Metro Awakening VR Review- A Worthy Addition to the Franchise

Metro Awakening VR Review

Metro Awakening VR is the latest installment in the Metro series. VR Veteran VR Game Developer Vertigo Games, with an assist from Deep Silver, has delivered a very VR ambitious new chapter in the franchise. Taking the rich yet dystopic Metro future and delivering it in VR is no small task. How does Vertigo fare with this challenge? For the most part, impressively.

Metro games are based on the 2005 book, Metro 2033 by Russian writer, Dmitry Glukhovsky. The previous games based on the book are a blend of cinematic storytelling with a mixture of FPS, stealth, and puzzle solving. The Metro universe is a grim one. Nuclear and bioweapon attacks have compelled survivors in Russia to live underground in subway systems beneath Moscow, known as the Metro. This is to avoid radiation and whatever mutations arise from it. Everything shows signs of wear and tear, patching, or being contaminated with radiation.

While Metro Awakening VR may be a bit more on the action side of encounters than its flat version cousins, it sure does contain the DNA of those games. Awakening contains combat, exploration, and stealth in only how VR can. I’ll delve into each of these aspects individually, but from a VR perspective, they surpass what flat games cannot achieve.

Everything starts with the presentation. The game looks gorgeous. Given the often murky lighting, the environments are detailed and set a moody tone. Shadows and lighting work together to enforce the feeling you are in a dystopian future. The stone walls of the subway systems vanish into the distance or darkness. The survivors re-purpose debris from the original attack to create walkways made of wooden planks and sheets. Some tubes display a greenish glow from radioactive mushrooms.

Mura. Why did it have to be Mura?

However, there is one big caveat with the PSVR 2 presentation of the game. Mura. Mura creates the impression of a thin filter placed over the lens. It’s an inherent characteristic of the OLED screens of the PSVR 2. It is most prevalent in scenes with one color, such as skies or dimly lit scenes with a limited color palette.

Unfortunately, the environments in Metro Awakening are rife with sections that bring out the worst in the PSVR 2 display. I’ve never seen Mura so pronounced in a game as this one. The best remedy to combat this is to turn on your flashlight. However, this is not always an option, especially with the stealth sections. There are some sections where the mura is so strong, it’s hard to know what you are looking at. I’m hoping the game devs can add some type of color tone to environments and/or lighting that will minimize this intrusive visual blemish.

Another strong suit of the visuals is the character models. The main characters are detailed and crafted with individuality. They move and emote naturally. Plus, the lip-synching is spot on. This craftsmanship also extends to the creatures. The Lurkers look like giant rats with green eyes, move with feline speed, and attack with a ferociousness that unnerves you. And then there are the spiders. Mutated or otherwise.

The price for such detail is that the game runs at 60FPS but gets reprojected to 120FPS. So when objects move laterally across the screen, some doubling or blurring of edges is noticeable. While a native 90FPS with no reprojection – or better yet, native 120FPS! – is always the preferred option, but the level of detail here makes it impossible. How reprojection affects you is personal. It bothers some more than others.

Underground Acoustics and Combat

With such closed-in environments, sound plays an especially big part. The dripping of water, the skittering and snarling of the lurkers, conversations all reverberate all around you. Because of the closed nature of the world, sound is a tricky cue. You may feel that it is coming from a certain direction when it really isn’t. The audio misdirection works really with the spiders. Most unsettling.

Turning to combat, this is where the game differs the most from the others. Combat in VR feels more arcade-like because of the tracking in six degrees of movement that exists in VR. This makes it difficult to be as precise as when only worrying about three dimensions in normal games. The strength of VR is the immersion and the capacity to mimic real-world hand movements. This allows for manual reloading actions which really increase not only involvement but also the sense of dread and tension. Nothing beats trying to reload when the threat of being attacked or swarmed is literally in your face.

Metro Awakening comes with the standard array of weapons. Along the way, you’ll pick up a pistol, a machine gun, grenades, and a crossbow, to name a few of them. However, don’t expect to go all Rambo into situations or you’ll quickly die. You have to be conservative with your firepower, as ammo is not easily available.

Stealth works well in this game, too. If an enemy spots you, they won’t forget. Once someone spots you, you either have to engage in combat or die. Staying in the shadows works best as you either figure a way past an enemy or sneak up behind and do a silent takeout. The enemy AI in the stealth sections, and combat, are tough, but fair. They will coordinate attacks and try to flank you.

The Good Ol’ VR Backpack

Another staple of Metro games is the backpack. Metro apes the VR interactivity of other VR games like Saints & Sinners. You store your gas mask, lighter, grenades, gas mask filters, and first aid kits in the backpack. You pull the backpack from your left shoulder with your left hand. If you pull the backpack from your right shoulder with your left hand, you have access to the weapons backpack. You pull weapons, clips, and health from your waist.

One tool you will use a lot is the hand crank generator. This is how you charge your head-mounted flashlight or plug it into power junctions to open doors. Doors are of three types. Those with a handle, those sealed with a wheel, and those needing power to open. Beyond doors, not all objects in the game are interactive. This is pretty constant across all VR games and flat games as well. It just is more immersion-breaking in VR.

The powered doors dovetail with the exploration mechanics as the power junction is not always beside the door. This means you will have to backtrack or just plain explore. Also part of the exploration is, of course, ducts. Despite feeling like a cattle chute at times, the level design is well executed. While you have to backtrack it never feels like filler but a logical extension of either the story or some new information or items you find.

Another well-implemented feature is the gas mask. Putting it on adds to the claustrophobia you already feel wearing a VR headset. Your breathing takes on a Darth Vader wheeze and condensation forms on the inside of the mask. You have to monitor your time because each gas mask filter is only usable for a short period.

VR & Story Immersion

So there are a lot of VR mechanics in play here to mimic actions found in the flat games. Happily, they work with little instances of jank. The game also lets you tailor the VR experience to fit your comfort levels. A nice touch is the game always checks whether you prefer to play standing or sitting. This should be standard on all VR games instead of burying the choice in a submenu.

Last, but certainly not least, is the story. Metro Awakening VR is based on an original story from the series creator himself. Dmitry Glukhovsky has crafted a story that ties into the previously established world and is layered in supernatural tones. You play the game as Serdar, a doctor whose wife is having difficulties dealing with the death of your son.

What starts as a quest to find medicine for your wife morphs into a harrowing odyssey that will test your sanity. The world of the Moscow Metro lends itself to tales of ghosts and spirits. Mostly nonsense, yet at the core of some these whispered tales are shreds of truth. During this journey, you will change and become the person known as Khan from Metro 2033.

Many of the characters, including Serdar, have a voice actor. The voice acting is top-notch, for the most part, and really sells the emotional beats. The story and the characters are solid and will keep you engrossed throughout the length of the game.

Applauding Ambition

Metro Awakening VR is an ambitious effort. Aside from the mura issue, which is PSVR 2 specific, the only other blemish is a restart bug. Whenever I died and the game restarted, it would often crash. Hopefully, this is a bug that can be quickly fixed with a patch.

Aside from the PSVR 2 mura issue, this is a top-notch game that should not only appeal to VR Gamers but fans of the Metro series. The game has 12 chapters and each chapter should take you about an hour to play. That is if the mutants and spiders don’t creep you out and force you to rip off your headset.

***A PSVR 2 key was provided by the publisher***