Metro: Last Light 
Save
Snag the incredible Stalker and Metro games for cheap while you canAug 19, 2023 - PCGamesNThis Stalker Steam sale, alongside plenty of other Ukrainian-developed games, is the perfect way to get ready for the Stalker 2 release date and find some gems you may have missed. With a Stalker 2 presence at Gamescom and the potential for release any day now, you'll absolutely want to catch up. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: Get every Metro game for less than a train ticket Big Metro Exodus mod changes are coming, so pick it up cheap on Steam Humble Ukraine Bundle raises over $4 million with 6 days left Metro: Last Light, one of my favorite shooters ever, is free on SteamMay 18, 2023 - PC GamerTo celebrate the 10th anniversary of Metro: Last Light, the intensely atmospheric shooter about life above and below ground in badly-nuked Moscow, developer 4A Games is making it free for the week on Steam... Read more.Metro: Last Light Complete Edition is currently free to keep from SteamMay 18, 2023 - Rock, Paper, ShotgunFree is free and spooky shooter Metro: Last Light is currently free to keep from Steam. It has been made available by developers 4A Games in order to celebrate its 10th anniversary. The catch, sort of, is that this is the Complete Edition, a version that does not normally even show up in Steam search results. The slightly-improved Metro: Last Light Redux will still cost you a few quid or bucks. Read more Metro dev 4A Games bought by Deep Silver parent, mentions multiplayerAug 13, 2020 - EurogamerEmbracer Group's acquisition spree continues - it's now picked up Metro developer 4A Games for $80m. Embracer Group, the parent company of THQ Nordic, said it bought 4A Games, which is home to over 150 people across two studios in Malta and Ukraine, via subsidiary Saber Interactive (World War Z). Perhaps the acquisition shouldn't come as a surprise. 4A Games' Metro games are published by Deep Silver, which is owned by Embracer, so there's a long-running relationship. Embracer not only gets 4A Games, but the Metro IP and the developer's proprietary game engine, which will save costs for the company. Read more Metro author Dmitry Glukhovsky says he's working on the next game in the seriesAug 14, 2019 - PC GamerAuthor Dmitry Glukhovsky hinted in a 2016 AMA, shortly after the release of Metro 2035, that the Metro novels were over—although the Metro story itself might not be. "I think the main questions are answered in Metro 2035," he said in one reply. "And even if there won't be any other Metro BOOKS, this doesn't necessarily mean that Artyom's story can't continue in other media..." In a way, that's what happened with Metro: Last Light. It wasn't based on the Metro 2034 novel because 4A Games didn't think it would be a very good fit for a videogame, so Glukhovsky helped write the game and then used it as a partial basis for the Metro 2035 novel. Metro Exodus, the third part of the game series, followed the events of Last Light and also includes characters from 2035, meaning that, very generally, it hasn't been novelized yet. I don't think so, anyway—it's all gotten kind of complicated at this point. Anyway, the good news for gamers is that Glukhovsky appears to be following through on his AMA statement. "The Metro gaming series will be continued," he wrote today on Instagram. "Working on the story." He also shared this: Is it too soon to crank up the excitement machine? Just speaking for myself here, but I'm going to go with "no." I'm also very pleased to hear that he's still involved in the series. A planned Metro 2033 film adaptation was canceled last year because the producers wants to "Americanize" it, which Glukhovsky felt would corrupt the story he wanted to tell, and if he's willing to walk away from Hollywood money in order to maintain the essential Russian-ness of his vision, then he's the guy I want steering this ship. What the Epic Store is missing right nowJan 30, 2019 - PC GamerSteam became a home to PC gamers in part by absorbing all outside functionality. Why stuff your RAM with Fraps, GameSpy, TeamSpeak, GameFAQs, Metacritic, forums, or anything else? Leave your bags at home: it's all here. Stay a while. By contrast, Epic's new store is a bare boutique. It's uncomplicated by old additions, nostalgia, and 'community.' I bought Hades there just now. The payment form is simple. The transaction processed immediately. The checkbox for developer emails is opt-in instead of opt-out now, so that's fixed. The download was quick