Metro 2033 Characters | Metro 2034 Characters | Metro: Last Light Characters | Metro 2035 Characters | Metro Exodus Characters (Aurora Crew) | Major Factions | Mutants and Paranormal Phenomena
Factions that appeared in the Metro series.
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The Spartan Rangers
If not us, then who?
Based in Polis Station, The Rangers of the "SPARTA" Order ("Spartans", as they often call themselves, or just "Rangers" as most other metro-dwellers call them) are an elite military organization dedicated to protecting the people of the Metro. Acting as a rapid response force to combat the threat of bandits, maniacs, and mutants, wherever they appear in the Metro. They maintain as a neutral entity in the Metro, willing to help any station in trouble free of charge, regardless of faction. This all gives them pretty free roam of the Metro, even through the territory of other factions (assuming said faction even realizes they are there). In actuality they are the the Joint Special Operations Forces Squadron of Moscow. A Spetznaz unit started by Miller to maintain an effective Special Forces unit ready the absolute SECOND that Russia Central Command gives the order to storm from the Metro to fight back against the NATO forces.- Adaptation Expansion: In the first book, they are simply referred to as stalkers and the organization itself doesn't receive that much attention. In the video game, they receive much more attention, the organizations MO is explored in dept and they are the central focus of the plot along.
- Badass Army: All are well-trained and equipped with the best gear the Metro has available, with many implied to be former members of the Soviet/Russian military. Being a badass itself is a requirement just to get in the door.
- Badass Creed: They have a good one, which sums up why they defend the Metro:If not us, then who?
- Band of Brothers: Then entire order is this, as they know the only ones who really has a chance of handling the same crap they do is each other. Except Letsnisky
- Blood Knight: A lot of their members prefer killing enemies rather than taking them prisoner.
- Elites Are More Glamorous: Most of them are said to be or implied to be former Russian Spetsnaz. Those recruited after the war either have to go through an extensive training and evaluation that lasts around 2 years or have to pull off a feat so badass that it proves they are already on the Rangers' level.
- Former Regime Personnel: As stated above, a lot of their members are heavily implied to be former Russian Army soldiers, particularly Spetsnaz. Subverted, they are secretly still a part of Spetznaz, even if Miller is the only one who knows this. Double subverted. Except no they aren't as the Russia government, thus it's military, no longer exists thus Miller only believes they are Spetznaz.
- Heroic Neutral: They seek to help any station in need or in danger, whether it be a horde of mutants, bandit attack, a Reich or Communist takeover, etc.
- Mildly Military: "Mild" in the sense that their equipment is less uniform than it once was and their organization had to become more flexible. However, most of them are military personal from before the bombs fell and several of them are Spetsnaz. They still maintain the highest training standards and the greatest self-discipline among the Metro.
- One-Man Army: Every single Ranger is trained to be this. It takes ALOT to bring even a single Ranger down, and that's assuming they don't kill you as they die.
- The Order: They're also known as this.
- Proud Warrior Race Guy: They really like to make it a point on how badass they are, especially in the beginning of Last Light.
- Ranger: Obviously.
- The Remnant: In more ways that one.
- Secretly, they are the remnant of Spetznaz itself, formed in order to maintain an active Special Operations unit for the Russian Army for when the Russian government gives the all clear to retaliate against NATO.
- After the Battle of D6, the Order is absolutely devastated, despite having won the battle and fought back the Red Line (with the help of the Dark Ones). There are only a handful that survive the battle (roughly 10). While they had started to rebuild thanks to an alliance with Hansa, the surviving Rangers are branded traitors due to a misunderstanding, quickly labeled for execution, thus forced to flee from the Metro.
- Training from Hell: Its heavily implied that the Rangers put its recruits through this. Justified as they are expected to take on the worst shit that the Metro has lurking in its shadows, even solo if they must. In a larger sense, everything they do in the Metro is really primarily meant to keep the unit tough and prepared for war in preparation for the orders to mobilize against NATO.
Polis
- Badass Army: Their army, The Polis Kshatriya, is one of the most powerful in the metro and many of their members are part of the Rangers.
- All-Powerful Bystander: Despite their military prowess and and plentiful resources, Polis prefers not to interfere with the affairs of other stations, even if those affairs are something that can threaten the entire metro.
- Crapsack Only by Comparison: Polis is a class society, yes, but compared to everything else in the metro, it's practically a Utopia.
