Metro 2039 Hands-On Preview — Full Breakdown & Transcript

[00:00] What's up everybody IGN's Nick Lamone here. I am here at Gamescom on the show floor and I just got

[00:14] out of the Metro 2039 hands-on demo. Here's the setup for the demo. You are the Spartan aka the stranger and you are leaving the safety of the Metro shelter and headed out onto the streets

[00:27] and your goal is to take out a military base that's being barricaded and taken over by a bunch of thugs known as raiders. As soon as you are able to control this new character known as the stranger,

[00:39] you're able to kind of witness how just dire the circumstances are of the people in the shelter. And apart from the high fidelity, like one thing that stands out about Metro just in general is how it's kind of pushing the hardware forward

[00:51] in terms of just how demanding and cool everything looks. Now, one thing I want to be upfront about is my time with the demo. This was a timed demo. However, when you actually play the full game, you can spend however much time you want.

[01:04] In fact, you can actually check out Ryan McCaffrey's preview impressions of the same build. He just got to play the game for a whole lot longer than I did I played maybe a little more aggressive than I normally would which is fine because I think the game does a great job of facilitating different play styles If you want to run and gun the game supports that play style However you probably going to need a scrounge

[01:24] for resources a lot more than the more meticulous player probably would. One thing I want to touch on is there is so much to do and so much to see when you are outside the shelter. And one of the things that really stands out about my time with Metro 2039 is how atmospheric, how scary it is,

[01:41] how brutal a lot of it is. And again, there is a level of stress that I think the game does a good job of managing this tension of anxiety, of supplies, the stress of external factors, whether it be radiation, monsters, or humans. Now, as I was exploring some of these ruins, another thing

[01:57] stood out to me was a lot of the environmental storytelling. You can tell this is a place that people used to live in and also when people didn't live there anymore a bunch of other raiders and a bunch of other whether they be spartans or just normal people trying to get by leaving these sort

[02:14] of side stories this time the developers are calling these environmental stories frozen stories you are kind of witnessing the last moments of these people who are struggling to survive and really taking in the last few seconds for your benefit if you want you can just collect their I know the time is ticking down on your gas mask filter but I highly encourage you to take your time

[02:36] and read those notes because you're gonna get a lot of really cool storytelling, a lot of good world building, and more importantly, possibility of a treasure cache of some sort. Now, in my time during the demo, the game actually shows you that you can use a UV light

[02:50] to kind of track different elements of UV paint that people have kind of scattered throughout In the instance that I had in the demo, I was able to track different like handprints that led to a code for a locked gate.

[03:03] I was able to enter a room, find a cache of supplies that included filters, and of course, more importantly, ammo and health. Now, I do wanna emphasize, this was a demo, so a lot of the major story beats were likely missing from the build that I played,

[03:17] but I'm sure there's gonna be plenty of interesting story to uncover, especially since we are playing as a brand new protagonist that we've never seen before in the Metro series. Who is the stranger? What's his deal? Hopefully we get to find out.

[03:30] Now, of course, as I entered my military base, I did it the way I normally would. I kind of, you notice at the beginning, you see a lot of sort of like laser sites that are marking the area. And of course you don wanna wind up in those laser sites otherwise you will wind up dead and in the ground So I kind of did my little exploration and found a side entrance into the military base

[03:51] that, of course, went horribly awry because I missed a very vital shot with my throwing knife. However, I did redeem myself. I was able to kind of recover, lick my wounds a little bit, pick up some ammo from some fallen enemies that I took out,

[04:05] and make my descent further into the raider base. And there I was actually able to kind of recoup, double back and follow up on kind of that stealth style that I was going for when I first entered the military base.

[04:18] One of the guards said, hey, did you hear gunshots up there? And before an answer could come out, I threw a throwing knife in his back to make sure I stayed safe. And of course, the timer ticked down on my demo. And that's where, of course, I had to go guns out. I needed to see everything that was at my disposal, especially in the last few moments of my time with the demo, where, of course, I met my untimely death.

[04:38] I can't wait to head back into Metro 2039 when the game releases in February of 2027. Wishlist now on Xbox Series X and S, PlayStation 5, and PC. And make sure you check out IGN's full preview of Metro 2039,

[04:52] available on IGN.com and YouTube right now. And for more on all things Metro 2039, stay tuned to IGN.