and I was out the door. The Epic Store is perfectly functional and easy-to-use, but given that Epic has made itself unavoidable, I want more from it (as I think most everyone does). Here's what I hope to see added to the Epic Store as soon as possible, what would be nice in the near future, and what I could take or leave: Must-have features Cloud saving: No modern game platform should be without the simple ability to store save files both locally and on a server. From what we've heard, this is coming soon. News feeds: Epic Store games have FAQs, and may change their pages to reflect updates, but there isn't a simple reverse-chron feed of announcements. Instead, I'm sent elsewhere via social media links to hunt for the latest info. I don't mind getting dev updates in my email or on Twitter, but if I'm already on the platform I use to launch a game, I shouldn't have to leave to find out what's new. Troubleshooting: Again, I don't want to have to join a Discord or find a developer's email address to ask a question about a bug or crash. If not built-in forums or something like them (which Epic director of publishing strategy Sergey Galyonkin suggests may be coming), I'd at least like to see a developer contact form, or a link to an offsite, troubleshooting-focused forum or subreddit. Partying up: The friends list in Epic's launcher can only be used to chat with a friend who's online. If you want to form a party in Fortnite, for instance, you have to do it in-game. I've gotten used to accepting a party request through Steam chat and auto-launching Rocket League, and not replicating one of Steam's most convenient platform-game integrations feels silly. It's plainly useful. Stuff that would be nice User reviews: Ironically, some users are review bombing the Metro series on Steam to protest Epic, both hurting Steam and legitimizing Epic's concerns about user reviews. Epic is right to approach this with caution, but I do find value in seeing a snapshot of player opinions on a game. We're told user reviews will be opt-in by developers, whenever they arrive. Account sharing: I've never used Steam's Family Sharing feature except to test it, but no one else in my household wants to play anything, so I'm not exactly the target audience for this. It certainly seems nice! Version roll-...Metro: Last Light remains a brilliantly bleak horror FPSJan 11, 2019 - PC GamerMetro’s 2033’s gas mask was what made the game more than just another post-apocalyptic FPS. By forcing you to wear this airtight faceplate, Metro maintained its sense of claustrophobia even when exploring a wide-open space. The tension of hearing your breath become laboured as the mask’s filter struggles to clean the toxins from the air. The cracks that appear as you’re battered about by the mutant wildlife. It’s more important to making Metro work as an experience than any of its guns. But the gas mask is crucial to Metro’s immersion in another way. It acknowledges that the player is separated from the game world by a screen, and by separating the main character Artyom from the world in the same way, it compounds that sense of immersion, drawing the player deeper into the game world. Metro: Last Light takes this idea one step further. As you explore the cracked and blasted landscape of irradiated Moscow, the mask will become gummed up with various substances, be it mud splashed up from a nearby puddle, or blood from an enemy you’ve just blasted with a shotgun. But with a quick tap of the G key, your character will wipe the faceplate clean with his left hand. It’s an entirely unnecessary flourish, and yet this tiny action adds so much to Metro’s sense of immersion. To have the player character reach up and touch that screen from the inside of the game, that’s a whole other level of ingenuity, not simply turning the fourth wall into a window, but having the audacity to then knock on it. This is why Metro: Last Light is my favourite variant of the post-apocalypse. It wraps you so tightly in its world building that at points your character is literally wearing it. It seems all the more impressive when you consider that, unlike Fallout, or Metro’s cousin Stalker, Last Light is staunchly linear. But linearity is what makes Metro’s fiction work, a style as much as it is a structure. Tight fit Metro turns claustrophobia into an aesthetic, constantly making the player feel squeezed and restricted as they traverse the labyrinthine tunnels of the Moscow subway system. The gas mask is one example of this, but there are others. The