- Demoted to Extra: They only have a very small role in the game adaptions.
- Magic Versus Science: Played With; their society is largely formed around pre-war scientists and intellectuals, yet their society is very religious, likely because they can't rationally explain all of the phenomenon in the metro anymore.
- Shining City: They are the last remaining bastion of knowledge in the entire metro and are viewed by other stations with either envy or admiration because of this and their high living standards. While they aren't quite as rich as Hanza, their wealth is much more equally distributed, allowing even their lower classes to enjoy luxuries that no other station in the metro can provide, such as proper housing, electronic computers, 24/7 lighting and plentiful food.
The Red Line
- Adaptational Badass: In the original version of 2033, Red Line soldiers at the Frontline had no body armor, wore ragtag and non-standard uniforms, and were generally poorly equipped compared to the Nazis. In Redux however, regular soldiers now have access to body armor, have generally better equipment, proper uniforms, and now have Heavy troopers guarding the barricades.
- Ascended Extra: In the original 2033, the Red Line only appeared in two levels. By Last Light they take center stage from the Nazis early on, when it's revealed that they plan on capturing D6's arsenal of bioweapons, as well as attempting to procure the surviving Dark One.
- Big Bad: Of the second game.
- Big Brother Is Watching: The Red government is known to pay citizens to watch their neighbors.
- Conscription: How they get many of their soldiers.
- Dirty Communists: Obviously. Life under them really sucks. It's really telling when you have entire trains of refugees who want out coming through on a regular basis.
- Elite Mooks: Their equivalent to the Nazi stalkers and Rangers, and are just as heavily armed and competent as them. They're encountered late in Last Light, on orders from Korbut to hunt down Artyom and capture The Dark One.
- Hated by All: They are just as hated among the metro dwellers for their actions as the Fourth Reich is and the only group who is willing to work with them at any capacity are the Trotskyists who only seem to work with them because they both hate fascists.
- Police State: The Communist government keeps a close eye on its citizens, paying them to keep an eye on their neighbors.
- The Political Officer: Their Commissars definitely count. They'll shoot anyone suspicious at first sight, friend or foe.
- Punch-Clock Villain: Like the Nazis, some of the Red soldiers aren't particularly interested in the conflict, only in it for the money or benefits.
- Tank Goodness: They get their own armored trolleys in the second game, based on old steam locomotives.
- Took a Level in Badass: In Last Light, their soldiers are much better equipped and trained, even possessing a number of armored vehicles like the Nazis.
- This also turned up in Metro 2035 as the Red Line launched a counter offensive into the Reich's home stations after repulsing their invasion successfully despite suffering from a famine resulting from a blight on their mushroom crops..
- We Have Reserves: Many of their troops are poorly-trained conscripts, used as cannon fodder to swarm enemy positions. They have the largest population in the entire Metro, so they have plenty of new recruits to spare.
The Fourth Reich
Metro for the pure race!
A Neo-Nazi fascist faction within the Metro, having taken up residence in Tverskaya, Chekhovskaya, and Pushkinskaya stations. Basing their society on Nazi ideals, they are often at odds with the Communist Red Line.- A Nazi by Any Other Name: Their members, being descendants of real life Russian Neo-Nazis, despise anyone who isn't a "pure" Slav. This translates to having them killed on the spot.
- Big Bad Wannabe: They have plans of cleansing the entire Metro of "undesirables", but they posses neither the resources nor the manpower to achieve anything on that scale. Throughout the series they assume the role of secondary villains at best and end up destroying their own faction with no outside help.
- Boomerang Bigot: They are a group of Russians who support an ideology that explicitly calls death for the "subhuman" Slavs. This gets lampshaded in the first novel.
- Crapsaccharine World: Their stations in a nutshell. They're relatively nice places to live...if you meet their requirements for "genetic purity". Those who don't get sent to concentration camps or worked to death as slave laborers.
- Demoted to Extra: In Last Light, other than capturing Artyom and the Baby Dark One at the beginning, they have no significant involvement in the plot.
- Doom Troops: Their soldiers.
- Dystopia Is Hard: In the novels, their xenophobic militant attitude toward all those they don't consider "pure" and harsh punishments for those who don't follow their strict laws has left their population small and horribly unbalanced.
