Metro Exodus Review: 6 Ups & 4 Downs

Downs

4. The Opening Hour Is Terrible

Metro Exodus
4A Games

Metro: Exodus makes an abysmal first impression.

There’s a lot of hoops the game has to jump through in the first hour or two to get these characters out of the metro stations and into the wild. From a story perspective - even if you’ve played the other games - you can feel completely lost, as the sequel tries to get you up to speed after an admittedly stellar opening cutscene.

From here, you’re funnelled from one linear set-piece to the next, as control is completely wrangled away from you and you’re forced into rote combat encounters. It doesn’t help that the game does a pretty poor job of explaining how it works, either, with mechanics having to be felt out for yourself if you miss the quick prompts that introduce them all.

It doesn’t reflect the experience at all, and it might put players off until they get to the game’s proper opening in the first open-world area.

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Josh has over 11 years of experience as a published writer, having worked nine of those years as a full-time content producer at WhatCulture. In that period he has created hundreds of articles, videos and podcast episodes for multiple WhatCulture channels, specialising in gaming, horror and film & TV. He now primarily works as a senior content producer and presenter on WhatCulture Gaming where he co-hosts the WhatCulture Gaming Podcast, a top 3 UK most listened to gaming podcast that he co-created in 2018. Over the years he has reviewed several high-profile gaming releases, covered industry events with on-site reporting, opined on breaking news, and even kicked off his interviewing career by chatting to childhood hero, Tommy Wiseau.