History VideoGame / Metro2033

* {{Diary}}: ''Redux'' adds collectible diary entries similar to the ones found in [[VideoGame/MetroLastLight its sequel]]. They add further insight to certain events in each level.

* FingerlessGloves: Artyom starts off wearing a pair of knit fingerless gloves. In the non-''Redux'' version, your suit upgrades also change your gloves: full-fingered black leather gloves for the stealth suit, or fingerless olive green combat gloves for the heavy armor. In the ''Redux'' version the costume changes are automatically applied as the story progresses, but they change from the fingerless gloves to Red Line workers' gear, and even later, Ranger armor for the ending cinematic.

* InfiniteFlashlight: No matter the charge level, Artyom's flashlight will never go out because of low battery power. Cranking the charger makes the light brighter, and while helpful, it's not quite necessary unless you're facing a [[BossInMookClothing Plated]] [[WeakenedByTheLight Nosalis]].

* InfiniteFlashlight: No matter the charge level, Artyom's flashlight will never go out because of low battery power. Cranking the charger makes the light brighter, and while helpful, it's not quite necessary unless you're facing a [[BossInMookClothing Plated Nosalis]].

** Military ammo also qualifies for this; it's available from the intro onwards, and will kill any non-boss pretty fast. The only reason it isn't a game breaker is that it doubles as currency, and overuse means you'll be wasting money literally. Naturally, after the point where shops start appearing ([[spoiler:the last shops are in Polis]]), you're free to use them in combat.

* BadassBeard: Several, especially Ulman, Khan and Miller (in Redux ''only'').

* UnwinnableByMistake: It's possible to put yourself in a bad situation where the next chapter has you going through the surface of Moscow and you ''simply don't have enough filter time on your gas mask'' to survive. A pretty hard and unforgiving way to learn the need to manage your supplies more carefully.
** Fortunately, if you catch yourself running short, you can extend the life of your filters by repeatedly taking your gas mask off, breathing in the air until you start choking, and reequipping the mask before the toxic air kills you. This would of course be TooDumbToLive in real life, but the game engine doesn't stack poison damage between exposures.

* SpiritualSuccessor: To the ''{{VideoGame/STALKER}}'' series. Actually, more like an estranged spiritual brother, in a manner of speaking, since the people behind Metro 2033 left the ''S.T.A.L.K.E.R.'' team during Shadow of Chernobyl's infamously protracted development - though now that ''S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2'' has been canceled, this trope may be played more straight in ''Metro: Last Light''.

The third game in the series, ''VideoGame/MetroExodus'', was announced at the E3 2017, and released on February 15, 2019 on PC, Xbox One, and PS4.

* GoneHorriblyRight: When calculating damage inflicted by weapons, the dev team made it so that every piece of armor, bit of ammo, magazine, and such on human enemies absorbs a certain amount of damage from gunshots and is flung off of the person. This is responsible for the frequent reviewer complaints about enemies inexplicably becoming bullet sponges. The effect becomes more pronounced when shotgun blasts are introduced. The game doesn't treat the spread as a single massively damaging projectile. Rather, [[RealityEnsues each pellet is treated as a single weak projectile with poor armor penetration, just like in real life.]] The result is that well-armored opponents can sometimes require more than a half dozen shotshells to the torso before going down, but can easily be killed by three dirty 5.45 bullets or a single shotgun blast to an unarmored part of the head.

* RealityEnsues:
** Pleased with how your shotgun is destroying mutants, but perplexed why it takes so many hits to kill soldiers? Buckshot has pathetic performance against military body armor, and the developers put actual armor attachments on many of the soldiers that must be shot off before actual damage can be incurred in the areas they cover.
** Wonder why Military Grade Rounds are so vastly superior to dirty rounds? Much of ballistic behavior depends upon powder selection and bullet construction. Even the cartridge can affect the performance of a firearm. Now consider that the Metro has been scavenging and reloading its cartridges for the last two decades.
** Hip firing leading to lots of misses? Guns have sights on them for a reason!
** You may able to slaughter dozens of mutants by acting like Rambo, but trying to do the same to human enemies and they will kill you in seconds. Heck, even regular bandits will pose a problem to you.

** Three of the monsters in-game have subspecies. Nosalises have the black (stronger than usual), winged (more agile and has a special attack) and armoured (fast and very hard to kill; DummiedOut in Redux) varieties; Watchers have Lurkers (weaker, but faster, smaller and more annoying); Librarians can be found in a black (stronger and more aggressive) variety. They tend to have a distinctive look to them however, so it isn't all that bad.

* BoomHeadshot: Although a number of enemies wear protective headgear, aiming your shots at the head/neck region is a very effective tactic against humans.

The third game in the series, ''VideoGame/MetroExodus'', was announced at the E3 2017.

* BadassGrandpa: When you realize that Miller had been in the Soviet Army, which had been dissolved 42 years prior to the events of the game and about 20 years before the nuclear holocaust. He would have to be at least 60.
** The old man from the Hole station. You can find his body and his Hellsing spear gun in the arsenal of the station and a long line of dead lurkers with arrows stuck between the eyes at the shacks.
** Sasha's [[DyingMomentOfAwesome uncle]] also counts.
--> '''Sasha''': They jumped at him, but he started shooting, and then the big nosalis bit him in the neck. But uncle is really strong, he killed him with his knife.

