14 DAY TRIAL // The developers from 4A Games have announced that the remastered version of Metro 2033 and Metro: Last Light will be released on the Linux platform.
If you are wondering what Redux means, you are probably not the only one. Both games have been out for some time, Metro 2033 since 2010 and Metro: Last Light since 2013. As you would expect, the second one in the series arrived with a much better graphics engine than the first.
The two titles probably share a common base, because 4A Games has been working to remake the first Metro with the engine used in Last Light. There are very few studios that do this kind of work, but the fact that we are now in between console cycles might have played an important role.
Now that Xbox One and PlayStation 4 have been released, the developer wanted to have its games on those platforms as well, which meant that it needed to give them a facelift in order to take advantage of the more powerful hardware.
The studio could have just released the second game on the new consoles, but it turns out that it's possible to also upgrade the first one, making it worthy of another launch. As you well know, Metro: Last Light has been the flagship game for SteamOS, the title that shows just how powerful and versatile Linux can be.
“4A Games and Deep Silver are bringing the iconic Metro series to the next generation. METRO REDUX features fully re-mastered and improved versions of both METRO 2033 and METRO: LAST LIGHT, creating the most compelling Metro experience ever. With re-worked next-gen visuals, smooth 60FPS gameplay on console, as well as new and improved content and features, METRO REDUX is much more than a simple HD upgrade,” said the devs in the official announcement.
Metro 2033, for example, comes with advanced lighting, dynamic weather, more detailed characters with improved animation, more dynamic destruction and improved smoke, fire and particle effects, much better gameplay, and, to top it all off, this version will also include all the DLCs that have been released so far.
On the other hand, Metro: Last Light is a much newer title and it didn't need an engine upgrade, but the guys and gals from 4A Games have added two new gameplay modes, called Survival Play Style and Spartan Play Style, making the game more challenging.
In both games you play as Artyom, a guy that has been living in the Moscow metro along with the other survivors after a nuclear holocaust. It turns out that the surface is not entirely uninhabitable and that a new humanoid species has appeared. Their goals are unclear, but the humans want to destroy them nonetheless.
The launch date for these two new titles hasn't been revealed just yet, but the Linux versions should arrive later this year. If you already have the old games in your library, you will be able to purchase them from Steam at half the price.
