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Metro 2039 recap: The story so far
D
Diego Perez
However, the world of Metro is rich with history and lore, and the Moscow Metro has undergone some serious changes since its last appearance. Even though 2039 puts players into the shoes of a new protagonist for a fresh perspective, it's still a good idea to familiarize yourself with the events leading up to this new mainline Metro entry.
Metro 2033
The year is 2033. Moscow and the surrounding world are poisoned with radiation in the wake of a global nuclear holocaust twenty years prior, and the surface is a desolate wasteland where mutants stalk the ruins of what once was. Beneath ruined Moscow lies the Metro—a series of subway tunnels that now serve as humanity's last bastion against the horrors of the surface.
Metro 2033 centers around Artyom, a silent protagonist who only voices his opinion through journal entries between chapters. His home station of Exhibition is attacked by ghostly creatures called the Dark Ones, and he's sent to the Metro's capital at Polis to seek help.
As Artyom makes his way toward Polis—hitching rides with caravans and even scraping by on the surface with limited equipment—he encounters the Metro's radically-opposed factions. Neo-Nazis of the Fourth Reich constantly clash with the communist Red Line, leaving the Metro's other stations to rely on the peacekeeping Rangers or the free-market alliance known as Hanza for protection.
Polis is in a unique position at the center of the Metro, and it attempts to maintain neutrality among the underground factions. It's the beating heart of the Metro's trade and travel, so it's in everyone's best interests to leave it alone. Plus, even the biggest warmongers of the Metro would rather not deal with the multi-front war that comes with attacking Polis.
It's a very delicate balance, which is part of the reason why the Polis council refuses to help Artyom and Exhibition. Furious at the bureaucracy's lack of action, Artyom joins forces with the Ranger commander Miller to activate an old missile silo called D6 that can destroy the Dark Ones' hive and put an end to the ghostly creatures' harassment of the Metro.
After officially being made a Ranger, Artyom launches the missiles after experiencing a huge psychic headache from a Dark One. That's the canon ending, but Metro 2033 actually has a secret ending unlocked by being a Good Samaritan in the eyes of the game's invisible morality system.
The alternate ending hints that the Dark Ones may have just been trying to communicate with humanity, and the hallucinations and psychic distress might have just been an unfortunate side effect instead of a malicious attack. The Dark Ones' motivations are a key plot point for the entire Metro series, and the Dark Ones are returning in Metro 2039, so keep this in mind!
Metro Last Light
One year after his initial journey through the tunnels, Artyom still wrestles with his decision to launch the missiles. Now a fully-fledged Ranger, Artyom works with the crew to restore the D6 missile silo and get it connected to the rest of the Metro.
The story of Metro Last Light begins when news of a surviving Dark One reaches D6, and Colonel Miller sends Artyom with his daughter Anna to eliminate it. Of course, news travels fast in the Metro, and power-hungry factions like the Red Line and Fourth Reich are eager to potentially capture a Dark One that they can use to forcefully take over the D6 facility.
After locating the surviving baby Dark One, Artyom is captured by the Nazis. He manages to escape with the help of a Red Line recruit named Pavel, who reveals himself as a Red Line major after traveling through the tunnels with Artyom. Since Artyom has no intentions of cooperating with the Red Line, he's detained for interrogation.
After breaking free from Fourth Reich territory, Artyom now has to sneak through Red Line territory to rescue Anna and the little Dark One from Pavel's men. There, he learns that the Red Line's leaders are planning to take control of D6 and the entire Metro. One of Artyom's comrades has also betrayed the Rangers, giving bioweapon samples from D6 over to the Red Line.
After rescuing Anna, Artyom stays with her to quarantine after being exposed to the Red Line's weaponized disease from D6. Both Artyom and Anna are declared healthy and ready to leave the station, but not before sleeping together.
Artyom then tracks down the little Dark One and learns some seriously heavy stuff about his past. It turns out he's been linked to the Dark Ones since childhood, and they've been trying to use him as a sort-of ambassador to peacefully bridge the gap between their kind and humanity.
