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UK takes Metro Redux to the top of the charts
Metro Redux - we can't believe they didn't go with Metro Revival - is the new UK No. 1 this week, overthrowing Diablo 3: Reaper of Souls - Ultimate Evil Edition after one week of glory. Meanwhile, Madden NFL 15 debuts 6th, which isn't bad given which version of football it is. The PS4, Xbox One and PC bundle of Metro 2033 and Metro: Last Light is Deep Silver's first No. 1 of the year, but it's far from the first remaster to lead the way in 2014. Upgraded and enhanced versions of Tomb Raider, Diablo 3 and The Last of Us had already scored five chart-topping weeks between them before Metro Redux came along, and we could see a few other remasters at the top before the year's close. In honor of the remasters, we're going to re-release our idea of music videos below the break for these posts. This week and with Metro in mind, we'll keep it Russian with 2000s duo t.A.T.u, who infamously caused great controversy with their awful capitalization.
Joystiq Streams: Back underground with Metro Redux's survival horror [UPDATE: Relive the stream!]
Been above ground so long I hardly knew the place/Gee it's good to be back home/Leave it till tomorrow to unpack my gas mask/Honey disconnect the phone/I'm back in the U.S.S.R metro/You don't know how lucky you are boy/Back in the U.S.S.R. metro There is nothing quite so unsettling as the Xbox controller left bumper button when you're playing Metro Redux. Sneaking over irradiated pools of stagnant water in 2033 Moscow, the left bumper is what you press to wipe grime off your gas mask. One careful wipe might help you see a fallen scavenger ripe with spare ammunition. Another might have your vision obscured just long enough for a giant, mutated pig bear to run up and eat you. Joystiq Streams is diving into Metro Redux, the newly revamped collection of Metro 2033 and Metro: Last Light from 4A Games, at 4PM EST on Joystiq.com/Twitch. Joystiq Streams broadcasts every Tuesday and Thursday at 4PM EST on Joystiq.com/Twitch, but we regularly stream at unusual times so be sure to follow us on Twitch to know when we go live! [Images: 4A Games]
Metro Redux 'pushes three times as much, twice as fast'
This lengthy trailer for Metro Redux examines the improvements made to 4A Games' post-apocalyptic first-person shooters Metro 2033 and Metro Last Light in their transition to next-gen platforms. The remastered games will launch August 26 for PC, PS4 and Xbox One.
Metro Redux makes a return trip underground in August
Metro Redux brings remastered, post-apocalyptic Moscow to North America on August 26, and Europe on August 29. Described as a "true director's cut" of Metro 2033 and its sequel Metro: Last Light, the 2-in-1 package will be available on PS4, Xbox One and PC. The boxed compilation is priced $50, and both games will be available individually to download at $25 a pop. Linux and SteamOS versions are due to release later this year. Amongst all the gameplay tweaks and additions, Metro Redux is headlined by a reworking of Metro 2033 in the 4A Engine iteration used for Last Light. Dev 4A Games has given Last Light a visual touch-up too, while all the game's Season Pass content is included in Redux. To go deeper into the changes and 4A's approach to Redux, point your flashlights here. [Image: Deep Silver]
Metro Redux screens depict an alluringly decrepit Moscow
The "true director's cut" known as Metro Redux may tread familiar ground, but thanks to the enhanced polish and technology backing the re-release, Moscow's bombed-out, post-apocalyptic ruins appear as simultaneously foreboding and inviting as they've ever been. [Image: Deep Silver]
Metro 2033 studio opens Malta HQ amidst Ukraine upheaval
4A Games, the development house behind Metro 2033 and Metro: Last Light, is opening a new studio in Malta. While the team's home in Ukraine's capital Kiev will remain open, the new Malta studio will act as the team's headquarters going forward, headed up by Andrew Prokhorov, 4A co-founder and creative director, as well as Oles Shishkovstov, 4A's chief technical officer. "By basing our new headquarters in Malta, a member state of the EU, 4A Games will be able to better compete on the international stage," said Dean Sharpe, 4A Games' newly appointed CEO, in a statement on the studio's website. "Malta offers fantastic incentives for game development, and we are confident 4A Games will be able to attract the very best talent from Ukraine, Malta and beyond." 4A Games has a tumultuous history. Since opening in 2005, the team has struggled with meager resources and poor facilities in Kiev, but it won notoriety with its debut in 2010, the narratively rich PC and Xbox 360-exclusive Metro 2033. Follow up Metro: Last Light, meanwhile, was in danger of not seeing release due to publisher THQ dissolving in 2013. Despite those hurdles, Deep Silver published Last Light and was met with strong sales and positive reviews.
