4A Games has reassured fans that they are working on the 4th game in the Metro series.
As reported by Insider Gaming, 4A made this statement at the same time that they announced Metro Awakening, a VR spin off set in the same Metro universe. 4A Games said:
“Development continues separately at 4A Games on the next mainline installment of the Metro series.”
Metro 2033 was originally a novel by Dmitry Glukhovsky, a Jewish Russian writer and journalist, who came up with the idea for it when he was still 18. Dmitry published the game online, for fans to freely read and spread the word.
The free novel’s popularity led to a partnership with Ukrainian game studio 4A Games, and a somewhat strange relationship between novels and video games. While Dmitry was not directly involved with the first Metro 2033 video game, it essentially adapts his original story.
Dmitry wrote a sequel novel, Metro 2034, which 4A Games found could not be properly adapted into a video game. So they instead worked with Dmitry on the story for the next game, Metro Last Light. Metro Last Light, in turn, inspired Dmitry’s next novel in the series, Metro 2035. And Metro 2035 was inspiration for the next video game, Metro Exodus. Because of this peculiar history, we don’t have any frame of reference for what Dmitry and 4A have planned next for the 4th Metro video game.
Both companies also happened to have gotten caught up in the unfortunate real life events of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. GSC Game World, the developer of the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. game franchise, and Mundfish, the developer of Atomic Heart, a Soviet take on Bioshock, found themselves on opposite sides of the war, even as both studios made moves to leave the warzone and publish their respective games to an international audience.
However, as noted above, Dmitry is a Jewish Russian, and his partner studio, 4A Games, happens to be Ukrainian. This awkward situation serves to highlight how connections between the two countries may seem contradictory, but used to be quite close. Dmitry currently lives in exile outside Russia for criticizing the war.
As you can imagine, 4A Games’ reassurance about a 4th Metro game wasn’t just about fans worried about the VR spinoff. 4A is currently in a tight spot, and it is not clear if Dmitry can even still be involved in the next game. At the very least, we know there is one in the works. We wish Dmitry Glukhovsky and 4A Games the best of luck, and we hope they can share some good news on this front in the future.
