I did not know what to expect with Metro Awakening. With a name as big as Metro and acting as a prequel to the very first game in the series based on the novel Metro 2023, Metro Awakening had a lot to live up to.
My biggest gripe with VR titles is that they tend to skew towards delivering an isolated experience, or at the very least, an arcade-focused game that doesn’t resemble narrative-heavy or AAA flatscreen titles. Of course, this style of game can be an issue, as it doesn’t lend itself very well to the story-rich experience the Metro games offer.
Thankfully, Metro Awakening is what VR games should strive towards, as the game delivers a fantastic and fully realized AAA Experience. Not only does the game live up to expectations, but Metro Awakening is another solid entry into the franchise as a whole, offering series vets and newcomers alike an atmospheric and gripping first-person survival game that fits neatly into the overarching world created by Dmitry Glukhovsky and 4A Games.
I guess it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise, then, at just how well Metro Awakening approximates the often tense and focused moment-to-moment gameplay of the series proper, as Vertigo Games is no stranger to VR. Even still, adapting a game like Metro is no easy feat. Yet, Metro Awakening offers players familiar with the series the same foreboding dread of feeling like a rat trapped in a subterranean labyrinth the series is known for.
“Metro Awakening is what VR games should strive towards, as the game delivers a fantastic and fully realized AAA Experience.”
In Metro Awakening, players assume the role of Serdar, a loving husband and local fallout doctor, on a quest to reunite with his wife after she leaves the safety of their makeshift underground dwellings. Through the roughly 8-hour campaign, players will experience the gradual but unquestionable shift in Serdar, going from a man of medicine and logic to something akin to a supernatural warrior, befitting of the Awakening moniker.
The gameplay in Metro Awakening will feel familiar to those who have played a Metro game in the past, meaning you’ll be spending your time scrounging around for limited resources, taking on mutated monsters, opposing tunnel dwellers, cultists, and even your own sanity as the world around you begins to crumble.
In terms of VR-exclusive features, Metro Awakening features a healthy dose of (perhaps too many) locked doors, trolleys and power-hungry headlamps that constantly require the player to grab their trusted portable crank, which the game often relies on for some light puzzle-solving and tension building sequences.
Like previous entries in the series, Metro Awakening also features the return of radiated or otherwise toxic environments that require the player to put on a mask while managing an ever-dwindling supply of fresh filters. Mixed in with the typical survival horror trappings of managing ammo and health recovery items.
On the topic of ammo, Metro Awakening handles gunplay and interacting with guns in VR rather well, as Vertigo Games have paid attention to the details, allowing the player to grab guns off of enemy corpses to either use right then and there or shuck for their valuable ammo cartridges, to use with Serdar’s own heavy and light weapon.
Serdar’s loadout consists of a pistol or side weapon and a heavy weapon, which, depending on your preferences, can be holstered to your liking. As a wheelchair user, I prefer to have my ammo and resources tied to my chest while grabbing the heavy weapon is tied to my right shoulder and pistol to my waist.
“Outside of firefights and encounters with mutant threats, Metro Awakening also features stealth sequences, either by design or when resources are running low, which add to the tension.”
Even with my limited mobility and arm strength, I found Metro Awakening intuitive and easy to play, with weapons behaving as you’d expect out of a VR title, such as being able to grip semi-automatic weapons with both hands, allowing for less recoil and better accuracy. Items that can be collected or otherwise grabbed also feature a healthy distance or capability, making it effortless to pick up even from a seated position (something I often have trouble with in other VR titles).
Outside of firefights and encounters with mutant threats, Metro Awakening also features stealth sequences, either by design or when resources are running low, which add to the tension. And thanks to smart AI that can detect the player’s headlamp or movement when crouching or obscured in darkness, the stealth sequences present in the game make for an enjoyable diversion from the action-heavy set pieces.
Graphically, Metro Awakening also looks quite good, outshining, in some instances, even the art direction of 2023, particularly in the faces and details of the environment, making it one of the best-looking VR games outside of Half-Life Alyx (at least, on PC).
Priced accordingly at roughly $40, Metro Awakening is an excellent entry into the Metro series and a must-play for VR owners looking for something beyond a shooting gallery or minigame compilation.