- Final Solution: Pretty much their MO on handling any and all enemies, whether they be Reds or anyone considered "subhuman". Of course, they orchestrate these through concentration camps.
- Gas Mask Mooks: All Nazi soldiers wear gas masks unique to their faction.
- Gratuitous German: They throw many German words into their speech.
- Hated by All: Their actions are considered absolutely deplorable by everyone in the metro and no faction is willing to work with them.
- Hellhole Prison: Pushkinskaya a.k.a. Schiller station which serves as a concentration camp for the undesirables.
- Killed Off for Real: In Metro 2035, all of their stations are taken out by a massive flood they accidentally caused, leaving the chances of the faction surviving very unlikely.
- Laser-Guided Karma: Their attempts to expand Pushkinskaya through slave labor end up with nearly all their territories getting flooded and the entire faction effectively ceasing to exist.
- Legion of Lost Souls: Due to the Reich's low manpower, they attract people from other stations to join their foreign volunteer army known as the Iron Legion. This also serves as a steady supply of slaves, as anyone who is detected to have either mutations or tumors gets immediately sent into a concentration camp after the initial medical examination.
- No Swastikas: Despite the Nazi imagery, they don't actually use the swastika in game, instead using the Moscow Metro "C" (Stop) sign or a gothic capital "R". In the novel and beta, they use a Triskelion-style Nazi flag (a swastika with three branches instead of four), roughly similar to the symbol used by Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging
. - Police State: They're constantly patrolling their citizens for mutations, or checking that they meet their standards (in height, physical features, etc.).
- Pragmatic Villainy: By the events of Metro 2035, they have significantly loosened up their tight racial standards to attract more fighters from other stations into the Iron Legion and the focus of their ideology has shifted from white supremacy to the extermination of all mutated humans.
- Punch-Clock Villain: If you listen to their conversations, you can find that some of the soldiers have doubts about fighting for them, and many talk about their families or escaping somewhere better.
- Putting on the Reich: They have adopted Nazi ideals and apparel, though their salutes and addresses are a bit different (i.e. they have a closed fist salute instead of the standard Hitler salute).
- The Social Darwinist: They value genetic purity, culling off any citizens with deformities.
- Spared by the Adaptation: Due to the drastically different sequence of events in the games' canon, the whole fatal flood situation at Theatre Station never happens. Furthermore, in the first chapter of Exodus, a Hanza soldier speaks of the Reich as a possible future enemy to war against, indicating that they're still very much around.
- Trailers Always Lie: They were heavily featured in the pre-release marketing material for Last Light, giving the impression that they would be the main villains, even though they actually got Demoted to Extra in the game.
- Tank Goodness: They have at least two "Panzers" (armored trolleys with large guns mounted on top).
- Those Wacky Nazis: A post-apocalyptic Russian Neo-Nazi movement, engaged in their own little version of WWII's Eastern Front.
- Utopia Justifies the Means: They believe that by conquering the entire Metro, they will bring unity to its population.
Hanza
- Capitalism Is Bad: Zigzagged Trope. While a lot of their members are known to be corrupt and/or are fueled by greed, they are also shown to be one of the most well-off, stable, and secure factions in the series. Also, a lot of their merchants will gladly provide Artyom with additional supplies, provided they get paid a hefty amount. In Last Light they provide some measure of medical relief to the Oktyabrskaya station affected by the Red Line plague, but that's because they don't want it to spread to the rest of the metro.
- Crapsaccharine World: Their stations are some of the nicer places to live, but with their capitalist mindset, it is difficult to get in, and even if you do get in, there's no guarantee life will be great.
- Eagleland: Their society heavily resembles Gilded Age/Interwar period United States; a rich land of opportunity where people flock in the hopes of earning a better life, but also a land of wide scale economic inequality where many aren't able to reach their dreams of a better life.
- Greed: The primary MO of most soldiers and merchants seen, although how much it affects them varies between individuals.
- Indentured Servitude: They are shown practicing this in Metro 2033 novel.
- Leave No Witnesses: In Metro 2035 and Exodus, it's shown that they're partly responsible for ensuring that no news about the outside world still being intact gets into the Metro, to the point of killing any outsiders.
- Merchant City: Most of the stations they control are this. Market Station is called this for a reason, with most of the station composed of stands selling an array of goods.
- Proud Merchant Race: So much, that they won't allow outsiders to enter the other Ring Stations sans Market.
