Metro: Exodus a survival game with heart

There’s dozens and dozens of hours of play to be had here and a compelling story. If you don’t mind occasionally swearing at strange killer spiders who randomly crawl on you in the dark, Metro: Exodus is well worth your attention, writes Alice Clarke.

Metro: Exodus is a survival game with heart.

In 2035 there was a nuclear war that left the world devastated. The only people who survived were in the Metro tunnels under Moscow — or so the Metro people thought.

But, Artyom has been sure that there are others out there, so he risks his life most days to try to find them. When he finally does discover that there are people beyond the Metro walls, he’s thrilled — until they try to murder him.

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One of the pitfalls of Exodus is your characters lack of language.

Exodus is the story of The Order stealing a train and going on a delightful cross-country journey to see what else is out there, meeting some friends (but mostly foes) along the way.

The world is set over a few open-ish worlds full of stuff to find and people to stealthily kill, but because this is survival not-quite-horror, you need to conserve your breathing filters, ammo and health.

There’s dozens and dozens of hours of play to be had here, and a compelling story.

But, the spiders. Sometimes giant mutant spiders will just randomly crawl on you in the dark, and you just have to accept that. Sometimes the even bigger mutant spiders will try to straight up murder you in the dark (they’re afraid of the light), and that’s a lot to deal with.

It really heightened the tension, which was both great, and decidedly not great.

What makes the game, though, are the characters.

Exodus is well worth your attention, says Alice Clarke.

This group of people who genuinely care about each other. You’re willing to brave those darn spiders just so you can find out what happens to them and keep them safe.

What breaks that immersion, though is that your character, Artyom, never speaks.

Other characters have full conversations with you, while you presumably stare blankly at them. You don’t even move your hands in a way to suggest sign-language.

They may as well be saying “What’s that Lassie? The mutants have fallen down the well?”

But, aside from that unfortunate misstep, it’s easy to feel involved and caught up in whatever scenario is happening thanks to the excellent gameplay.

Bottom line: If you don’t mind occasionally swearing at spiders, Exodus is well worth your attention.