world is deliberately designed to feel cluttered, particularly in the settlements that the player passes through. The world is crammed with environmental details, as humanity tries to pull a city’s worth of resources underground. Even character attire is designed to appear bulky and cumbersome, making you feel even more pressed-in when passing through populated areas. As a sequel, Last Light makes small but important improvements over 2033. From a mechanical perspective, stealth actually works, enabling players to use silenced weapons and melee attacks to take out guards from the shadows. The confined nature of Metro’s levels still makes stealth difficult, as you need to be very precise in your movements. But it’s n...How realistic are the post-apocalyptic landscapes of video games?Nov 12, 2018 - EurogamerBarren wastelands. Decrepit and abandoned towns. Desolate landscapes ravaged by time and trauma. Recognisable landmarks slowly but surely reclaimed by nature after our demise. Games have consistently embraced the post-apocalyptic setting. It invites excitement, apprehension and a deep curiosity, and plays on the thought-provoking hypothetical, the 'what if?'. And when these post-apocalyptic environments and landscapes are incredibly detailed, they can result in great efficacy and power. Of course, all games use artistic license to a degree to ensure their pacing, setting and characters are primed for our experience and, as a result we give them a healthy amount of leeway when it comes to their landscapes. But just how much artistic license is an interesting area to investigate. Have the developers ruthlessly stuck to an accepted setting or set of circumstances? Or have they created their own unique setting from scratch? Or, have they landed somewhere in the middle? Overall, how 'accurate' is the representation of their chosen hypothetical landscape? Games' post-apocalypses give us a window into what might happen should everything go down the tubes for humanity, but also the earth. There are people who are experts or who have written about such scenarios, and one of them is writer Alan Weisman. Some fans of The Last of Us may know his book, The World Without Us, which helped inspire Naughty Dog and its portrayal of a post-apocalyptic, or human-less, USA. His book details how the world would change immediately after a sudden disappearance or decrease in human intervention. Read more… The PC Gamer Top 100Aug 31, 2018 - PC GamerFor a constantly updated list of our favorite games on PC, check out our list of the best PC games right now. Every year, the PC Gamer team embarks on an epic quest to choose the top 100 PC games. Where previously we voted for our favourite games, this year we talked: discussing each of our nominations and deciding which games should make the list. The result is a more honest, considered reflection of our conflicting tastes and opinions as PC gamers. This list represents what we think are the greatest PC games you can play today. We wanted to celebrate the breadth and variety of PC gaming, and so, for the most part, have restricted ourselves to one game per series. You'll also find a selection of personal picks: games we individually love that didn't quite make the cut. Enjoy! If you're looking for a list of the games that helped shape PC gaming as we know it, try the 50 most important PC games of all time. 100. Path of Exile RELEASED 2013 | LAST POSITION New entry Steven Messner: Path of Exile has quietly become one of the best action RPGs around thanks to its almost incomprehensible depth and wildly different seasonal leagues, where whole new systems are introduced. But the best part is its character customisation and spell crafting system. Path of Exile encourages players to make marauders who let spell totems do all the killing for them, witches who melt hordes with a fiery beam, or duelists that cover every inch of the map in a deadly rain of arrows. 99. Twisted Insurrection RELEASED 2010 | LAST POSITION New entry John Strike: Tiberian Sun's best mod brazenly shames the original Firestorm expansion in almost every way. It’s bigger and bolder, offering new buildings, a whole fleet of new units and even a new faction. There’s a completely new musical score and dozens of single player missions, some of which are based on the original Command & Conquer. Not only are new missions and units still being added, but, as a standalone free download, it's the most accessible way to play one of C&C's greats. 