Developed by Ukrainian studio 4A Games, the Metro franchise has made quite a name for itself over the past 9 years. The overall story of the franchise is based on Dmitry Glukhovsky’s novel Metro 2033. Both the novel as well as the games in the franchise follow the story of a ranger named Artyom, whose goal is to protect his home station from any external danger. The story is set in a post-apocalyptic Russia, 20 years after a nuclear war which wiped out billions of lives from the face of the Earth. The remaining survivors have taken shelter in underground metro stations as the surface is unbreathable due to the air being heavily irradiated. Both the surface as well as certain areas of the metro system are extremely dangerous for humans as they are filled with heavily mutated animals who will attack anyone on sight. Apart from mutant enemies, the player will also encounter human attackers from different factions with varying agendas.
The first game titled Metro 2033 was published by THQ, whereas Deep Silver published it’s Redux version as well it’s sequels, Metro: Last Light and Metro Exodus. Metro Exodus, the latest installment in the franchise, was released in February 2019 for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Microsoft Windows. The Windows version of the game has been and is still a matter of hot debate among various fans and critics. The game was up for pre-order on Steam but it was suddenly pulled from the store and was instead made an Epic Store exclusive. Even though users who pre-ordered Metro Exodus on Steam will have access to the game as well as any future downloadable content, the publisher’s sudden decision was met with negative reception by both fans and Valve Corporation who stated that it was “unfair”. Based on PC Gamer’s report, the game will however be up for sale again on Steam from February 2020 onwards. But looks like someone beat them to it.
Metro Exodus is coming to Microsoft Store for PC this week. Based on a newly added listing on Microsoft Store, the game will be available on their store for PC and will be up for sale on June 9, 2019.
Here’s what the listing says about the game –
“Flee the shattered ruins of the Moscow Metro and embark on an epic, continent-spanning journey across the post-apocalyptic Russian wilderness. Explore vast, non-linear levels, lose yourself in an immersive, sandbox survival experience, and follow a thrilling story-line that spans an entire year in the greatest Metro adventure yet.”
Here’s another fact that we should take a look at. Microsoft recently confirmed that they are going to bring the Xbox Game Pass to PC which will have a library of over 100 games. Deep Silver is one of the publishers whose games will be included in the library. And as mentioned above, Deep Silver is the publisher of Metro Exodus. Therefore it is highly probable that Metro Exodus will be included in the Xbox Game Pass PC library. Given the fact that the game’s Microsoft Store release date is the same as that of Microsoft’s E3 2019 Press Conference, perhaps our assumption would be officially confirmed at the event.
I’m pretty sure that Deep Silver’s decision to bring Metro Exodus to Microsoft Store for PC will be highly appreciated by fans all over the world, since many gamers are quite unhappy by the fact that some publishers are slowly leaning toward making their games exclusive to Epic Store. This is indeed a victory towards the battle against exclusivity as gamers will now have a choice to make rather than being forced to buy their games from a single store.