- Only in It for the Money: A lot of their citizen's motives revolve around earning as much money and making a good buck as much as possible.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Khan points out how generous they are with their goods when a plague hit a few stations in Last Light. Khan thinks it's because they expect the Order to share D6's secrets with them in return. Exodus also has them refilling the devastated Spartans both in recruits and equipment Miller explains it was the Invisible Watchers' doing as they wanted someone like him to train their troops.
- Sudden Sequel Heel Syndrome: From the very start of Metro Exodus, when Artyom and Anna uncovers their deceit regarding the radio jammers.
- The Man Behind the Man: Subverted. They seem to be the ones pulling Miller's strings at first, feeding him information that the outside world is inhospitable, and manipulating him to keep the Metro closed off. But - as the numerous holes in the cover story of the Invisible Watchers become apparent, the more clear it is that they're as in the dark as Miller is.
SPOILER FACTION
Invisible Watchers
The Watchers are the Greater-Scope Villain of the franchise as they are responsible for many, if not, all of the events in the mainline Metro series. They are responsible for the creation of the four main Metro factions and are essentially the Shadow Dictator of the whole Moscow Metro.
- Aristocrats Are Evil: They aren't nobles per say, but they are former members and descendants of Russia's ruling elite and oligarchy, who keep living conditions in the metro miserable for the sake of keeping onto their power and ensuring relatively good living conditions for themselves.
- Ascended Extra: They go from a mere story mentioned by some Nazis in 2033 to being a very much real full-blown faction in 2035.
- Big Bad: Of the 2035 novel and to the entire franchise, as a whole. Series-wide, they're the ones who run the entire series' events in the shadows and every major conflict that happened within the Moscow Metro heavily ties back to them.
- The Conspiracy: For years, they have been the true rulers of the metro who decide what the population should and shouldn't know.
- Contrasting Sequel Antagonist: In terms of the warmongering Red Line and Fourth Reich in the prequel novels (2033 and 2034), who vie for power through violent reasons, the Invisible Watchers does it in a more non-violent manner, where they use their past influence as the members of Russia's ruling elite and their own resources to manipulate the entire Moscow Metro and its people through propaganda. And true to its name, they are largely invisible in the 2035 novel, except for Bessolov who makes his physical appearance. They are also considered to be Non-Action Big Bad, as they often control the Metro through the shadows by forcing each factions to be at war with each other, rather than deliberately causing chaos towards them.
- Demoted to Extra: In Exodus, the Watchers are only vaguely mentioned by Miller; most of the coverup is perpetuated by the Hanza and the crew permanently leaves the Metro before they're able to encounter them.
- Despotism Justifies the Means: Above all, actions of the Invisible Watchers are motivated by their desire to hold onto their power.
- Epiphanic Prison: They have effectively turned the entire Metro into one of these. Even as the mutant populations and the radiation levels have drastically dropped above ground, they manage to keep the population under control through their fear of the outside world, and only Artyom and Anna show willingness to leave the metro behind.
- Greater-Scope Villain: They are the brains behind Polis, Hanza, Reich and Red Line. If not for their conspiracy, the Red Line and the Fourth Reich likely wouldn't even exist and they certainly wouldn't be waging conflicts as readily as they do.
- Hidden Elf Village: They live in the assumed to be a legend Metro-2.
- The Man Behind the Man: They secretly control Polis, Hanza, Fourth Reich, Red Line and the Rangers, with the Watchers' leader Bessolov being the true mastermind behind their creation.
- Leave No Witnesses: They run a very tight no witness policy when it comes to the outside world and anyone who is known or suspected to have knowledge about it will quickly find themselves as a political prisoner of the Red Line.
- Non-Action Big Bad: Unlike the Red Line and Fourth Reich, the Watchers themselves only use the factions they created to manipulate anything and everything they can to control the Metro to their own whim.
- The Remnant: They are what remains of the Russian government and military high command in the metro.
- Shadow Dictator: What the entire reveal is all about in 2035 as the Watchers essentially control everything and anything across the Moscow Metro, including the suppression of disseminating information about the outside world. But the average Moscow Metro resident knows absolutely nothing about who they are or what they really are in person other than a group of measly legends that have zero to do with their actual nature as the TRUE leader of the whole Moscow Metro. Only Artyom even knows who they are and the true extent of their manipulations.
