4th playthrough, Novosibirsk still blows me away

[SpiralOut69]

This is easily my favorite game of all time up to this point. The entire series is fantastic, but that's all just foreplay until you get to this game and the final level "dead city". Everything prior to that point is just setting up for the masterpiece of the final crescendo.

The level captures the classic 'Metro' vibe wonderfully. The surface being nothing but desolate ruins covered in snow, with an environment more deadly than even the monsters. Navigating the pitch black tunnels riddled with mutants while you're entirely alone, desperately trying to manage your dwindling resources.

Entirely hopeless. Insurmountable odds. Managing to aimlessly crawl one step closer to your goal by what seems like sheer, blind luck. These are the themes that Metro tries to capture with its gameplay, and Dead City turns them all up to 11.

The radiation is even worse. The blizzard is relentless. in the Moscow Metro, plenty of tunnels were at least somewhat maintained. There were clear paths, lights, and safe zones just ahead. In Novosibirsk, humans had effectively gone extinct, and mutants had claimed the tunnels just as they had the surface. You didn't just run into a pack of mutants hunting for food, every other turn you were walking straight into their nest. Most tunnels had zero light sources, and the ones that did were from the radioactive mushrooms growing on the wall.

The other metro games and previous levels of Exodus at least gave you safe areas between engagements. A safe station past the mutant hive where you could rest and buy more supplies, a safe house where you could rest and clean your weapons. In Dead City, you have nothing. You're not just travelling from one station to the next, but navigating the entire city. If your gas mask cracked, that was it. There's no chance to repair or replace it. Any of the ammo you brought with you is all you have.

You don't have the luxury of running from the mutant horde and barely making it to the safety of a well defended area. The only peace you get is the kind you earn after killing the entire horde. But even then you still can't rest, as your filters are still ticking away, and you're accumulating more and more radiation. You cannot rest in a city where everything inside of it will kill you. Your mission is to reach the deepest pits of hell, and somehow claw your way back out.

What really ties it all together is the conclusion of the story between Miller and Artyom. After barely managing to get your hands on the medicine without dying in the process, it seems it wasn't quite enough. Until Miller rolls up in the vehicle to save you, just as he did in 2033 when you left the Library with the map to D6.

The entire series he has been emotionally closed off. Strictly focused on his duty. In Exodus, when Artyom has established a closer relationship not just as a random civilian from a backwater station or a subordinate, but now the husband to his daughter, he still maintained his classic military, mission focused attitude.

It's not until his final act of sacrificing himself that he finally lets his guard down and accepts Artyom as his son, using the last bit of life left in him to inch them closer to safety. Not just sacrificing his medicine so Artyom can survive, but exposing himself to lethal levels of radiation in order to get the map to Lake Baikal. The last bastion of safety that he will never get to experience himself.

I'm not one to typically feel emotional from movies or stories, but the final sequence of this level where you are driving the van gets to me every time. Even the 4th time through now, still overwhelming. The context of everything you just did to get to where you are, the music, and the realization that Miller is probably dead next to you, but that you MIGHT have still actually made it hits you all at once. It's everything coming together in a way that's only possible to pull off with everything from the very first game all leading up to that point.

It's an experience no other game or really any other form of media or art has come close to making me feel.

[redfblack]

Yeah I feel much the same way!

[totalwar360]

truest of the truest true

[HunterKiller]

It's over now. Should of added "Spoiler" to the title.

[Shai`tan]

I absolutely hated the last level. To play most of the game in wide open area enviros, and to be ultimately locked into a straight jacket end level? Naaaah . My hallcrawl days are over. ;p