98. Killing Floor 2 RELEASED 2016 | LAST POSITION 81 Evan Lahti: There are disturbingly few places in video games where I can cut an evil clown in half with a quad-barrelled shotgun. Killing Floor 2 is the world’s greatest gore effects system laid atop an enjoyable skeleton. Hordes of monsters trickle into the map, magnetized to your position, and you mulch them with buzzsaw-spitters, incendiary shotguns, rocket launchers, or a microwave cannon that heats enemies from the inside until they burst. The dynamic slow-mo system adds so much, dampening the chaos just enough—granting extra moments to take aim or take in the sight of an intestine flying across the screen. Tripwire is a skilled digital gunsmith, and the detail lent to particle effects and reload animations holds up wonderfully even under the scrutiny of these plentiful, slowed-down sequences. I also love that KF2 doesn&#x...The Californian sent to save Stalker: Shadow of Chernobyl from development hellJul 31, 2018 - EurogamerIn a restaurant somewhere in sunny Los Angeles County, 13 years ago, two old friends were having lunch. Wine and conversation were flowing. They remembered how they'd met at LucasArts in the 90s. They weren't there to talk business but they did because video games were their bread and butter. One of the men, Jack Sorensen, was reeling-off job opportunities he knew of - he being executive vice president of worldwide studios at games publisher THQ. "THQ Australia?" he enquired. But the other man, Dean Sharpe, didn't seem interested. He had closed his own studio Big Ape Productions a couple of years earlier, dropped off the radar and taken a break, and now he was ready for something new. But Sharpe wanted a challenge. Sorensen dangled the bait. "It was somewhere during the second bottle of wine he mentioned he had this crazy thing in Ukraine," Dean Sharpe tells me over Skype now (he never did get fully back on the radar and he's a hard man to find). "Wow Ukraine," he thought to himself, "that sounds interesting." Sorensen outlined his problem: THQ had a team making a fascinating game in Ukraine called Stalker: Shadow of Chernobyl. The game was dark and massive, set around the twisted disaster zone of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. It was part shooter, part role-playing game, part eerie open-world sandbox adventure. But Stalker was overdue, long overdue, and Sorensen needed someone on the ground out there to finish it - someone in Ukraine to be THQ personified, day in day out, doing whatever it took to get the game done. Read more… PC gaming's most noteworthy nukesMay 21, 2018 - PC GamerNuclear weapons, other than being a terrible real world threat to our continued existence, are used in games a heck of a lot. Some games treat nuclear weapons as horrific, real and a part of their fiction, while others, mostly strategy games, use them more frivolously. In any case, ever since the end of the Cold War, they've been a fixture of PC gaming when it comes to themes and set pieces. Here, we explore the different ways PC games present nuclear strikes—from the horrifyingly real to, well, whatever Command & Conquer is. Fallout 3 Everyone who played Fallout 3 remembers Megaton, the town built around a nuclear bomb. As a player, you face the choice of deactivating it or blowing it up. I blew it up, mostly because I found Megaton to be a bit of a nightmare to navigate. And I wanted a nice apartment in Tenpenny Tower. And I wanted to see what it looked like when it went off. Is that so bad? Alright, yes it is, so much so that Liam Neeson dad expressed his disapproval later in the game. But it also gave me a moral arc for the rest of the story, as I relentlessly tried to earn good karma to balance out this one terrible deed. And the game, to its credit, makes you feel the weight of the decision you've made. —Samuel Roberts Civilization Nukes are a mainstay in Civilization, but it was Civ II's nukes that chilled me the most as a young man—mostly because I think that 10-12 is probably the age I worried the most about nuclear war. As an adult, with easy, cheap access to alcohol and many additional things to worry about like property ownership and that persistent pain in my side right now, it doesn't haunt me quite as much. While it's not captured in the video above, it was the air raid siren sound effect that made them particularly scary in Civ II, followed by the skull icons left on the map afterwards. Somehow, moving tanks into the target city afterwards didn't feel like much of a victory, which was probably the point. That said, Civ's atomic weapons gave us the (now slightly overplayed) 'nuclear-loving Gandhi' meme, so that's something I guess.