Metro Exodus’s DLC Is Worth a Trip Back to the Tunnels

I’ve been spending much more time at home lately due to current events, which has given me an opportunity to revisit some games and finish up loose ends. I’ve been spending some time back in the nuclear wastelands of Metro Exodus, playing the two DLC packs, The Two Colonels and Sam’s Story. Each is a story mission, shifting the focus away from Artyom to new characters and locations—great if you’re just popping back in to play the DLC, because there’s no need to remember all the small plot details of the entire game.

Warning: this review contains spoilers for Metro Exodus.

The Two Colonels

The Two Colonels is set in the last chapters Metro Exodus in the Novosibirsk section—at this point in the main game, as Artyom you search for medicine for Anna while Colonel Miller hunts down satellite scans of Lake Baikal. This DLC follows Colonel Miller during this time, framed through the eyes of Colonel Khlebnikov, the man who originally set off to find the scans a year prior.

Khlebnikov is a soldier of the Novosibirsk metro station. You already know from playing the main game that Novosibirsk is doomed: it’s running out of anti-radiation medication for its population. Khlebnikov must deal with dwindling resources and growing civil unrest as he tries to raise his young son on his own.

The Two Colonels feels like a return to previous Metro games; where Exodus is set mostly outdoors in open levels, the levels here are largely in the metro tunnels. As Khlebnikov clears worms and their organic growths from tunnels to get water pumps functioning again, the darkness and claustrophobia feel like old friends. While torching fleshy growths with a flamethrower, the hissing pilot light on the end casts a dull light over the harsh industrial angles, making you feel like Ripley stalking the corridors of the Nostromo.

Flamethrowers feature heavily in The Two Colonels. Koch Media

While short, The Two Colonels packs in a lot of story, thanks to the wise decision to have Khlebnikov and Miller speak in-game. Every other Metro game has left Artyom without any dialogue outside of his loading screen monologues, leading to awkward one-way conversations. It’s a concept I hope to see carried over into any future Metro games. I won’t go too much into the story, but it’s a surprisingly touching tale of the parallels between Colonel Miller and Colonel Khlebnikov, and, ultimately, a story of being a parent.

Sam’s Story

The second, more substantial DLC is Sam’s Story, set after the events of Metro Exodus. After settling at Lake Baikal, Sam, one of Artyom’s Rangers, departs the group, seeking to move farther east in an effort to reach the coast and somehow find a way across the ocean in order to see if his father in America is still alive. In Vladivostok, Sam locates a functioning nuclear submarine under the control of a local warlord, who wants him to find the sub’s former captain, promising to take him to America if he does.

Sam’s Story plays similarly to a Metro Exodus level, with a single, large, open level, with areas of the marshy city traversable by boat. The environment is physically expansive but at a micro-level can at times feel restrictive, as waterways or marshes dictate the path before you. The level features more verticality than most levels in Exodus, with several set pieces in the city’s decaying apartment blocks. It even continues Metro‘s habit of terrible boss fights against mutant animals. The story is engaging throughout, though near the end it unexpectedly throws an A-or-B choice at you, both which end up kind of falling flat.

Koch Media

There’s one pet peeve I have regarding the Sam’s Story audio track. I always play the Metro games with the Russian audio track—I’m a “subs not dubs” kind of guy. Sam’s backstory is that he’s American, a Marine who was stationed as security at the American embassy at the time of the nuclear war. Once a stranger in a strange land, he’s now assimilated into the Russian metro culture. In the Russian audio track, Sam speaks flawless Russian, but there are times when he speaks English, and, having a Russian voice actor, he speaks stilted, definitely not-native-level English. But in the English audio track, there are moments when Sam speaks hokey-sounding Russian, not something you’d expect for someone who has been living and breathing the language. Some kind of hybrid audio track would have been interesting, to better reflect that Sam is an American in a land of Russians.

This DLC has more meat on the bones in the way of points of interests and caches to uncover, two new weapons with attachments, a few new enemies, and a couple of side quests. You’ll get a good six to eight hours of playtime depending on how thorough you are in uncovering all the side content.

Both The Two Colonels and Sam’s Story are great purchases for anyone who wants more Metro and to see more of the world from other characters’ perspectives. The two DLCs have a good mix of concepts from Exodus and the older games and have a healthy balance of story and shooting. If you’re looking just to buy one, Sam’s Story is the better value, but the story of The Two Colonels shouldn’t be overlooked—both are worthy of one final visit to the metro.

The Two Colonels and Sam’s Story are available on PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Stadia.