That's why they keep interrupting Artyom at key moments, and that's also why the Dark Ones' mostly project lighthearted and nonthreatening things to him in their visions. It's also why a Dark One gave Artyom heavy hallucinations before launching the missiles at the end of Metro 2033. It wasn't threatening him; it was pleading with him. The Dark One also senses that more of its kind survived the missiles and are hibernating in D6, giving Artyom a chance to make things right.
Artyom, Anna, and the little Dark One make their way back to Polis in time for a peace discussion between the Metro's major leaders. The Dark One uses its mind powers to force the Red Line's leader to spill the beans. The peace talk is just a diversion so his men can go capture D6 while the Rangers are occupied.
Artyom and the crew rush to D6 and find themselves overwhelmed by the Red Line's forces, forcing them to resort to desperate measures. They plan to blow up the facility with everyone inside—including themselves—just to prevent the weapons from falling into the right hands. At the last minute, however, the little Dark One wakes up all his comrades and they defeat the Red Line before the Rangers can do anything drastic.
After the fighting dies down and the Metro returns to normal, the little Dark One sets out into the world with its new family, but not before promising Artyom that they'll come back to help humanity rebuild when the time is right.
Metro Exodus
Another year has passed, and Artyom still wrestles with his thoughts in Metro Exodus. Having left the Rangers, Artyom looks to the surface in search of survivors. He's convinced that there's someone out there and spends a lot of time topside—much to the dismay of his now-wife Anna.
While exploring Moscow, Artyom and Anna spot a train running through the city. Hanza soldiers shoot Artyom and capture Anna shortly after, but Artyom survives and follows them to a base where he learns the truth.
The Hanza faction had been maintaining signal jammers that deliberately blocked off Moscow from the outside world. Hearing other human voices over the radio for the first time, Artyom and Anna hijack the Hanza train from earlier and make their escape. The rest of the Rangers regroup with Artyom and Anna, and they decide it's safest to leave Moscow since Hanza troops will surely kill them for learning the truth.
On the railway, Colonel Miller reveals that the war didn't end when the bombs dropped. NATO apparently controls most of the country, and the remnants of the Russian government commissioned those signal jammers to make Moscow seem empty.
The Rangers take the train across ruined Russia, first in search of a secret government base at Mount Yamantau. Instead of finding government survivors there, the Rangers are met by cannibals.
Finding a map at the base, the Rangers shift their focus to finding a habitable spot on the surface to establish a settlement. The map leads the Rangers to even more pockets of survivors, each with a different set of problems than the last. All the while, Anna is getting continually sicker as a result of radiation exposure early in the journey.
Eventually, the group is forced to stop in the urban ruins of Novosibirsk in search of medicine to cure Anna's condition. The radiation and mutants are too much for Miller and Artyom to handle, and Colonel Miller uses a dose of medicine to save Artyom's life. Miller passes away from radiation poisoning, but his heroics ensure Artyom makes it back with the cure for Anna still intact.
After leaving Novosibirsk, the Rangers finally track down a radiation-free part of the country. Artyom takes control of the Rangers, and he plans to eventually make his way back to Moscow to tell the Metro's citizens the truth about the surface.
Metro 2039
Four years later, a Stranger returns to the Metro. Moving away from Artyom, Metro 2039 places players in the shoes of an entirely new fully voiced protagonist.
The Stranger is a former Metro resident, and violent nightmares force him back down into the tunnels in search of answers. The Metro looks a lot different since Artyom and the Rangers left, too.
Each of the Metro's factions have been united under a single banner: the Novoreich. To make matters worse, the Novoreich is led by a former Ranger named Hunter. As a matter of fact, that former Ranger is the very same one who told Artyom to seek aid at Polis at the beginning of Metro 2033.
Hunter never made it back from the tunnels (causing Artyom to head to Polis), but whatever he found didn't kill him. Now, he's back years later as the Fuhrer of the Novoreich, with the entire Metro under his complete control.
With the Rangers settled on the surface and the Dark Ones still yet to make their promised return, the stakes are high for Moscow in Metro 2039. You'll be able to experience the next chapter of the story yourself when Metro 2039 launches this winter on Epic Games Store.