- Walking Spoiler: Everything about the faction is a massive spoiler for those who haven't read Metro 2035.
- War for Fun and Profit: "Fun" may not be the right word, but their hands seem to be in most major conflicts within the Metro - perhaps even the events of Metro: Last Light - for the sake of population control and strengthening their own grip on the factions.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: In Metro Exodus, Miller and Artyom visit and explore the Metro tunnels of another city. Here they realize that the Invisible Watchers had actually manipulated the population of the Moscow Metro in order for it to survive. Novosibirsk did not have such a group, and tore itself apart, resulting in the complete annihilation of its human population.
Church of the Water Tsar
A techno-phobic cult that worships a giant-mutated catfish.
- Anti-Villain: Silantius is a nasty piece of work, but the rest of the community are just scared. They are quite fine with, albeit skeptical of, outsiders such as Artyom, as long as they be courteous in return. They are also open to trade and as long as the "heretics" don't shove a light in their faces they'll be reasonable.
- Cult: They worship the Water Tsar, a giant mutated fish. Strictly speaking, they don't actually worship the fish, as reading their documents and listening to their conversation reveals them to be sort of Christian-ish, but rather believe that it's the personification of God's wrath against a sinful world. Regardless, they feed their dead to the thing, and also occasionally sacrifice "heretics" (i.e. anybody who gets caught with a flashlight) to it.
- Evil Luddite: The Church of the Water Tsar believe that the apocalypse was caused by technology, a belief reflected in their lifestyles, in which they rely on torches and fire for lighting. They shun anything and everything that runs on an electric current—guns are okay, but lightbulbs are heresy.
- Mirroring Factions: From the Metro dwellers themselves, such as Artyom only a few months back. Their isolationist attitude and hatred of electricity isn't quite different from the idea of humanity's remnants living exclusively in the Metro, while the Dark Ones and the remains of the old world are dangerous and out to destroy them. Both are manipulated by higher-ups with actual knowledge of the outside world, and would be content with living out their existence this way unless somebody exposes the truth to them.
SPOILER FACTION
The Ark
A bunker located under Mount Yamantau where supposingly the last of the Russian government have been hiding. The Order first pick up their radio transmission after leaving Moscow and head there to meet up with them for shelter. Much to their horror, the people beneath there are cannibals who lure survivors all over the country to their doom. The Russian government never arrived at Yamantau, which was still under construction when the war broke out in 2013. The only people staffing the bunker were the construction crews and soldiers, and thus their supplies were not at operational levels when the missiles rained down.- Always Chaotic Evil: There are no penalties for killing them (You even get an achievement for doing it, just so you don't feel bad!) and aside from the doctor and the "generals," all of them went mad to prion disease to the point they are just shouting "meat" as they attack.
- Cannibal Tribe: They were once the soldiers and workers tasked with manning the bunker. Due to their isolation and lack of supplies, they devolved to cannibalism.
- Go Mad from the Isolation: Because of their dwindling supplies, the survivors of the bunker resorted to cannibalism in order to survive. In addition, they appear to be suffering from kuru due to prolonged consumption of human meat.
- Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse: One of the man impersonating the command staff tries to explain they had no chance of survival, as the radiation made everything impossible to grow and the bunker had little supplies. Miller executes him saying they should have died instead of stooping this low.
- Laser-Guided Karma: They are ultimately rendered terminally defunct by their former captives, who proceed to wipe out the group to the last man upon breaking free.
- Mad Doctor: The leader of the group is a former doctor who implied to be the one who suggests that they indulge into cannibalism.
- Polite Villains, Rude Heroes: The Doctor and other sane members are Faux Affably Evil while the Spartans have nothing but disgust for them.
- Underestimating Badassery: The leaders clearly think they can capture and subdue the Spartans the same way they've done with countless others in the past. While they do initially overcome Miller, Artoym and Anna, they are quickly released by Sam and the others, following which the Spartans proceed to buzzsaw their way through the entire complex.
- Villains Want Mercy: Both the Doctor and the people impersonating command staff do not shy away from begging for their lives when the tables are turned on them. Disgusted as they are, the Spartans do not oblige.
- Wham Line: How they reveal their true colors:"Commander": "Women and children? Hahaha! Good! Haven't had those in a while."
