Metro Exodus

Introduction

Metro Exodus is 4A Games' post-apocalyptic survival shooter, published by Deep Silver. It originally released on 15 February 2019 as a timed Epic Games Store exclusive, arriving on Steam exactly one year later on 14 February 2020, at NZ$50.95. Following Artyom and a group of Spartan Rangers on a continent-spanning journey out of the Moscow Metro aboard a converted steam locomotive, it sits at 87% positive ("Very Positive") across 39,876 English-language Steam reviews. This review read the 100 most-helpful negative reviews of 5,183 total, plus a sample of the 100 most recent English reviews.

A real controversy, and specific consequences

The exclusivity deal itself draws direct, angry commentary in this review's negative sample. "Good game, looks beautiful, random ass technical issues and being yanked off the store leaves a sour taste in my mouth," reads one 806-vote review from November 2019. Another connects the deal directly to unfixed bugs a year later: "Crashes a ton for a game that's been out for a year. Oh wait that's right you can't get feedback on the Epic Game store from your customers." A third, from launch week: "I guess we aren't good enough to get the updates they promised would still come to steam" — a specific complaint about promised parity not being delivered to players who'd already bought the game elsewhere. This review found the same underlying grievance — the exclusivity period directly causing worse, longer-lasting bugs — repeated across multiple independent reviewers.

Specific, dateable bugs

Two named technical issues recur with enough independent corroboration to treat as more than isolated complaints. Twelve of the 100 negative reviews read mention crashes on the game's Caspian level or save corruption: "They never bothered fixing the save corruption and they never bothered fixing the crashes on Caspian that are all over the place and both issues have been reported by many people for the past year and a half," reads one detailed review. A separate, smaller cluster reports a game-breaking flashlight bug still active as of 2021: "Now I have the game breaking flashlight bug, where it doesn't work. So I can't progress further. It has been around since release so over 3 years, never been fixed," reads one review from that year.

A controversy that has clearly faded

What distinguishes this review's negative sample from several others this outlet has covered recently is the shape of its timeline: 68 of the 100 negative reviews read are dated 2019-2021, and only 2-3 from 2025-2026 combined. Recent English reviews run 88% positive, essentially matching the strong 87% lifetime figure — a pattern consistent with a real controversy that has genuinely settled rather than one still actively driving criticism. The franchise's continued health backs this up: 4A Games revealed a new Metro game in 2026, and the game's own Steam news feed shows the studio marking Metro's 15th anniversary and celebrating its community rather than managing an ongoing crisis.

Verdict

Metro Exodus carries a real, well-documented history — a 2019 Epic Games Store exclusivity deal that reviewers directly blame for letting specific bugs go unfixed for far longer than they should have, plus a genuine design shift toward semi-open levels that some series veterans still argue was the wrong call. What this review's data shows clearly, though, is that both complaints belong mostly to the past: negative reviews have declined sharply since 2021, and current sentiment matches the game's strong lifetime score. Worth playing today for the story and atmosphere, which this review's own negative sample keeps praising even while explaining separate historical grievances — and easy to try given how often it's discounted.