Metro 2039 Hands-On Preview

Just a few hours into my preview of Metro 2039, I was running out of filters for my gas mask and the materials necessary to craft more, putting me on the brink of suffocation—but I had to keep exploring. I knew the route I would need to take to advance the story further and, ultimately, be safe from the toxic air on the post-nuclear surface, but I didn't want to take it. All I wanted was to keep poking around for more crafting and survival materials, more puzzles to solve, more weapon blueprints, and more "frozen stories" (as the series has long called its take on environmental storytelling), because if there is one thing I've learned as a longtime Metro fan, it's that patience and exhaustiveness pay off. Because of that philosophy, I knew beforehand that I would stubbornly push myself to the very edge in Metro 2039, until I had absolutely no choice but to move on.