Metro Redux confirmed, more details before E3
Metro Redux for next-gen consoles has been confirmed by publisher Deep Silver, following a leak this morning on an Italian forum reported by AllGamesBeta, but the publisher did make a few addendums to the admission. "What you saw leaked was taken from an old, internal planning presentation, containing some nuggets of truth but a lot of hypothetical ideas and place holder material," publisher Deep Silver said in a statement. "And we think the reality is a lot more exciting than the out-dated material that got leaked shows, and we're itching to share it with you. Just not yet." Deep Silver plans to share details about the 4A Games developed title "this side of E3." [Image: AllGamesBeta]
Metro: Last Light 'Chronicles Pack' available now
Attention passengers: We are arriving at "Chronicles Pack," the last stop on the Metro: Last Light downloadable content line. The fourth and final piece of DLC includes three solo missions filling in side stories that run parallel to the game's main tale. The pack also includes the "multi barrelled bicycle shotgun," a fan-created weapon that 4A Games was impressed by enough to toss in the game. The Chronicles Pack is priced at the reasonable round-trip ticket price of $4.99. It's also part of the Metro season pass, which now includes all four pieces of DLC immediately available for $15.
Metro: Last Light gets 'Developer Pack' DLC next week
Metro: Last Light's third piece of DLC, the Developer Pack, will arrive next week. The pack includes one new solo mission called "The Spider's Nest," which challenges players to escape from a "spider infested catacomb" while carrying a flamethrower. It also features a shooting range for players to test out gun and attachment combinations, a "Metro Museum" gallery and AI arena to play with custom human and mutant squads. The Developer Pack will be free for Season Pass holders, or $3.99, £3.19 and €3.99 on its own. It will launch on Steam, Xbox 360 and PS3 on September 17, while European PS3 owners will have to wait one more day for it to arrive on September 18.
Metro: Last Light emerges on Mac today
The Steam version of Metro: Last Light has been updated for Macs today. The game supports Steamplay, so if you've purchased the Windows version already you can access the Mac version for free. The Mac port of Metro: Last Light will make its way to the App store soon, publisher Deep Silver says. All DLC and the Season Pass will be available to Mac users, while a Linux port is due sometime later this year. Metro: Last Light is set a year after the events of 4A Games' Metro 2033, based on the novel of the same name. Metro: Last Light follows humanity's struggle to survive while inhabiting the underground subway systems of Russia following an apocalyptic nuclear war. It's a game our review said "truly excels at pacing and direction, even while it dabbles with verbose characters and an ambiguous supernatural element."
Metro: Last Light is $20 on Steam this week
Metro: Last Light is 60 percent off on Steam until 4PM PT on Thursday – that means it's marked down to $20. Last Light is the sequel to Metro 2033, which also happens to be on sale this week for $3.75. The sale arrives just in time for Metro: Last Light's Tower Pack DLC, which launches this week. The add-on content is free for Season Pass holders and can be purchased separately for $5.
Metro: Last Light 'Tower Pack' DLC launches next week
4A Games is gearing up to launch the second batch of downloadable content for its subterranean first-person shooter, Metro: Last Light, next week. Metro's Tower Pack offers a series of single-player challenge levels that advance in difficulty as players scale a fortified guard tower in virtual reality. Each stage is packed with hordes of mutants and other enemies, and players will be ranked on a level-by-level basis in the mode's global leaderboards. Last Light's latest round of DLC will debut via Steam, Xbox Live, and the PlayStation Network on September 3 in North America. The Tower Pack is available as part of Metro: Last Light's Season Pass content, and is priced separately at $4.99.
