details are thin so far, but this studio has form here. It was 4A Games that shipped the first big game to refuse to launch without ray tracing units, and rewrote the entire lighting calculation in its engine around rays.
When we will see more
The next showing is this week: Metro 2039 is on the Gamescom programme, and Opening Night Live runs on 25 August. More detail on the other big announcements is expected at the same event.
