4A Games has made an interesting announcement in their Metro 15th anniversary message.
To quote 4A Games directly:
“Alongside the evolution of Metro, our studio has also been on a journey from releasing our first game with a 60-person team in 2010, to now 200+ across two locations – From Kyiv, where 150 of our development team are based, to our headquarters in Sliema, Malta, following our expansion in 2014 – with two triple-A projects in development – The next Metro of course, and a brand-new unannounced IP. Using everything we have learned over the past 20 years we are pushing our ambitions even higher than ever before.
We do want to reassure you that work is continuing on both of our projects despite missile strikes, air-raid sirens, and terror still raining down on Ukraine. These circumstances are incredibly challenging, the situation remains dangerous and not within our control, but we are currently as safe as possible, and we want to manage your expectations around the reveal of the next Metro title, it will be ready when it is ready, and we can’t wait for you to see it.”
4A Games had previously explained the situation between themselves and Reburn, who is now making an original IP video game with Hollywood filmmaker Nicholas Winding Refn. But what we didn’t know at the time was that 4A is also working on an original title of their own.
4A Games than acknowledged that the Russian invasion of Ukraine has affected development of their games. We already have some idea of what this has been like, as Microsoft has gone so far as to make a documentary for one of 4A’s peers in Ukraine, GSC Game World.
But interestingly, 4A also took this opportunity to publicly thank a longtime friend of theirs; Dmitry Glukhovsky, the Russian author of the Metro 2033 novel where the first video game was based on. To quote 4A directly:
“Metro has always had a hard-hitting, political, anti-war and often emotional story – and you can be sure these themes will continue thanks to our ongoing collaboration with franchise creator, author, and activist Dmitry Glukhovsky.
Dmitry has always spoken out against the war in Ukraine from the start – a courageous decision for any russian, that has seen him sentenced to jail (in absentia) – and we are proud to have him as a friend and co-creator as we tell this next, and never more relevant chapter of Metro together.”
It’s certainly heartening that this partnership between Glukhovsky and 4A Games, that precedes the 2014 Russian invasion of Ukraine by only a few years, has endured through the difficult times Ukraine went through. They made the two Metro sequels and the remasters with everything that had been going on around them.
But now, we’re certainly curious about the new IP 4A Games revealed they have in the works. Is this game far along enough that we’ll get it in this console generation? Or is it more likely to now come in the next one, just like the 4th Metro video game? If we’re lucky, we may be finding out about it in a matter of months.