Metro: Last Light takes a ride to Mac, Linux
4A Games is developing Metro: Last Light for Mac, which will be released on September 10 on the App Store and Steam. A Linux version is scheduled for launch later this year. Steam owners who own the PC version will automatically gain access to the oppressive shooter on other platforms upon launch. Metro: Last Light's downloadable content and season pass is also scheduled for the added platforms. "Development was handled in-house by 4A games, and we are very happy with the results. We hope that Mac and Linux gamers will appreciate our efforts to create the best possible version for their machines," said Oles Shishkovstov, Chief Technical Officer at 4A Games. Deep Silver CEO Dr. Klemens Kundratitz told us during Gamescom that the publisher will continue to support the series, which has struggled to find a mass audience, since one of its key elements is "suffocating despair."
Metro 'a positive experience' for Deep Silver, will 'absolutely continue'
If you're a fan of the "suffocating despair" found in the Metro series, the good news is you'll be able to buy a ticket back to that world in the future. Today at Gamescom, Deep Silver CEO Dr. Klemens Kundratitz told Joystiq the company is sticking with the series beyond Metro: Last Light, which it picked up nearly complete for $5.9 million during the THQ asset auction. "It's been a positive experience," he said. "I'm very glad we acquired that brand. While it launched in a very dry space in the gaming calendar this year, it still got a lot of attention. Our ambition is to absolutely continue with that brand and we will also, in the next phase, look to making it more accessible for a broader gamer audience." Asked whether broadening the imposing, claustrophobic experience would diminish what fans love or create problems with the license holder, Kundratitz clarified. "It is true with a license you have to be aligned with the license holder. In this case it's [Metro 2033 author] Dmitry Glukhovsky who holds the license and he's a great guy. He enjoys the game, the success of the game and we have a good relationship." Kundratitz continued, "He is a great contributor. Also, going forward, as he has been very positive contributing to the last game – I think he can play an active role for whatever comes in the future." Kundratitz politely emphasized Deep Silver isn't announcing a Metro sequel, but he says the brand is part of the future of Deep Silver, and the company has plans to work with Metro developer 4A Games.
PSA: Metro Last Light Faction DLC now available
4A Games has kicked off its Metro: Last Light DLC series with this week's release of the Faction Pack on PC, Xbox Live, and the PlayStation Network. The pack is available for $4.99, and arrives as the first of four add-ons bundled in Last Light's Season Pass. The Faction Pack adds three new single-player missions, each of which casts the player in a different role from the warring Red Line, Reich and Polis Rangers divisions. 4A will continue to release Season Pass content throughout the year with the upcoming launches of Last Light's Tower Pack, Developer Pack, and Chronicles Pack.
Metro: Last Light gets season pass, first DLC in June
Metro: Last Light developer 4A Games is planning to release four different content packs throughout the summer, all bundled together today in a season pass available on Xbox Live, PSN and Steam for 1200 MS Points ($15). The Faction and Chronicle packs are the first listed, each aimed at continuing the single-player story of Metro: Last Light. Faction is due first, in June. The Tower pack will be aimed at Metro veterans, offering "a unique solo challenge." Finally, the Developer pack aims to offer some additional tools aiding in exploration. All season pass purchases will also unlock an exclusive semi-automatic shotgun rifle, while each piece of DLC will be available for individual purchase. Metro: Last Light launched on May 14, with our review placing it in the company of another story-driven shooter, Half-Life. The game was originally set to be published by THQ, but after the studio's fall Deep Silver came in and acquired the game.
Metro: Last Light shines in this week's UK charts
It's another familiar week of UK cha-... oh wait, it isn't. After Dead Island: Riptide sliced through its competition for three weeks, this time it's dethroned by another follow-up in the form of Metro: Last Light. By debuting in top spot, it does what Metro 2033 failed to do when it placed fifth in 2010. Chart-Track says Metro 2033 sold stronger than Last Light in its launch week. Back then, Metro 2033 was fighting March megatons like Final Fantasy 13, God of War 3, and Battlefield Bad Company 2. In contrast, May 2013 has been dead quiet - emphasis on dead. Having said that, this week sees another new release in the top ten via Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Gates to Infinity. The spinoff charts fourth this week. We expect the next 3DS Poke-game to do slightly better. In other movers and shakers, Last Light only nudged Riptide into second place, making this week a 1-2 for Deep Silver and Koch Media. Tomb Raider drops out of the top five for the first time in its 11th week, slipping down to sixth. Meanwhile, Injustice: Gods Among Us and The Walking Dead (packaged retail edition) shuffle into eighth and seventh.