—Samuel Roberts Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2 As nukes go, the first Red Alert's were actually a little underpowered, in that they'd murder all the infantry in its radius but do tiny damage to vehicles and buildings. You were mostly better off blowing that cash on some mammoth tanks or allied cruisers instead. Red Alert 2's were a little more harrowing and destructive—underlined by the bright lighting effect, followed by a radioactive green aftermath. And when paired with a Soviet nuclear reactor or five, as illustrated in the video above, the destruction gets out of control.—Samuel Roberts Mercenaries 2: World in Flames Pandemic's decade-old Mercenaries 2 (which is still available on Origin , minus multiplayer functionality) doesn't have much to recommend ...THQ Nordic buy up Saints Row and MetroFeb 14, 2018 - Rock, Paper, ShotgunTHQ Nordic, publishers of the Darksiders games and recent jankfest Elex, have bought Koch Media, the companies have announced. Koch are the father-company of Deep Silver, who publish games like Saints Row, Metro, Dead Island, and Homefront: The Revolution. That means THQ Nordic now own alllll of those bad boys, among others. Due to all the combined plates this company now spins, they could now make a game where the hero of Mighty No. 9 fights jazzy paint-monster De Blob in a doomed bid for supremacy on Mars, aka, Red Faction 3. Although, they probably shouldn t do that. (more…) Steam summer sale: our giant recommendations listJun 23, 2017 - Rock, Paper, ShotgunThe Steam summer sale is in full blaze. For a while it even blazed so hot that the servers went on fire and all the price stickers peeled off the games. Either that or the store just got swamped with cheapskates looking for the best bargains. Cheapskates like you! Well, don t worry. We ve rounded up some recommendations – both general tips and some newly added staff choices. Here are the things you should consider owning in your endless consumeristic lust for a happiness which always seems beyond reach. You’re welcome. … Steam summer sale: our giant recommendations listJun 22, 2017 - Rock, Paper, ShotgunThe Steam summer sale is in full blaze. For a while it even blazed so hot that the servers went on fire and all the price stickers peeled off the games. Either that or the store just got swamped with cheapskates looking for the best bargains. Cheapskates like you! Well, don t worry. We ve rounded up some recommendations – both general tips and some specific staff choices. Here are the things you should consider owning in your endless consumeristic lust for a happiness which always seems beyond reach. You’re welcome. … Get 75 percent off the Metro Redux Bundle todayJun 15, 2017 - PC GamerWere you excited by the announcement of Metro Exodus at E3 this week? It looks like a beautiful yet deadly not-so-open-world game, however it's not out until 2018. To tide you over until the release date, you could check out the two previous games in the series, Metro: 2033 and Metro: Last Light. You can grab them both in the Metro Redux Bundle at Bundle Stars today for 75 percent off. Based on the novels by Dmitry Glukhovsky, the Metro games are set in a post-apocalyptic world where survivors in Russia fled to the Moscow underground system. Outside there are mutants, and inside are rival factions of survivors getting a bit violent. It's a bit of a no-win situation, really. The price cut takes the bundle down to £6.24/$7.49, down from the usual price of £25 / $29.98, which it is on Steam right now. Individually the games run you £15 / $20 each, so you're looking at a great deal here. Back in 2014, we really liked the Redux versions of both Metro games. Some online stores give us a small cut if you buy something through one of our links. Read our affiliate policy for more info. Metro Exodus announced for 2018Jun 11, 2017 - Rock, Paper, ShotgunToot! Metro 2033 Publishers Say No New Game In 2017Nov 10, 2016 - Rock, Paper, ShotgunBook Em Up: New Metro Game Coming In 2017Nov 9, 2016 - Rock, Paper, ShotgunWe’ll be revisiting the subways of post-apocalyptic Moscow next year, it seems, according to a website for the book series first-person shooters Metro 2033 and Metro: Last Light are based on. With the English edition of Dmitry Glukhovsky’s trilogy-capping novel Metro 2035 coming in December, the site has added of a timeline of the series with a little note saying yup, another game