It’s been over seven years since the last release in the highly-received Metro series, based on the post-apocalyptic novels by Russian author Dmitry Glukhovsky. The previous Metro games followed the protagonist Artyom as he ventured across the irradiated Moscow wasteland and by Metro: Exodus would explore other areas within Russia as well as Kazakhstan such as the Volga River or Caspian Sea, taking on mutated horrors and humans who have fallen to reactionary ideologies. Metro fans have been awaiting a new entry into the series despite an end to Artyom’s story with Exodus, and following an announcement on April 13, 2026, it was confirmed that Metro: 2039 was on the way, finally being revealed today with a cryptic and harrowing trailer revealing the new protagonist, known as “the Stranger”, a man haunted by nightmares who must now venture back into the Metro he sought to escape in the first place. We also get a glimpse of the new antagonist faction known as “the Novoreich” (not to be confused with the Fourth Reich of the previous games), a fascist totalitarian regime lead by a man known only as “the Fuhrer” who has united the warring factions of the previous games, meanwhile drowning his people with disinformation and propaganda.
It should be taken into consideration that the team developing Metro: 2039 and its predecessor games, 4A Games, hails from Ukraine, making this the first new entry in the Metro series since the start of the Russo-Ukrainian War. In press release for the game, it states, “Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has impacted and directly shaped the development of METRO 2039, with its story shifting to focus acutely on choices, actions, consequences and the cost of securing a future.
While told from a distinctly Ukrainian perspective, METRO 2039 remains an authentically METRO story. Now working primarily from two locations in Kyiv and Malta, the goal remains the same: to create an experience that is unmistakably METRO”.
The game has been in development amidst the ongoing conflict, and parts of the revealed narrative seem to reflect this, with the Novoreich appearing to resemble Russia under Putin’s government, the classroom scene from the trailer in particular eerily resembling the ongoing indoctrination of Russia’s youth within their school system, which many received a glimpse of last year through the documentary Mr. Nobody Against Putin (2025). The conflict in Ukraine has cost the lives of thousands of Ukrainian and Russian infantry as well as Ukrainian civilians, and as of now does not seem close to any end; for the sake of the peoples of both nations and the soldiers caught in this ugly conflict, one can only hope it will eventually cease and that peace prevails.