Metro: Last Light dev warns against changing FOV with coming patch
Metro: Last Light features a fixed field of view, and while we didn't have a problem with that, other players have. Developer 4A Games heard the feedback and has a fix in the next title update coming to Steam – but it comes with a warning. Changing the field of view could trigger a range of bugs, including breaking cut scene animations and decreasing game performance in general. "We had considered offering three FOV pre-sets, but this would still require significant work to re-do every animation, adjust the HUD and UI and other seemingly small but incredibly time consuming tasks," 4A writes on the game's Steam discussion board. "Even with a wider but still fixed field of view, Artyom's hands would look too far away. We know – we tried." 4A is looking at other possible solutions, but for now the next title update's fix will have to do. "This may well trigger a number of issues listed above – you have been warned!" 4A says.
Ex-THQ president Rubin discusses cramped Metro working conditions
Former THQ president Jason Rubin has spoken about the struggles Metro: Last Light developer 4A Games went through to get its game to launch. In a post on GamesIndustry International, Rubin extolled the efforts of the Ukrainian studio, citing a relatively meager budget, cramped working conditions, and extreme logistical troubles as major adversities. According to Rubin, the game's development budget was "less than some of its competitors spend on cut scenes, a mere 10 percent of the budget of its biggest competitors." That budget apparently didn't extend to swanky office equipment, with 4A's staff sat "elbow to elbow" at card tables and on folding chairs. Upon seeing 4A Games in person, Rubin wrote, he wanted to buy them proper office chairs, but the logistics were something else. "When 4A needed another dev kit, or high-end PC, or whatever," Rubin wrote, "Someone from 4A had to fly to the States and sneak it back to the Ukraine in a backpack lest it be 'seized' at the border by thieving customs officials. After visiting the team I wanted to buy them Aeron office chairs, considered a fundamental human right in the west. There were no outlets in the Ukraine, and our only option was to pack a truck in Poland and try to find an 'expediter' to help bribe its way down to Kiev." In the end, the offices were too cramped for the wider Aeron chairs anyway.
Metareview: Metro - Last Light
Metro: Last Light doesn't sound appetizing with its "suffocating despair" and "gnarled monstrosities," but it's that kind of loveliness that made Ludwig enthuse about the Metro 2033 follow-up in his four and a half stars review. He deemed Last Light "an unusual, meticulously detailed shooter inextricable from its environment." Of course, Ludwig wasn't the only brave soul to delve into the underground sequel. Here are some other thoughts we dug up. GamesRadar (90/100): "Subtlety is what makes Last Light such an exceptionally immersive game. It nails the core tenets of a shooter, then forces you to react to enemies in ways outside of simply taking cover. It plops you in a post-apocalyptic world, then fills it with tons of minor but substantial details, like the shadows of once-living people now permanently nuked into stone walls. It strips you of hope, only to dangle a tiny sliver of it ahead of you like a carrot on a stick." Game Informer (88/100): "This sequel plays more like a shooter than its predecessor, but doesn't sacrifice its intricate narrative or creative vision in the process. Masochistic fans will appreciate the harder difficulties that recreate the grueling experience of the original, but no matter how you approach it, exploring Last Light's absorbing world is wholly entertaining." Giant Bomb (80/100): "By its very nature of being a sequel, Last Light doesn't feel as fresh as Metro 2033 did, but there's still nothing else like it. Few games generate immersion through gameplay and transport you to their world the way Metro does." Eurogamer (70/100): "Metro: Last Light is not a bad game, but nor is it a good one in quite the same sense as its predecessor. Metro 2033 was flawed but trying to do its own thing. If anything, Last Light feels like a regression. Similarities abound, but this is a more conservative FPS, one looking at the competition rather than itself, and one with some terrible missteps. So go in with low expectations, and you might be pleasantly surprised."