- Would Hit a Girl: Aside from attempting to kill and eat Anna, dialogue from the "commander" clearly suggests that they ate women before.
- Would Hurt a Child: Dialogue from the "commander" clearly suggests that they ate children before.
- Zerg Rush: As the Order are escaping, the surviving cannibals charge at the railcar in numbers.
Munai-bailer
Munai-bailer
A group of raiders composed of former mobsters and oil rig workers that operate in the now-dry Caspian Sea. Their monopoly on the region's oil supply has let them establish a small but powerful slave empire, ruthlessly oppressing the native Kazakhs with their vast arsenal of guns and cars.- Desert Punk: They are Mad Max-style drivers who style themselves as biker thugs.
- Hell-Bent for Leather: Fitting their Mad Max aesthetic, they wear lots of leather.
- Kill It with Fire: Complete with the worship of fire deities, incendiary weapons, and a fuel monopoly.
- The Mafiya: Many of them are stated to have been mobsters before the apocalypse.
- Slavery Is a Special Kind of Evil: They have indoctrinated the locals into servitude; Miller cut off negotiations with them after the Baron demanded women as tribute.
- We Have Reserves: In Exodus, it's revealed that they have an army over 700 strong, which is why the Baron isn't particularly distressed at losing a few guards to the Rangers. That said, the Rangers manage to not be immediately annihilated since most of their numbers are away on a raid in foreign territory.
The Children of the Forest
A group of children who were stranded at the Solnechnyj Children's Summer Camp when the bombs hit. They were raised by their camp master who they revere as the "Teacher". They are divided into the Pioneers and Pirates.
- Anti-Villain: They are just defending their territory, be it from bandits or from "drifters".
- Contrasting Sequel Antagonist: The Children of the Forest are a far cry from the supremacist faction Fourth Reich and the communist faction Red Line from the previous games, who were both political factions vying for power, as they are instead just an anti-villainous faction who defend their territory from outsiders and are considered misguided in their intentions.
- Expy: Of the lost-boys from Peter Pan and the children from Lord of the Flies. They are portrayed as essentially the lost-boys just grown up. The Pirates— their name and motif in particular— seem to take a few cues from Captain Hook and his crew as well. That the "Lost Boys" here are actually turning into Pirates serves to illustrate the deep divide between the two sub factions. This division is where the similarities to Lord of the Flies begins.
- Motive Decay: The group eventually suffers from a schism based on this trope. One group—known as Pioneers—felt that the lessons of "Teacher" were meant to teach them to survive on their own without interfering "strangers" so long as they leave them alone, while the others—known as Pirates—believe slaughtering and looting "strangers" to be justifiable.
- Parental Abandonment: Some notes you can find around state this. If any of their parents had survived the bombings, unlikely as that is, they never made it to Taiga to find their kid(s).
- Teenage Wasteland: They began as a group of children who were left to be raised by the camp master known as "Teacher" at a summer camp during World War III. As a result, their society is based on reverence towards him as a deity. Their "Teacher" died not too long after the war, leaving the children to grow up without any adults around. The result is that, despite now being full grown adults themselves, they still very much act like this trope in effect.
Pirates
A faction of the Children Of The Forest who believe that to uphold the Teacher's tenets, they have to attack anyone who comes near them for the sake of survival. They split off from the main children of the forest due to a schism, caused after they snuck into a camp of bandits that had attacked them, and murdered every last one of them.
- Affably Evil: While they can be cruel enough to make bloodthirsty bandits afraid, they all still act like a bunch of schoolyard friends towards one another, and they give Artyom very fair warning to stay out of their territory.
- Bullying a Dragon: They were planning on attacking the Aurora. This is despite knowing the Rangers are pretty evasive and well-armed.
- Children Forced to Kill: Their leader forced them to kill captured bandits as part of their initiation.
- Cycle of Revenge: It's made clear that, bad as the bandits they've fought are, their violent tendencies have had consequences. Consequences which, as it happens, have splashed onto the Pioneers and leave them at the mercy of bandits.
- Dead Guy on Display: They use a lot of bandits and drifters as scarecrows to warn off potential intruders. Sometimes they kill them, sometimes they wait for the wolves to do it instead.
- Even Evil Has Standards: For a given value of "evil", since they are still children at heart, who split off from the Pioneers due to differences in perspective. Despite their rather liberal interpretation of self defense, and strained relations with the Children of the Forest, they seem to be generally okay people. One of their core rules is not to pick on the girls, in a world where sex slavery and rape are more than everyday occurrences.
