Metro: Last Light Diaries Part Six

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 continue Metro: Last Light Redux.

Following my trip on a boat to Venice station, slight struggle with Pavel, and escape through a swamp I was on my way to a church that was hopefully occupied with my fellow rangers…

My next destination would be Oktyabrskaya, where the child Dark One - and some kind of virus - had been taken by the Communists. But first I had to find the church, which wasn’t in sight from where I landed. I began exploring, doing my best to still stay out of the water. There was howling from watchers, so I went inside a building, clattering some tin can alarms. Then I heard a woman’s voice, so went further into the room - and got floored by a big log of wood when I hit a tripwire.

As I got back up, the voice told me to get to the church, and I noticed it was coming from a phone. Great way to troll me, voice… After picking up some night vision goggles, I cautiously exited the building and heard more howling, so waited for half a dozen watchers to galop past. I followed the relatively dry land around, almost running into another group of watchers. Three stayed in place, meaning that I had to backtrack a little to avoid them, or risk being attacked by more.

Sneaking around, however, didn’t prevent me from being attacked by one of the bigger shrimps. It chased me and I ran around, desperately trying to find which way I needed to go, then swore and ran into the water towards a building. It turned out to be the right move, as the shrimp buggered off when I reached the derelict building. I went inside and upstairs, avoiding some more tin can alarms, and staying away from a few lurkers as they ran around.

Reaching a wooden runway, the woman contacted me again and told me to get moving. I went down the runway and crossed the ruins of whatever building once stood there. As soon as I hopped onto the log which would take me to safety, the big shrimp knocked me off and attacked me.

The rangers that had come out of the church helped me out by shooting the smaller shrimp that tried to attack me, but from the amount of ammo I pumped into the big guy, I can only assume that I was alone in killing it. I tried setting it on fire with molotovs, but they didn’t seem to do anything to it that my shotgun wasn’t.

Once it had eventually died, I went into the church and met up with the woman - Anna, who I had last seen providing me cover fire prior to the Nazis capturing me. After I had rested, she made some vague attempt at apologising, but gave no actual explanation as to why she allowed me to be captured. As such, I still suspected that she was in on it with Pavel, whose own plan rested on the fact that I would be captured by the Nazis. She had stopped calling me a rabbit, and apparently respected me for my fighting ability.

After buying some ammo and a rifle, I met back up with Anna, who was going to take us through the catacombs beneath the church, all the way to Oktyabrskaya. One of the rangers mentioned something down there called Big Momma, but then there was a knock at the door. When questioned, they used an old password, and Anna recognised the voice as Lesnitsky - who I knew to be working with the Communists - just before the door exploded inwards.

I was conscious enough to see Anna get taken away, but blacked back out. Once I awoke, I followed the Communist’s trail of bodies into the catacombs. There was a weird section of tunnel that was full of ghosts of people, and made my night vision goggles and torch short circuit, but they were easily avoided in case they would hurt me from contact. I climbed into a rudimentary lift, and went down.

Of course, this now being underground and unpopulated, there was an abundance of nosalises, as well as a roar and thudding which made the whole area shake as I went further down. Then the nosalises began attacking the lift.

Several dead nosalis later, they piled on the lift and almost killed us all as it went crashing down. Eventually, I found my way to a shrine where I lit some candles, but it didn’t open a cache of weapons or money like I had hoped it would. When I reached a dead end, a roar alerted the nosalises, which attacked me before falling to my shotgun fire.

There was a wheel to open a door, which I turned and went through, before riding a cart downwards. I spotted a nosalis hanging from a rock arch ahead, so shot it, which caused a bunch of them to swarm me. Including a few that shot me with some kind of energy discharge, much like the ones in the depot a year ago. Once they were dead, I went up some stairs and carefully checked out the area ahead. I sniped a nosalis, which brought another running to me, so I shot it as well before heading over to find a water-powered lift. I pulled the handle, and more mutants attacked me.

Minutes later, I climbed into the lift, and went up to a wooden bridge. As I crossed it, the Big Mama appeared and charged me, causing the bridge to collapse and taking us both down with it. This was bigger than the average nosalis, but at least it didn’t have claws. Since it kept running at me, I kept my distance and tried to make it hurt itself on the stone posts strategically placed around the arena. After a bit of that, it burst through a wall and ran from me. Since it picked this fight, I followed it to a new area, full of stone walls and more posts. As it ran at me around the place, a couple of ordinary nosalises joined in, but it wasn’t too long before everything was dead. Also the roof and walls were leaking…

The walls all but exploded inwards, flooding the area and dragging me through a hole in the floor, and through tunnels. I hit the ground face-first and lost consciousness. Waking to what must be my twelfth concussion, I started down the new section of tunnel I found myself in. I heard Anna coughing from a ventilation shaft, so climbed up a ladder and into it, where I saw two men with her. They were planning on using her in their plans for D6, which required her to have a gas mask.

Shuffling further down the shaft, I saw two Communists in masks execute several “infected” men. I got out of the shaft, put on my gas mask, and killed them before heading into a rail tunnel. A man was loading a train car with some boxes, as I carefully took out three men. Then everything went wrong, and I had to messily shoot the other five or six men…

Once clear, I headed into the station proper, where people lived. It was filled with smoke, and maybe even the virus, so I was glad that I had kept my gas mask on this whole time. My attempts to be stealthy didn’t go very well, and the kill squad was soon after me, in the flame-covered station. Long minutes later, I emerged victorious, and went for the door that I heard Lesnitsky behind. I based one of his men’s faces in, but it delayed me long enough for him to grab Anna and hold a knife to her throat. He demanded I not move, so I shot him in the face.

Lesnitsky threw Anna at me, smashing my gas mask before running away. I realised she also didn’t have a gas mask, as we urgently made our way up the nearby escalator. We were both suffocating - and maybe worse - but had to get to the next station Koltsevaya. As we approached, Hansa soldiers - a faction friendly towards the rangers - rescued us.

Waking up in quarantine, Anna told me how she felt. If we were infected, she was afraid. Alone in a room with clear plastic walls, we laid together to feel alive…