Metro Awakening Review – A Spine-Chilling Train Ride Into Hell

The Metro series is back with yet another new mainline entry, though this time around, it’s fully built with VR in mind. While many would have preferred a new flat-screen experience, the thought of more VR titles based on a AAA series is precisely what many VR gamers have been dreaming of. To that, Vertigo Games, the developers behind the popular Arizona Sunshine franchise, decided to team up with 4A Games in order to bring their Metro franchise into the world of VR. The results? Perhaps one of the best and most terrifying VR experiences you’ll play all year.

Descent Into Madness

In Metro Awakening, you play as Serdar, a doctor living with part of a group of survivors in a now abandoned part of an underground metro. As a doctor, many of the locals rely on your medical expertise and skills, though for Serdar, his main priority belongs to that of his wife, Yana, who appears to be experiencing mental episodes that cause her to hear voices and see things not really there. One day, you return from one of your runs through the metro station only to learn that Yana isn’t acting like herself.

You soon learn that she has stopped taking her medication, and with no more being available, the local supply runner hasn’t returned from their run. Time is of the essence as Yana’s condition begins to worsen. Thus your journey into the metro begins, though little does Serdar know, it’ll be a journey diving deep into the hell of his mind.

Those following the Metro games probably recognize Serdar, as his appearance resembles Khan’s, one of the series’ reoccurring — yet most mysterious — characters. That’s because this is the very same character, and Metro Awakening is not only a prequel to the first game but also an origin story for Khan himself. It’s a game that finally brings answers to one of the biggest questions the series has ever had: Who is Khan? Of course, I won’t spoil that for you, as it’s best left for you to experience it for yourself. However, I will say that the tale that Metro Awakening wanted to tell did not leave me disappointed, outside of the never-ending fear of knowing it had to come to an end. Though that end came after nearly nine hours of gameplay and story, an impressive length for a VR experience considering most stick to the range of a few short hours. It’s a pretty lengthy game that you’ll likely take many breaks from as it can also be rather extensive physically, though that’s true for most VR titles.

I will say that Metro Awakening had me hooked on its world from the very first steps I took in VR, I found myself playing from a fully charged Quest 3 until its battery was depleted and needed another charging. It’s pretty rare for a VR game to make me want to do that, though Batman Arkham Shadows was another title that came out recently that also managed to immerse me in a way that could only be described as perfect…I feltthe same with Metro Awakening.

Vertigo Games does a fantastic job of immersing players and comforting them when necessary while also being gut-wrenching and downright terrifying at other times. In one moment, you are taking in everything around you, listening to the lively NPCs go and talk about their daily lives. Then, in the next, you are creeping through a tunnel, trying not to make any noise and listening for the presence of some creature lurking somewhere in the shadows. It can be heartwarming and homey, then suddenly a full-on survival horror that gave me quite the scares and chills. There were countless moments where I had to stop because I saw a shadowy figure scatter across the floor and disappear, holding my gun raised as if that was going to save me from the inevitable horror that was awaiting.

I love it. It’s done so well that I was completely absorbed in this world that Vertigo Games has managed to capture and deliver. It’s a world beautifully stitched by narration, visuals, and sound design done so well that it tells a story beyond the main one. Trekking down a cold, dark, and clammy metro tunnel and seeing all the remnants from an era before the nukes dropped adds a layer of creepiness to the world, which constantly feels alive and always watching you. But if you explore enough and take a moment of peace to pay attention to the small details littered in each chapter, you’ll find a collection of small stories being told, some of hope and some of utter despair.

With the visuals, the game looks and feels fantastic to play in. Despite taking place in a powered-down metro, Awakening has many bright, illuminating colors and isn’t afraid to experiment with them. Things can get pretty dark, as you’ll be exploring a lot of abandoned stations with ventilation shafts, basements, and such, and yet wildlife, such as radioactive mushrooms, adds an eerie look that contrasts so well with the environment. Lit fire does, too, and the lighting the flames emit can make a scene even more terrifying, exposing some of the horrors around an area.

The sound design, though, will constantly play tricks on you. As you wander through zones, you’ll suddenly hear random rattles, footsteps, and even voices from all different angles. It can get quite maddening, inducing a level of paranoia that’ll have you stop in your tracks to take a quick look behind to make sure nothing is following you. It is pretty fitting, too, as the story does focus on Serdar’s descent into madness and how he became known as Khan.

The only real disappointment regarding the story and general replayability is that there’s not much to go back to after you beat the game. It did take me 9 hours to beat, well above the expected amount I thought I’d get from a VR game. It’s very much a AAA experience from a well-known IP, built exclusively for VR, and it’s hard to complain or take for granted the lengthy campaign when so many other VR games have felt more like tech demos. That’s not the case for Metro Awakening, as it is the real deal. Again, there’s not much beyond the story to go back to other than the other difficulty levels. There are no alternative endings for those wondering. This is more of me just being disappointed by the fact that the VR experience had ended. Still, it was an experience well worth playing through, one I’d gladly revisit at some point for both the story and especially the gameplay.

Force Answers Force, War Breeds War, and Death Only Brings Death.

At its heart, Metro Awakening is a survival first-person shooter, much like the previous two Metro games. It’s not so much trying to move the needle of the franchise, especially since it does get rid of a few mechanics, like the hidden karma system that some may or may not have liked (I know I didn’t miss it). But being in VR, and anyone who has played VR, can probably tell you just how much of a game changer that already is on itself, as handling weapons and such isn’t just as simple as a button press, and your character does an action. With VR, you have full control over your character’s movement since you are essentially the character, and how you move, and such is what the character does.

