Is Metro 2033 Hard

[Natalí Stibb]

The easiest game difficulty, as the name suggests. Ammo is plentiful, and magazines scavenged are often full. Both Artyom and his enemies take rather substantial levels of damage to kill, earning the difficulty a criticism for "bullet sponges". Enemies are less aware of player whereabouts. Armor purchased will be more effective. In Metro: Last Light, resources are easier to obtain, items sold by vendors are cheaper compared to other difficulties.

Might pose a challenge to new FPS players and an adventure for experienced players. Ammo is found in large quantities and players won't run dry easily. Enemies do not usually pose a major threat and are fairly easy to kill.

A real challenge. Enemies are stronger than on medium or easy and can kill Artyom quickly. Ammo is scarce, but weapon damage is increased to compensate. In Metro: Last Light, those who play on hardcore must carefully manage their resources. Its the similar setting in 2033. The items sold by vendors comparatively are more expensive, while the MGRs are harder to find.

A more "realistic" difficulty, but not necessarily harder if the player keeps their eyes open. A stray bullet or two can kill Artyom, but it works both ways as all player weapons do roughly three times the damage they usually inflict. Ammo pickups usually contain one to five bullets. The HUD has crosshairs disabled. Total amount of stored ammo for each ammo type is also halved, for instance 180 5.45 mm rounds total instead of 360 in normal. Throwing knife total is doubled, from 5 to 10. The player is also limited to only carrying two weapons at a time

An ultimate challenge for the player. The Heads-Up Display is disabled completely save for laser pointers found on mid to late-game weapons in 2033, or modded weapons in Last Light. Both Artyom and his enemies are "glass cannons", killing and dying incredibly fast, up to the point of one shot - one kill. Stealth is advised, since the run-and-gun approach is severely limited by low ammunition supplies.

Metro 2033 is a very difficult book for me to review, and this is because while it had several features that I loved, it also had several that I disliked. What this does is put me in a very difficult position of trying to weigh up whether the good things can outweigh the bad or vice versa, and that has been a very difficult decison. Either way, I would still say Metro 2033 is worth reading, but be warned it is not an easy read.


Metro 2033 follows the last surviving Russian people who have exiled into the underground train system - the Metro - after a nuclear catastrophe has ravaged and poisoned the land above them. In the metro they have to deal with not just the occasional mutant, but also extremist groups of humans, keeping themselves fed, and keeping out of trouble.
The biggest thing that this book has going for it is how interesting the world is. I found it very interesting how some of the most dangerous things that lead character Artyom encounters are not the mutants, but his fellow humans. It provokes some powerful thoughts on what we become in extreme situations. When the game of survival gets serious, there's no limit to the atrocities a person will commit to stay alive. Additionally, author Dmitry Glukhovsky has clearly put a huge amount of thought into what his future looks like. There is so much history, and so many cultures living in the tunnels - each one is thought out to the last detail, despite the fact that few are significantly spotlighted. This is a testament to how dedicated Glukhovsky is to this book and it's wonderful to see.

Additionally, Glukhovsky has also put a lot of thought into his characters. Despite the fact that Artyom is the only character that stays in the book from start to finish, he may well be one of the least interesting. This is due to Glukhovsky bringing in a new character almost every chapter, developing them and then abandoning them for a new one and so on. However because we only get a small amount of time with each character introduced, it makes them far more interesting leaving some unanswered questions and a desire for more. The stand-out character of the whole book for me was Khan, a man who believes he is the reincarnation of Genghis Khan and has some very intriguing dialogue throughout the book.

While Glukhovsky's world-building and character work is absolutely outstanding, as I said in the first paragraph I did have a few problems with the book as well, and these problems actually made the book quite hard for me to finish. First, while Glukhovsky's future was beautifully thought out, it was also a very sad and depressing future that by the end of the book was genuinely getting me down a little. This I have no doubt was intended as the book has very strong anti-nuclear, pro-environment messages throughout. The whole thing reads as a severe warning that if we send our nuclear warheads to action the outcome could be more disastrous than any previous war. While this is a message that I strongly agree with, and I love the fact that the book has a message and isn't meaningless, by the end of the book I couldn't help but feel a sense of hopelessness of our impending doom.

