Metro Awakening

About Metro Awakening

Metro Awakening is the first VR game in the Metro series, made and published by Vertigo Games (the studio behind Arizona Sunshine) and released on 7 November 2024 for PC VR, PlayStation VR2 and Meta Quest. Its story was written by Metro creator Dmitry Glukhovsky and is set in 2028, five years before Metro 2033, among the survivors living in the Moscow subway after a nuclear war.

You play Serdar, a doctor who goes into the tunnels to find medicine for his wife Yana. The store describes it as a supernatural origins story: alongside radiation, bandits and mutants, the tunnels hold ghosts and spirits, and Serdar's grip on what is real slips as he goes deeper.

Everything is done with your own hands. You pull on the gas mask and change its filters, load each gun by hand and fight with hand-made weapons. Serdar is no soldier, so fights are slow and bullets are scarce, and you can try stealth instead of a fight in some encounters.

The fear is mostly darkness and scarcity. Much of the game is spent in pitch-black stations, often trying to restore power to get the lights back on, with your torch failing and your ammunition low as something moves in the tunnel ahead. Reviewers at PlayStation Universe and Duuro Plays called it among the most frightening VR games they had played, and said it relies more on atmosphere than on jump scares.

It suits players who liked the slow, scrounging tension of Into the Radius or the hands-on shooting of Arizona Sunshine and want something darker and story-led. Critics noted the controls, stealth and later story pacing as weaker points.

How to play Metro Awakening

1. Buy it for the VR headset you own: Steam for PC VR headsets, the PlayStation Store for PS VR2, or the Meta Quest store for Quest 2, 3 or 3S.
2. Decide whether to play sitting, standing or roomscale; the game supports all three.
3. Follow Serdar from the station into the tunnels, picking up ammunition, filters and health wherever you find them.
4. Put on your gas mask in contaminated areas and swap its filter before it runs out.
5. Load and aim each weapon by hand, and decide in each encounter whether to fight or sneak past.
6. Look for ways to restore power in dark areas so you can see what is waiting for you.

Tips

• Search every shelf and corpse for bullets and filters; there are few, and there is no melee weapon to fall back on.
• Practise reloading each gun calmly in a safe spot so you do not fumble it when a mutant is on you.
• When your torch flickers, slow down and listen before you walk into the dark.
• Avoid fights you do not need, especially with mutants, to save ammunition for the ones you cannot avoid.

Questions