Metro: Last Light Redux

Metro: Last Light Redux is a reworked version of the 2013 action game Metro: Last Light, loosely following on from Dmitry Glukhovsky's novels and set a year after the events of Metro 2033 in the contaminated tunnels and ruins of a Moscow destroyed by a nuclear strike. The 2014 Redux edition moved the game onto an improved engine base that 4A Games had honed alongside the Metro 2033 Redux remaster, unified both approaches to play - stealthy infiltration and more open firefights - into a single selectable style, reworked the lighting and character models, and added all the add-on content released so far to the package, including a new, significantly harder Ranger mode.

The player once again takes on the role of Artyom, who travels through the contaminated surface and claustrophobic tunnels among factions of survivors, fanatics, bandits, and the supernatural phenomena plaguing the metro. The game relies on a tense atmosphere, managing limited ammunition that also serves as currency with traders, maintaining a gas mask with filters of limited lifespan, and a choice between sneaking through with light and shadow or direct confrontation. Redux also enabled switching between Survival and Spartan modes at any time during play, so anyone could fine-tune their own level of tension and difficulty without having to start the game over.

The Redux edition launched on Xbox One in August 2014, alongside the PlayStation 4 and PC versions, as one of the titles that in the first year of the new console generation showed how the hardware would handle older games reworked for higher performance. In technical comparisons of the time, the Xbox One version came out slightly worse than the rival console - to keep the game running smoothly, small concessions in image quality had to be made compared to the PS4 version. In terms of gameplay and content, however, the versions did not differ - both console editions offered the same campaign, the same package of earlier expansions, and the same newly added Ranger mode, so the difference was purely technical and barely noticeable to an average player outside of direct comparison.

Why play it: Whoever prefers Xbox gets the same campaign and Ranger mode as on PS4, just with a slightly more modest image - a difference the average player would barely notice outside of a direct comparison.