will follow. … Going underground in Metro: Last Light ReduxOct 17, 2016 - PC GamerI hate underground levels. Tunnels, sewers, catacombs. They always feel like filler to me. A way for a developer to cheaply extend their game. But one of the most impressive things about Metro: Last Light is how it consists almost entirely of dingy subterranean passages, and yet is one of the prettiest, most atmospheric games on PC. On a technical level, developer 4A s engine is capable of some incredible lighting and particle effects. But more importantly, its artists are great world-builders. You see some impressive sights, like the shattered skyline of what was once Moscow. But often it s the smaller details that are the most evocative. In one of the many settlements protagonist Artyom visits, I saw a man making shadow puppets for a group of children. He shows them a dog, then a bird. But they don t know what they are, because they were born into a world where such things no longer exist. In fact, they think the bird is a demon. I also love how the people who live in the metro keep pictures of the pre-war world by their beds. Photographs of parks and lakes. Although if I lived down there, I wouldn t want a daily reminder of a world that s gone forever. These tiny glimmers in an otherwise completely hopeless setting are a great example of Metro s fantastic world-building. On a grander scale, the level Echoes sees Artyom exploring the remains of a crashed jet on the surface. Climbing into the fuselage and seeing rows of people still in their seats skeletons frozen in time is a haunting moment. It s not as subtle as some of the other apocalyptic imagery you see on your travels, but still effective. The surface is used sparingly, which makes every trip there feel almost like a treat. One of my favourite cities in the game is Venice, which is built in a flooded tunnel. This has created a series of waterways through the settlement, which the residents use as canals. When Artyom first passes through he sees a makeshift gondola float past with a couple on board being serenaded by a man playing an accordion. Slightly silly, but gives you the sense that people are making the best of a bad situation. I don t like the game as much as the setting, though. There are some great set-pieces, but also a lot of frustrating ones. 4A really loves making you wait for something to happen, like an impossibly slow ferry to arrive, as waves of bullet-sponge enemies rush you. And the less said about the boss battle in the dreary Undercity level the better. It s ultimately a pretty average FPS, but the desire to see more kept me playing. One of my favourite levels is Regina , in which Artyom takes an armoured railcar through a series of mutant-filled tunnels. It reminds me of Half-Life 2 s coastal highway section, giving you the ability to stop the car whenever you like and explore. I think I enjoyed this part because it felt so much freer. What I really want is a Fallout-style RPG set in those tunnels, with lots of talking and exploration. It s such a fascinating settin...Metro 2033 studio has another, non-VR game in the worksOct 13, 2016 - PC GamerWhen 4A Games announced Arktika.1 as a VR-only title last week, many feared that it signalled the studio's departure from a) the Metro series and b) traditional non-VR development. The good news is, at least where the latter is concerned, is that the studio is working on two titles. According to a new post on its website, 4A creative director Andriy Prokohrov addressed those who were disappointed by last week's announcement. "Arktika.1 is one of two projects in development right now," he wrote. "It s not holding the other project up with our new Malta studio we are a much bigger team, and it is better for us to have multiple projects, for our own independence and creativity. We re not ready to talk about the other project just yet, but we think you ll like it. So please be patient!" Who knows whether that unannounced project is actually a Metro game, but according to a possibly-no-longer-accurate 2014 interview, the studio was working on a more sandbox-oriented title. "For the game we are working on now, our designers have shifted to a more sand-box-style experience - less linear but still hugely story-driven," Chief Technical Officer Oles Shishkovstov said at the time. As for Arktika.1, the studio promises that it'll be a "full-blown AAA title" and that it's scheduled to release mid next year. For more on that, check out Andy's report from last week.
Show Comments
