Metro: Last Light Diaries Part Nine

This is my ongoing exploration of the Metro games, played in release order. I will chronicle my playthrough of each title in turn and discuss any recurring themes and noteworthy events. This time I finish Metro: Last Light Redux.

With Pavel having been taken care of, and General Korbut’s plans unveiled, I was on my way to Polis…

The child Dark One and I had reached a park, and upon entering it could see trees being knocked over by whatever lived inside. This did not look good. As I walked along the only trail - there was plenty of water waiting to drown me - I could hear a low growl from something. Constantly.

A shrimp tried to eat me, resulting in it getting gunned down for its efforts. Things were fine, though stormy and with that always present growling, as I went through the park, until I happened across some watchers. I let them go past me, but one of them must have turned around, because it clobbered me from behind!

Gunning down a handful of them, and wondering where the child Dark One had gotten off to, I made my way into an area that might have once been a fountain. Now it was more like a sacrificial altar. And the watcher pack that descended upon me seemed perfectly willing to carry out the culling.

Thankfully, after killing only a couple of them, something made the watchers scarper. On the one hand, that was good for me. On the other hand, it meant that whatever knocked the tree down was enough to scare a pack of watchers. Following a path, I wound up crawling through some vegetation. Ahead, I saw a few mutant bear cubs playing. Until their mother appeared on a ridge and roared at them.

Now this was obviously what had been making the noise. It was a couple of dozen meters away from me, and as it walked away it made everything around me shake. I came out of my hiding place, with the cubs nowhere to be seen, and walked up to a ridge at the end of the path. I carefully got my claymore mines ready, and ensured all of my weapons were fully loaded, replaced my filter, took a deep breath and stepped into what was inevitably the ring.

As predicted, the bear made itself known, clomping out of the hedges and into the marshy area I was stood in. I immediately opened fire, even before the Dark One explained that it was protecting its children. What followed was an intense bout of running away, placing claymores, firing my new automatic shotgun and running some more. Unfortunately, a few of my claymores were set off by watchers who came to attack both me and the bear. Eventually, after two filters and a couple of kilograms of ammunition, the bear ran off through a thicket.

Not that I wanted to, but I followed the bear and found it catching its breath. Some watchers attacked it, but I killed them before they could kill the bear, and it ran off. With that out of the way, I had found my way to Polis, as Miller and Khan were at a door beckoning me in.

As I headed inside, a human child followed me much to everyone’s surprise. When it revealed itself to be the Dark One, Miller wanted to shoot it. Khan talked him down, and the Dark One connected me with him. Together, we saw a door in D6, and as it opened, it revealed a bunch of Dark Ones. The child wasn’t alone, it's kind were in D6! Not the ones I’d blown up, obviously, but there they were.

As we came to, Khan had the idea of using the Dark One’s mind-connecting ability to find out the truth as to what General Secretary Moskvin was up to. So we headed into Polis proper, through decontamination and past a whole bunch of Nazis there for the peace talks.

Entering the room where the “leader” of the Red Line was orating, Khan shouted that Moskvin was a liar, and the Dark One (back in its disguise as a human) went up to him. I was placed within his mind, and opened a few doors to uncover his secrets. When we both came to, he had apparently been talking about how he had murdered his brother. He bellowed that it was all General Korbut’s fault, and that he was this minute attacking the D6 facility.

Not wanting to waste a moment, Miller, Khan and I ran for the armoury. We loaded up and took a train back to D6, passing Anna along the way. I supposed there wasn’t really any need for a sniper in the confines of D6. The Dark One was with us, but as we disembarked the train it disappeared off to find its brethren.

We got into position as the Red Line attacked on three fronts. The one we guarded, they attacked by ramming a train through the barricaded blast doors. The firefight was manic, but was ended when rockets began flying. I was knocked down, so Ulman dragged me back behind another set of bollards, and we resumed the intense firefight.

When the bullets ceased, we had moments to catch our breath before a tank crashed in through another door across the way. It shelled us as we tried to disable it from our position. I say we, it was actually all up to me. I took out its wheels, then blew it up by shooting its ammo supply.

There were a few moments to resupply, and grab a huge gatling gun, before more troops flooded towards us. I unleashed a torrent of ammo unlike any had seen before, laying waste to the Reds as even as they jumped over the barrier. In short order, they were gone, and a bunch of men with shields approached us. Unfortunately, my torrent of death had a limited amount of rounds, and I couldn’t get more…

The men were hiding a flamethrower, so when they parted for him to fire, we had to shoot at him when he was uncovered. It didn’t take too long - thanks to five sticks of dynamite - before they were disposed of as well. We cheered, we huzzah’d, and we rested on our laurels, while Miller told me that D6 was rigged to self destruct. Then another train came in.

Waking from another bout of unconsciousness, the voice of General Korbut made me wish for a gun. He taunted Miller, who told me to blow D6, which changed Korbut’s attention to me. I struggled over to a control panel, which Korbut passively watched me do.

As he asked what it was doing, I pulled the lever and explosions rang out. The whole facility was engulfed in fiery death, dozens of Red Line troops and rangers wiped out as bombs blew us all to hell…

And that’s how Artyom saved the Metro, Anna told his child some years later. The Dark Ones left, promising to return one day, and life returned to normal…

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FINAL THOUGHTS

Well, I’m kinda bummed that I got the bad ending. I thought I had found enough secrets, and made enough “good” decisions to weigh it in my favour, but obviously not. Nonetheless, I enjoyed the hell out of this game. Even the bits with the spiderbugs didn’t put me off completely.

As with 2033, how alive each station felt was simply brilliant. Realistic conversations, the sheer weight of people in crowds… It was great. The levels were a little linear for the most part, but there were enough secrets hidden away that it never felt like I was running in a straight line. They also fixed one of my issues with 2033 - the kids voices sounded like kids.

I really enjoyed Last Light, and both games as a series. There were more scares and jumps than I was expecting, and if the game hadn’t been as enjoyable as it is, I definitely would have given up playing during the spiderbug section, if not the library in 2033.

If you’ve enjoyed these diaries and had the urge to play them for yourself - you definitely should. Metro Exodus may have been pushed back to 2019, but that doesn’t mean you should wait to jump in at the third entry. Although I certainly know that I will be jumping on that when it’s out. Thanks for reading.