The year 2013 was packed with AAA shooters. There was Battlefield 4, Call of Duty: Ghosts, Killzone: Shadowfall, Bioshock Infinite, and plenty more. Unfortunately, many of those were riddled with bugs or online issues, or were just plain bad despite gargantuan budgets. So, it was quite a surprise that one of the best games of the year was a shooter from a small team out of Kiev, Ukraine.
Metro: Last Light takes practically the polar opposite approach of those big budget mega-shooters. Battlefield is all about the shooting, the killing, the explosions. Last Light, on the other hand, lets you go through the entire game without killing a soul. Provided mutant dog things don’t have souls that is.
It’s not just about going for the badass stealth playthrough either, it’s about playing the game like a good person. The best part of Last Light is its subtle, almost secret morality system. There’s no morality bar like you’d find in Mass Effect or what have you, instead it’s all about doing good things because they’re good, not to push that blue bar further. Players are just expected to behave morally, without any indication that doing so results in a different ending. Giving to the poor, helping people in trouble, sparing enemies, even just listening in on conversations all contribute to players’ ‘moral points,’ but more importantly contributes to the atmosphere of the world.
Playing the game without killing anyone is something of a revelation. Along with the morality system, it makes the game world feel like something you’re experiencing through the player character Artyom’s eyes rather than a series of obstacles for a pair of hands holding a gun to blast through like every other shooter. In short, Metro: Last Light provides the world of first-person shooters what Artyom provides the world of the Moscow metro: hope.
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