Earlier this week, 4A Games published a new blog post on its official website to celebrate the Metro franchise's 15th anniversary. Following up on an earlier statement from a couple of years back, the development team openly said that the next installment will be much darker because of the Ukraine-Russia War:
In 2022, a full-scale Russian invasion changed how we wanted to tell the story of the next Metro game. As art became life for many of our developers in Ukraine, we drew from that lived experience to create an even darker story, those themes already present in Metro becoming ever-more apparent and important. As conflict, the struggle for power, the horrors of tyranny, and the price of freedom have become part of our lives over the past 3+ years, we are still living and working during this wartime, and that inevitably shapes the games we make.
Metro has always had a hard-hitting, political, anti-war, and often emotional story - and you can be sure these themes will continue thanks to our ongoing collaboration with franchise creator, author, and activist Dmitry Glukhovsky. Dmitry has always spoken out against the war in Ukraine from the start – a courageous decision for any russian, that has seen him sentenced to jail (in absentia) - and we are proud to have him as a friend and co-creator as we tell this next, and never more relevant chapter of Metro together. Rest assured, you are in for quite the ride.
The development team also shared an update on their current status. 4A Games is now composed of over 200 members, 150 of whom are still in Kyiv, while the rest are located in the studio's headquarters in Sliema, Malta. Besides Metro, 4A Games is also working on an unannounced intellectual property.
The Ukrainian developers are inevitably still impacted by the war, and as such, they asked fans to manage expectations when it comes to the reveal of the next Metro: it will be ready when it's ready. Indeed, it's already been over six years since the release of Metro Exodus, and it sounds like we'll have to wait a while yet before we hear anything concrete.
Meanwhile, fans can look forward to La Quimera, a sci-fi first-person shooter game in development at Reburn, formerly 4A Games Ukraine and now completely independent of 4A Games.
