Metro Awakening, the fourth video game in the popular Ukrainian-born post-apocalyptic survival franchise set in Russia’s underground subway, was released on Nov. 7 by the virtual reality (VR) company Vertigo Games.
Players begin the first-person shooter game as a doctor in search of his wife after a nuclear apocalypse in the near future.
In what may be one of the few remaining public collaborations between Ukrainians and Russians in the creative industries, exiled Russian writer Dmitry Glukhovsky, whose novels formed the basis of the franchise, contributed to scripting this standalone prequel.
The first three games in the series — Metro 2033, Metro: Last Light, and Metro: Exodus — were developed by Ukrainian company 4A Games. 4A Games and Netherlands-based Vertigo Games share a parent company, Embracer Group. While Metro Awakening was developed by Vertigo Games, 4A Games provided resources from previous games to aid development, according to Metro Awakening’s creative director.
A subsidiary of Embracer Group said in February that 4A Games is working on a non-VR game in the franchise, though there is no scheduled release date.
Before the full-scale invasion, 4A Games had already moved many of its operations to Malta following Russia’s invasion of Crimea but has maintained a significant presence in Kyiv. Some of its employees have lost homes in Russian attacks, while others now serve in the Armed Forces, the company wrote on its website last year.
“We’ve never hidden the fact that the Metro series has always carried a strong political and anti-war message,” the company wrote.
“And the war in Ukraine has made us re-think what kind of story the next Metro should be about. All the themes of Metro – conflict, power, politics, tyranny, repression – are now part of our daily-life experiences.”
Glukhovsky, a famous Russian author, is living in exile after Russia sentenced him to 8 years in prison last year. Glukhovsky was found guilty of posting online that Russian servicemen were committing crimes in Ukraine, which prosecutors said was false information.
Russia outlawed spreading what it calls fake information about the war after it began its full-scale invasion and has used this law to crack down on dissidents and journalists.
Shortly after the invasion, Glukhovsky condemned the war from outside Russia, writing that the war “unleashed by (Russian President Vladimir) Putin is becoming more terrible and inhuman every day, and the pretexts under which it was started look more and more insignificant and false.”
He has continued to speak out against the war, calling it a “monstrous unjust war by a tyrant who just wanted to preserve power and make history” on Instagram last year.
“I still demand from the Russian authorities to immediately stop this senseless and futile anti-national war and to withdraw troops from the territory of Ukraine,” Glukhovsky wrote.
Ahead of Metro Awakening’s release, Glukhovsky told the video game outlet Polygon, “The Metro books and the video games, they all have this anti-war, pacifist, anti-dictatorship political message.”
“From Metro 2033 to Metro: Last Light and Exodus, it's all about xenophobia. It's about manipulation from the state, from the government. It's about how governments push us into global conflicts,” Glukhovsky said.
The games and his books include themes of loss and suffering in the aftermath of a nuclear conflict.
Prior to the full-scale invasion, Ukraine was home to hundreds of video game companies and an estimated tens of thousands of Ukrainian video game developers. Though the war has disrupted the young and booming industry, many companies have continued their operations, including the globally successful GSC Game World, whose S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 is set to release Nov. 20.
According to Metacritic.com, the game has received mostly positive reviews from critics.
Metro Awakening is available on PlayStation VR2, Meta Quest 2 and 3, and Steam VR.
VR games are not yet as popular as console and PC games due to their high cost and relatively low user base. An October 2024 survey from Steam, a popular video game platform, showed that about 2% of their users had VR headsets.
Nate Ostiller
