New Metro 2033 Update Lets You Experience the Horrors in 4K

Gaming classics get remasters all the time, a standard practice that allows new players to try out flagship titles with a few modern bells and whistles attached. The only issue with this practice is that, eventually, presentation and standards will continue to progress, leaving some remasters in the dust even after they were brought up to snuff.

Luckily, with modern update practices and consistent marketplaces like Steam, studios can give their already existing re-releases another touch of love, exactly how 4A Games is helping out both existing Metro remasters.

Both Metro 2033 Redux and Metro Last Light Redux have received massive visual quality updates, bringing them into the modern era with 4K resolution options, uncapped frame rates, and improved audio fidelity.

Keeping Up Appearances

Many remasters have always felt like a bit of an awkward patch job in the long run, especially when compared to full-from-the-ground-up remakes. While remakes often bring something wild and new to the table, either because of the age of the original or a new vision granted by the fresh team, remasters are specifically focused on taking an existing game and giving it touch-ups, with maybe a few quality-of-life changes if we're feeling frisky.

As such, especially for the era of the XBOX 360/PS3 remaster, the always marching tide of graphical improvement could easily leave a remaster behind, through no real fault of the team behind it. Luckily, with the modern ability to update games top to bottom, 4A Games has found a way to give Metro 2033 an extra little time in the spotlight, granting the game, alongside its sequel, a fantastic 4K graphical improvement.

Touching up textures and uncapping the framerate will help both Metro titles stand alongside their modern contemporaries easily, giving new gamers no excuse to try these fantastic apocalyptic titles. Metro is a decidedly dirty game, and A4 made careful choices on where and what to improve, so as to avoid sanding off the edges that make the Metro such a lived-in world.

If anything, the extra clarity makes the hopelessness of the franchise's darker moments hit harder, allowing players to be more easily pulled into the endless shadow and echoing chitters of the Metro's tunnels. The updates to both Metro 2033 and Metro Last Light are completely free, and both titles are on massive sale. If you want more of Fallout's grit without the series' trademark black comedy, Metro is the perfect dystopian dessert.

Chasing the White Whale

While the 4K update is a great thing to see, it highlights a focus of remasters that really sours me on them, as plenty over the years have focused solely on chasing newer graphical heights while giving up the original title's visual strengths. People are always going to enjoy better graphics, and there's absolutely a place for realism, but how far should we be willing to push older titles over focusing on new ones?

4A Games has found a way to give Metro 2033 an extra little time in the spotlight, granting the game, alongside its sequel, a fantastic 4K graphical improvement.

There is absolutely a place for remasters, and especially remakes, but the subject of these reduxes always seems to be games that don't really need them. If to pick games that got remasters, it would be titles that had amazing potential, but only scratched the surface. Of course, if I were deciding, I'm sure these remaster projects would be making far less money, which is what makes them so lucrative.

After all, people have already bought the classics, so they're sure to grab them again if we make them shinier and add a few more hours of gameplay.

To be clear, Metro 2033 is not one of these pointless ventures, as the remaster also served as a great port for a praised but fairly niche title. Now with an all-new facelift and the lowest sale price the game has seen, more are sure to enjoy their time underneath Moscow.

Metro 2033 Redux FPS Systems Released August 28, 2014 ESRB m Developer(s) 4A Games Publisher(s) Deep Silver Engine 4A Engine Franchise Metro

Genre(s) FPS