* InfantImmortality: Zig-zagged. On one hand, no child is ever seen being killed or dying in real time, with Sasha making a lot of noise in a station ''infested'' with rat-mutants, and yet being alright until Artyom rescues him. On the other, it is outright stated that children are killed whenever mutants break into a station, and one of the ghost silhouettes in the ghost tunnel between Dry and Cursed is of a child fleeing a nosalis and screaming for his mother. It also goes for the gameplay aspect of [[EscortMission escorting Sasha away from the infested Hole station]]: he stays on Artyom's back as they go, but even if you're attacked while crouching, only Artyom gets hurt – Sasha is only attacked if Artyom is killed or they fall into a hole, which is instant death.

** Military ammo also qualifies for this; it's available from the intro onwards, and will kill any non-boss pretty fast. The only reason it isn't a game breaker is that it doubles as currency, and overuse means you'll be wasting money literally.
* DrivenToSuicide: The doctor in the Hole station hospital.
* DoNotGoGentle: The Rangers Pavel, upon realizing the mutants are dragging him off, sets off a pipe bomb that takes out a number of Nosalises along with himself and frees up Artyom to escape the Depot alive.
--> '''Pavel''': Take this you bitches!

* EldritchLocation: The entire Metro is in the "ordinary building" variation, seeing as it's a man-made, perfectly mundane object/system that turns into the trope during the game's backstory. The mutants [[HandWave can be semi-explained away as a product of the radiation]], [[WillingSuspensionOfDisbelief although real radiation does not cause such fundamental changes]]. However, there is obviously ''much'' weirder, inexplicable stuff going on in a lot of seemingly-deserted tunnels, going by the conversations Artyom overhears...
* EmergencyWeapon: The original version's trench knife, as well as throwing knives and the Helsing (sort of). If you don't forget to pick up knives and arrows you will never run out of ammunition. The knife can be used to kill almost any foe except for amoebas (the pores are fair game) and demons. As you would expect, you're going to use this a lot more than firearms when you're playing [[HarderThanHard Ranger mode]].

* EvilPhone: Twice in the D6 bunker: In an airlock during Prologue and in the main chamber during the "D6" chapter. The place was abandoned and decaying for twenty years and the government was destroyed or dissolved shortly after the third world war, yet the phone rings when you restore power and press some buttons on the control panel. The player can't answer the call and the other [=NPCs=] don't seem to react at all though.

* FingerlessGloves: Artyom starts off wearing a pair of knit fingerless gloves. In the non-''Redux'' version your suit upgrades also change your gloves: full-fingered black leather gloves for the stealth suit, or finger-less olive green combat gloves for the heavy armor. In the ''Redux'' version the costume changes are automatically applied as the story progresses, but they change from the fingerless gloves to Red Line workers' gear, and even later, Ranger armor for the ending cinematic.
* FirstPersonShooter: With alternating stealth-is-optional-but-rewarding segments as well

* AnachronismStew: The game's world looks more archaic than it should be, considering nuclear war occured in 2013 / twenty years prior. Most of the pre-war items are taken right from the Soviet Seventies or even Fifties. Compunding this is the straight up ScienceFiction gadgets common in the Metro, like railguns, or handheld generators far more efficient than any gas generator that exists in real life. This is TruthInTelevision; Russia was hit hard economically by the collapse of the USSR in 1991, and thus advanced technologically at a slower pace compared to the United States.

''Metro 2033'' is a FirstPersonShooter with SurvivalHorror elements based on [[{{Literature/Metro2033}} the novel of the same name]], released in 2010 for the UsefulNotes/Xbox360 and UsefulNotes/{{Steam}}. Set in Moscow twenty years [[AfterTheEnd after a devastating nuclear war]], much of the action takes place BeneathTheEarth, as humanity now shuns the surface wasteland in favor of living in the remains of the UsefulNotes/MoscowMetro system. The story features the 20-year-old [[PlayerCharacter Artyom]], who embarks on a journey to solicit help from the [[TheOrder Rangers]] before his home station is overrun by the mysterious and unstoppable "Dark Ones".

* GuideDangIt: You obtain the 'good' ending by listening to conversations, lingering in hallucination sequences and so forth...the problem is that the only indication you've achieved anything with these actions is a brief, unexplained flash on the screen and a whisper. The ''Redux'' version eventually added a pause screen hint that tells you vaguely about it, but of course you can't cyle through them and their random selection from a large pool of messages means you may not see it more than once, if at all.

* GuiltBasedGaming: Of the quitting variety, of a kind. If you attemtpt to quit the game on the main menu (by mousing over the door that has "Quit" on it), one of the soldiers may comment on how they're "not suprised" or otherwise mock the player.
* GuideDangIt:

A sequel called ''Metro: Exodus'' was announced at the E3 2017.

* AnachronismStew: The game's world looks more archaic than it should be, considering nuclear war occured in 2013 / twenty years prior. Most of the pre-war items are taken right from the Soviet Seventies or even Fifties. Compunding this is the straight up ScienceFiction gadgets common in the Metro, like railguns, or handheld generators far more efficient than any gas generator that exists in real life.

->''"Life was never easy in the tunnels, but it was our home. There was comfort in its routines, in seeing the same people day after day. But since the mutant attacks has escalated, fear ruled the station. I had just turned twenty...and could never had imagined what would follow on the morning that my stepfather's friend, Hunter, arrived at the barricade..."''