I’ve played a handful of hours of Metro Exodus; here are my (super) early impressions.

Right off the bat, the game looks gorgeous. The introduction was easily my favorite part of the game so far.

Though I play FPSs more than any other genre, I managed to die twice in the tutorial. It was embarrassing, though it showed me a bit of what I was in for (I’m playing on normal). The first time I apparently failed a QTE (it looked like it was telling me to jam on a particular button when apparently it wanted me to hold said button), and the second time it was because I ran out of ammo in a sequence where it apparently wanted me to brute force a door open and leave the ever-spawning enemies behind.

Learning curves. I get it.

What I was unprepared for was the sheer amount of wordy cutscenes in the game. At one point (no spoilers) I was privy to what amounted to about ten minutes of cutscene and the content wasn’t particularly interesting. I had the time to think, more than once: wow; this cutscene is still going.

I’m not often bored, but the cutscenes in this game nudge me that direction.

There are a lot of systems in the game and I’m not entirely sure all of them are to a player’s enjoyment (or at least this player’s enjoyment). The guns are sort of a general idea rather than a precision weapon (at least so far) and are prone to jamming. It’s incredibly easy to die (I was two shot a couple times in one of the first sequences), so having unreliable weapons is frustrating. When switching between weapons, I often have to go through the reload animation, particularly for my pistol. The stealth has been unreliable at best, even when I am in the shadows and no one can actually “see” me (some lights are easily disabled and some are seemingly impervious to bullets). For a game considered an FPS/adventure game, it has yet to feel good at being either.

This is a personal pet peeve, but I’m never a fan of things hitting the screen in games (e.g.: snow, enemy barf). Being that you are often wearing a mask, I get that things will occasionally hit that mask. However. There is a function to wipe your mask; it barely makes a difference. So when I want to be seeing the world around me, I’m seeing the same water droplets and crap on my mask. I can’t even reliably wipe it off to see. I feel like this is a disservice to the environment.

The mask filter has to be changed frequently, and while it’s been a while since I played Metro: Last Light, I feel I would remember if the filters had to be changed this much.

It’s difficult to see items in the world around you (e.g.: books you can interact with) and often it’s not obvious they can be interacted with until the prompt comes up. Perhaps I’m just used to visual indication an item can be interacted with, and perhaps I will get used to it here, but, for the time being, it’s difficult at times to see things.

I am a huge fan of photo modes in games, and this one left me wondering. So far I’ve been unable to find a way to remove my arm and gun from the shot, and apparently I can not pan around at all. As far as photo modes go, this is sorely lacking. The environments are the best part of the game (for me); I’d love to be able to take screenshots where my gun isn’t the focal point.

Though probably obvious, I haven’t been enjoying the game as much as I’d hoped. I know I’m only a handful of hours in, but I’m hopeful things will turn around. I’m excited for the other climate sections.

And I can’t stress enough how much I liked the introduction; it was exceedingly well done.

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Have you been playing Metro Exodus? What have you thought so far?