Also, the book did seem to drag on a little by the end. While it was interesting to see the cultures of Glukhovsky's creation, by the time I was around 3/4 of the way through the book, I really just wanted it to end. This may be due to the aforementioned depressing feeling that accompanies Glukhovsky's future, but it wasn't helped by the huge word count of the book. Metro 2033 is deceivingly long. While at first glance the book appears a fairly average length, when you open the book and see the size of the text and the very filled pages you will be able to understand that the book is not going to be a quick, nor an easy read.

Yeah, there was one part in Metro 2033 that was insanely more difficult than it ever needed to be, but couldn't you just switch the difficulty mid-game, beat that part, and then switch the difficulty back?

@artemesia: Far Cry 2 is done really well to me. I like games where you can just pull up a map in the world to see where to go, I wish 3 kept that in the game, kind disappointing that they went with more HUD in that game.

I like Ranger Hardcore personally. That said I wish there was a way to check how much ammo you have. As much as I appreciate the "immersion" of it all I think it'd be nice to still have an inventory screen that shows you how much kit is in your rucksack. Shit, just do an animation ZombiU style that shows Artyom (first or third person whatever) going into his rucksack and checking his inventory.

@basm321: I agree, but there are some encounters (on the surface primarily) where stealth just isn't an option and getting your good buddy Mister Double Barrel to pitch in is a must. It'd really come in handy to have some semblance of an idea how you're doing or, like you said, if you're shooting money.

Throwing knives are a pretty handy and cheap way to kill a lot of enemies pretty fast. The visuals on PC are gorgeous and these developers have a great eye for detail. It is just amazing that a relatively small team can make a shooter that is better than most of the games made by far larger teams with much more financing available to them.

Ranger Hardcore, I don't see much of a difference to go down to ranger standard when you still can't see the ammo if you pull up the journal like in 2033. Bit of a pain to memorise the controls, but at least you hear the knife sound when you're close enough for stealth moves.

Also, you get 100 monies if you start with Ranger mode, but I'm always carrying over 300 money-bullets at any given time, and nothing to spend it on, and can't pick up bullets cus I'm full all the time. What can you spend money on besides upgrades and ammo?

I'm playing this on hardcore and enjoying it as well, but there are some annoying glitches (or intentional design choices, I can't tell) that make the game frustrating. On PC I can't check my inventory to see how many bullets I have or even figure out if I'm using pre-war bullets. For some reason I also can't access my night vision goggles even though I'm more than halfway through the game. There's also been numerous odd environmental non-interactions. Highlighted masks, filters, ammo, weapons that I can't pick up. The game is definitely much easier than 2033, the hit stealth kills almost break it.

The Metro series takes place in the Moscow metro system. The surface has become an irradiated wasteland after a nuclear war that devastated the earth. The known survivors of this new world huddle inside the metro trying to survive against the new horrors that have been formed in the wake of this new nightmare. The main character, Artyom, lives in the station known as VDNKh, and is given a task to save his station. He must travel to Polis to alert people of a new danger that threats the Metro.

My other big disappointment was that there were a lot of characters introduced, but only like two or three really felt like a blip on my radar. The Metro has a personality and life of its own, and I assumed that the citizens who inhabited it would as well. Instead, a lot of the characters felt like cardboard cut-ins to solely move the plot forward or just be a placeholder for XY or Z reason. It made it really hard to care about people dying tragically when I can barely remember who the heck that person was.

Metro 2033 was a really solid book and a must-read for anyone who is interested in the world at all. I am tempted enough to check out the sequels and it made me even more excited to finish up Metro Exodus when I get the chance.

I am now experiencing crashes in 3D applications (tested: Metro 2033 redux, Overwatch) after a cold boot. There's no bluescreens, I just get a still image and abrasively looping sound until I hard-reset. Windows event log and reliability tool don't show any problems except that Windows was shut down unexpectedly. After that, the PC runs fine. Here's what I've tested so far:

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