Metro Awakening VR review for PS VR2, Meta Quest, SteamVR

I came away from Metro Awakening VR feeling more like I had played a “Metro-lite” game than anything else, but that is ultimately just fine. It stands alone in the series as the only VR title, so by default, it brings a level of immersion in this world that none of the other titles could ever reach. While certainly not even close to my favorite game in the series, Metro Awakening proves yet again that VR is a growing medium that should and will receive more attention and support as time goes on.

Visually, Metro Awakening nails the doom and gloom that we have come to expect from the series, with VR only enhancing the utter hopelessness of this particular brand of apocalypse. You feel just how claustrophobic the metro tunnels are, contrasted by short trips to a surface that feels endless and endlessly empty. Death and despair surround you from start to finish, but there are pockets of humanity and hope scattered throughout, lending a small breath of life into this otherwise lifeless wasteland. The Metro series is one of my favorites when it comes to worldbuilding, and Awakening feels like a natural evolution for that. I conducted my review on the Quest 3, and while it was certainly a battery drainer, I found the performance to be above what I was expecting.

The audio design in VR games can arguably be just as important as the visuals as far as immersion goes. Metro Awakening understands this in ways that only Half-Life: Alyx understood prior. Each minute sound is given as much importance as the next, and they all demand your attention as you sneak your way through the metro.

Mechanically, Metro Awakening is simply fine. Longtime VR action players will find the way you interact with your inventory and items very familiar but will find the firearm handling to feel average at best. While some games put a great deal of focus on adding great weight and “oomph” to your firearms, the weapons in Metro Awakening feel a bit floaty and light. As far as interacting with the world around you, your mileage will vary. I found the quiet moments to be peaceful and explorative, but anytime stealth was required, or I found myself in a tense gunfight, the game seemed to actively fight against me in my goals.

This is not a game for first-time VR players who do not have their “VR Legs” yet, so to speak. I think that even with proper accessibility settings, Metro Awakening VR is going to test newer players’ stomachs and VR tolerance in a way that they might prefer to build up to. I also found myself coming untethered quite a few times, where my view or “head” would spontaneously fly off into space and leave me disoriented and staring down from an inappropriate height and angle at the ground I was on moments ago. These occurrences were few and far between, but no less jarring.

The story in Metro Awakening is a good one, although never quite as great as the mainline entries. This is partly because of the massive time difference between the main games and the VR title, and partly because of the way that VR stories have to be told. Cutscenes can’t play out the same way in VR, and interactions need to be briefer and much more observatory, in my experience. This leads to a tighter story overall, which doesn’t allow quite as much depth as you might like. I won’t spoil any of the story here, but you can rest assured that it does live up to the Metro name.

Overall, I think Metro Awakening VR is a worthy VR experience and a good Metro game, but it is not particularly groundbreaking on either front. I am thrilled to see more mainstream AAA titles getting VR releases that are more than just tacked-on afterthoughts. The quality that Metro Awakening manages to display is more than enough to justify other developers looking into making similar games and perhaps even a low-risk way to revive some other dormant franchises in VR (Resistance, please, I’m begging you). I hope to see more of this type of VR title in the future and am happy to see the medium continue to move forward.

Note: Vertigo Games provided us with a Metro Awakening VR code for review purposes.