Editorial | The dark tunnels of the Metro.

By Sam Coles:

Sometimes humanity needs to start at square one, where and atrocity grips the planet. This is what happens in the world of Metro, where a global conflict brings the world to its knees where society needs to go underground and rebuild. Some try to stick together and survive, while others try to bring old values that destroyed the planet in the first place with dictatorship and fascist ideas.

Metro is about survival and rebuilding society, you play as Artyom a man who is a part of the Rangers who are a peace keeping force who act as a neutral party in the tunnels. However there are other forces that are trying to resurrect old values, such as the Reds who want to restore Soviet values of communism and the Nazi’s which do I really have to explain what they want. Not only that they all share a common threat of mutants in the metros, and of course “The Dark Ones”, which sounds more racist every time I say it, but I digress.

The tunnels are where you spend most of your time in the Metro series, where there is nothing more than the darkness with little light sources minus your torch and lighter. Like most good survival horror games Metro is very minimal with its music, it relies on the distant hums of pipes, the gargling mumbles of mutants as they snack on their prey and quiet whispers of people trying to survive. It’s these moments that the game truly shines, as some may try and play it like a traditional shooter but the game will punish you for that as you are better off sticking to the shadows.

What I like about Metro’s atmosphere is that when you are explore the titular tunnels you can see a glimpse in previous society, you see train carts abandoned with discarded notes from loved ones or employers. You see decomposed corpse sitting when they were living their everyday lives before the nukes drop, or seeing loved ones embracing each other one last time. It’s this sort of glimpse into the past that made me realise just how fragile life is, at any moment some fool can press a button and our very existence and way of life is extinguished. Now it may be a tad hyperbolic to have this sort of outlook on the game, but life is fragile and we could all die tomorrow at the expense of some else’s mistake and Metro shows the extreme version of that outlook.

Not all is bleak and horrible within the metro there are safe havens for you to rest, where you can kick your feet up and enjoy a nice drink while chatting with other survivors. This is a great contrast to the oppressive atmosphere of the dark tunnels of the metro and irradiated wastes of the surface. It’s a great juxtaposition from the rest of the game, as people are not terrified of monstrosities human or not, they can be well…. People. They can relax knowing that nothing is going to kill them, unless they live in the more oppressive regions ruled by the Communist Reds or Nazis. It just shows even in dyer straights that we as a species can come together, laugh and relax because when you are in a situation like this the best medicine is laughter and company from your fellow man.

Metro is a series that shows what happens when everything is wiped out, and where we have to rebuild society from scratch. It veers its ugly side as you have people who want to dig up old values that have caused atrocities in history, but most want to survive and be with their loved ones.