- Heel Realization: At least two pirates are known to have become utterly disgusted at what they've become.
- He Who Fights Monsters: A common In-Universe view of the Pirate faction, with one journal entry mentioning them killing even the surrendering bandits and others, leaving them to die on poles. For once, it's hard to blame the bandits for their treatment of them. The Teacher was Driven to Suicide at the realization that the kids he taught became monsters.
- Kids Are Cruel: Subverted as they are not kids anymore, but otherwise play this straight. They grew up without adults around and have retained many child-like mannerisms, including a more childish sense of cruelty.
- Not-So-Harmless Villain: Don't let their child-like ideals and antics fool you, these are still full grown adults who have grown up while under constant attack (or attacking) bloodthirsty bandit gangs. If they detect an outsider (you) in their territory, they will open up with crossbows, shotguns, and AK-74s.
- Psychopathic Manchild: It can create a some Mood Whiplash when you are almost shot by an arrow with a warning to leave, find some bandits who had been strung up to be eaten by wolves, only to find the "hostiles" awkwardly swing down from a tree while using cliche pirate speak. The player can also overhear a Pirate trying to see if a tumbleweed will suffice as a replacement for the kickball he accidentally kicked into the river, which the others are still giving him flak about.
- Schoolyard Bully All Grown Up: The Pirates' attitude toward the Pioneers is pretty much them bullying their brethren for being too soft on intruders. That, or because they are jealous most of the girls are with the Pioneers.
Pioneers
An isolationist faction of the Children of The Forest, who — while not much more accepting than the Pirates — still maintain some unease towards the more violent tendencies of the Pirates.
- Manchild: They are acting and talking like they are in elementary school, as they almost deified their Teacher that taught them how to survive in the wild.
- Wouldn't Hit a Girl: The Teacher taught the boys to be nice with the girls, like his other teachings it escalated to a dogma.
OSKOM
- A Lighter Shade of Grey: The OSKOM are the rulers of Novosibirsk Metro in technicality and are the ruling power of the Metro, yet they have no problems making things far more miserable for the Metro's residents by adding an economic caste system between the rich and poor. And it ended so badly that it led to the collapse of the whole station. They're hardly heroic nor hardly villainous in a sense, but they do what is best of their own interests.
- Big Bad Ensemble: Alongside the Novosibirsk rioters in The Two Colonels, who want to overthrow and destroy the OSKOM for causing Novosibirsk's living conditions to go downhill with their rigid rules. While they're actively not the threat to Slava, their actions and especially Tolya's pragmatic actions make them an antagonist by proxy to Slava.
- Corrupt Bureaucrat: Specifically the OSKOM High Command, its leaders.
- Fantastic Caste System: The "Clean" (rich) and "Dirty" (poor) stations they created, in order to create an economical divide between the differing economic sides, with the anti-rad supplies as the main currency of the Metro. But it instead caused more problems than good when the residents of the "Dirty" station began rioting, kickstarting the collapse of Novosibirsk.
- Hazy-Feel Turn: While not inherently villainous in their own right, the societal collapse in Novosibirsk Metro is what slowly gives them the impression of being villainous, largely thanks to their actions. The only truly evil members of the organisation are its corrupt leaders, who are the catalysts of Novosibirsk Metro's downfall. The DLC's Big Bad Tolya, meanwhile, is more of the Pragmatic Villainy scale, as he was pushed further into villainy, thanks to the screw-up done by his superiors.
- Mirroring Factions: Serves as one to the Order. Both are militaristically disciplined protectors of the peace whose members are fanatically devoted to their superior officers. OSKOM had unfortunately taken on more responsibility than they could handle in the long-term, breaking the public’s trust and sparking a war.
- Police State: After the peak of anti-rad shortage escalated to alarming levels, OSKOM become more pragmatic in their efforts to stop the Novosibirsk Metro residents from hoarding cases of the drug by implementing rationing. Those who don't comply, however, are immediately on the grounds for arrest.
- The Remnant: Invoked much more in Metro Exodus. By the time Artyom and Miller reached Novosibirsk, OSKOM is anything but a remnant organisation of its former self, with key members like Tolya and Slava being dead, and with Kirill being the only member alive.