That is, of course, the appeal of VR: being able to play these games in a whole new way that literally puts you in the shoes of the character.  The thing is, I’ve played plenty of first-person VR games, and there’s really only been a few that have played as incredible as Metro Awakening. Handling each weapon and getting used to their unique reloading inputs and such, while it did take a bit of time, just felt so natural compared to many games. Inventory, for example, and their positioning to where slots are located and track on your body just felt perfect. Many other VR shooters just can’t seem to get this right, as I often find myself fumbling around and clicking buttons, hoping it would pull up the item I wanted. In Metro Awakening, haptics can be felt, with Quest 3 keeping the controllers tracked to a near 1:1, where my hands were moving in real life and in the game. This made accessing inventory a breeze, with little effort needed. I could always keep my eyes on my surroundings rather than constantly looking down at my body to see where I was reaching.

Reloading weapons, removing magazines, and such was pretty easy, too, and I didn’t suffer from mis-tracking much, if any at all.

This made combat in Metro Awakening so much more fun and immersive. Now, sadly, there isn’t a whole lot to the game’s physics when it comes to doing cool stuff, but the combat was pretty fun and engaging.

Additionally, you’ll have access to other tools, such as a lighter, that can be used to burn spiderwebs later in the game. It’s a small mechanic and doesn’t get used much, but it does bring a fun little opportunity that will have you swatting at your hand and face. I’ll say it now: if you don’t like spiders, you may not like what happens when you encounter them.

There’s a flashlight that runs on a charge and can be powered up again via an electric crank that you have to crank yourself. It sounds tiring, and it can be, but trust me, you’ll find that it will become your best friend pretty quickly, given how dark the game can get.

There’s a gas mask that you eventually unlock that will help you breathe in radiated areas. It’s pretty neat putting it on, walking in these zones, and then suddenly, a countdown begins on your watch, letting you know how much air you have left in your filter. It’s like a race against time, and I put myself in a state where I knew I had to hurry up or risk dying.

These are sort of your everyday sort of gameplay mechanics you’d expect to see from a Metro game, but I will say, when they all have to come together and be used at the same time, and in VR, things can quickly get frantic, and your adrenaline starts pumping. There was one instance where I found myself in a locked room with radiations, and suddenly, a bunch of mutants began popping up in the near pitch dark. Rushing to put my mask on while holding my shotgun in the other, all while trying to balance my charge levels for my flashlight. I could feel my soul leave my body as my mask began to fog and sweat, wiping it away with my hand only to reveal a mutant mole jumping toward me. The Metro games haven’t scared me before, but playing Metro in VR was nightmare-inducing and left me in utter fear.

As I mentioned before, there were countless moments when I would just be walking through a level where I had to stop, pull out my gun, make sure it was loaded up, and then look around to see what was even following me, only to find there was nothing ever there. The game plays tricks on you, and it’s because of how panicked you can quickly become that it always makes you feel on edge.  Metro Awakening wanted to be a survival horror, and it certainly excels in doing that.

Now, perhaps the weakest and most disappointing part of the gameplay would have to be the stealth play and lack of melee weapons. The developers not including any sort of  melee weapons felt like such a missed opportunity, as you’ll find yourself up close and personal with many enemies and no real way to attack them other than to flail a punch or two and hope it hits them hard enough. That’s how you do stealth takedowns: you sneak behind a human enemy and punch them on the back of the head. It’s hard to discern distance in a VR game, and I found that for Metro Awakening, taking the stealth path and trying to knock out enemies is one of the more infuriating parts of the game. It’s not easy to knock an enemy out, and more often than not, it breaks the stealth sections, alerting all the enemies, which results in death since they all have guns. Thankfully, it’s not the kind of game where if you break stealth, you have to restart, so if you have enough ammo and can tough it out, you could technically shoot your way out of these sections. Personally, I would have preferred to deal with the grotesque mutants rather than a human AI.

One Last Light

Metro Awakening is easily one of the best VR experiences you can play right now, which shouldn’t come much as a surprise, considering Vertigo Games’ previous work on the Arizona Sunshine series. Still, it’s impressive that the veteran VR developers were able to take an existing IP from another studio and transition it so well into VR while maintaining the very essence of what made so many fans fall in love with the franchise. They’ve absolutely knocked it out with Metro Awakening, giving us a whole new perspective on the franchise. It’s downright terrifying to the point that it sent shivers, and yet something about the world is so well crafted that it just kept drawing me back in.

Score: 9.5/10

Pros:

• Easily up there with the best VR experiences. Feels like a true AAA game, built from the ground up for VR.
• Though I can’t speak for the Quest 3 and PSVR 2 versions, Metro Awakening on PC, running on Ultra, is stunning for a VR title and well-optimized. I felt completely immersed in the world due to how incredible the visuals look, not just in terms of “realism” but also general art direction and lighting.
• The game is genuinely scary despite the mutants not being too scary-looking. This, in part, is thanks to the excellent level designs that make you feel like you’re squeezing through a tight space at every corner. Nothing makes you jump more than knowing that something is probably waiting for you at the end of this beautiful, claustrophobic nightmare.
• The sound design is spectacular, as is the music. Really sets in the mood of a scene.
• Gameplay is fun and engaging, with several mechanics to assist you to make it feel “natural” in VR.
• Excellent voice acting that brings characters to life.

Cons:

• Stealth could have used a bit more work, as knocking out enemies with your fist can lead to breaking out of stealth, which can be frustrating.
• The lack of real melee weapons, not even a knife, is a missed opportunity to expand on combat and stealth play.

Metro Awakening review code was provided by the publisher for PC. You can read MP1st’s review and scoring policy right here.

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