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RIP Peter Cullen

In what is turning out to be a trying week, it is sad to report the passing of Canadian actor Peter Cullen at the age of 84. Although well-known for numerous roles, he will forever be iconically known as the voice of Optimus Prime in the Transformers franchise.

Born in Montreal in 1941, Cullen graduated from the National Theatre School of Canada in 1963. He worked as an announcer for Montreal radio. He began working in television in Canada and picked up interest from American television. He made a breakthrough by appearing regularly on The Sonny & Cher Show from 1971 to 1974.

In the early 1980s Cullen's agent spotted the emerging genre of animated television with toy tie-in lines, and put Cullen forwards for multiple roles. Cullen impressed the team at Sunbow Television responsible for the animated tie-in to Hasbro's Transformers line (initially an extensive import and rebranding of Takara's Diaclone and Microchange toy lines from Japan) and was cast in the core role of Optimus Prime, leader of the heroic Autobots, as well as his lieutenant, Ironhide, in 1984. When trying to work out a voice for Prime, Cullen was inspired by his older brother Larry, who had volunteered to fight in the US Marine Corps in Vietnam. Larry had advised his younger brother to not "act" like a hero, but instead "be" a hero, with wisdom and compassion instead of just acting tough.

Cullen rapidly became iconic in the role. Famously, young children were left traumatised by Prime's death in Transformers: The Movie (1986), something that left Cullen shocked. Cullen returned to voice the character during his resurrection in the third season of the TV show.

The success of the role saw Cullen become in-demand for other voice roles. He played multiple roles in the US dubs of Voltron and Saber Rider, and multiple roles in the GI Joe animated series. He voiced the villainous computer KAAR, nemesis of KITT, in Knight Rider, and provided the voice-over sounds for the titular enemy in the film Predator (1987). He voiced one of the titular creatures in Gremlins (1984). Arguably his two most iconic voice-over roles after Prime came with playing the evil Venger in the Dungeons & Dragons animated series (1983-85) and Eyore in The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (1988-91). Amongst Cullen's numerous achievements was providing the first English-language voice for Mario in 1983.

Cullen reprised his role as Optimus Prime in the 2007 live-action film Transformers, proceeding to play the role in sequels Revenge of the Fallen (2009), Dark of the Moon (2011), Age of Extinction (2014), The Last Knight (2017), Bumblebee (2018) and Rise of the Beasts (2023). He also played Optimus Prime in the animated series Transformers: Prime (2010-13), Rescue Bots (2011-16), Robots in Disguise (2015-17) and Titans Return (2017-18). He also played the role in numerous video games and advertisements, and had a key appearance as himself in The Toys That Made Us (2018), in the episode about the Transformers franchise.

Cullen began appearing at Transformers conventions in the 1990s and was struck by how his performance had inspired young people. He struck up a strong friendship with fellow voice actor Frank Welker, who played Prime's nemesis Megatron in Transformers. In the 2020s both Cullen and Welker were cast in the animated series Invincible, playing on their iconic characters' rivalry. Peter Cullen was given a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Children's Emmy Award in 2023 for his huge contribution to iconic voice roles across forty years.

Peter Cullen was a huge inspiration and reassuring voice for several entire generations of children. He will be extremely missed.

RIP Tim Curry

In sad news, British actor Tim Curry has passed away at the age of 80. One of the best-known and most popular actors of his generation, Curry was known for his charisma, acting skill, singing voice, his ability to make the cheesiest roles his own, and his generosity to fans.

Born in Cheshire in 1946, Curry was raised abroad in Hong Kong as well as different towns around the UK. At school he studied singing and became a soprano. He decided to focus on acting and studied drama at the University of Birmingham, graduating in 1968.

Curry almost immediately demonstrated his flamboyance and love of combining acting with singing and dancing by appearing in the West End musical Hair, which involved interactions with the audience (including dancing with my mother during one performance!). He met Richard O'Brien during the tour and they struck up a key friendship.

When O'Brien was developing The Rocky Horror Show, he reconnected with Curry and cast him in the key role of Frank-N-Furter. Curry relished early reviews of the play in 1973 which called him "ambisextrous" and "Bowiesque." Curry played the role in London and New York, attracting significant acclaim. Curry continued the role in the 1975 film adaptation, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, which made him an immediate star. The film's longevity, with regular viewing parties at cinemas worldwide to this very day and the mega-selling soundtrack album, is almost unmatched among pop culture phenomena.

Curry would go on to enjoy considerable success on stage through the 1970s and 1980s, such as the title role in Peter Shaffer's Amadeus, and continued with TV and film roles in the UK and USA, keeping a toe in both countries. In 1985 Curry enjoyed additional success with his roles as the Lord of Darkness in Ridley Scott's Legend and Wadsworth the Butler in Clue, the latter being arguably his second-biggest film role as the movie became another cult success, frequently referenced to this day.

In the late 1980s he focused on Hollywood work, and famously turned up in movies both excellent and dismal, though he was never less then supremely entertaining in them. His work ethic was formidable. Iconic roles  followed in The Hunt for Red October (1990), Home Alone 2 (1992), Loaded Weapon 1 (1993), The Three Musketeers (1993), The Shadow (1994) and Congo (1995). He also played scores of guest roles on television, but his outstanding performance was playing Pennywise in the 1990 TV mini-series Stephen King's It.

Curry also had a substantial career in animation, providing voices for shows such as The Wild Thornberries, Captain Planet and Gargoyles. He also began providing voice-over work for video games, including Wing Commander III, Toonstruck, Brutal Legend, Dragon Age: Origins and the Gabriel Knight series. In 2008 he played the role of Premier Anatoly Cherdenko in Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 and gave what is generally regarded as the most hilarious line reading in filmed history.

Curry enjoyed a late career surge starting with his role as King Arthur in Spamalot on the stage. He took over the role of Emperor Palpatine in the animated series Star Wars: The Clone Wars and appeared in the film Burke & Hare.

Curry experienced a stroke in 2012 which left him unable to walk and partially paralysed. He worked hard at rehabilitation and resumed voice-over roles, as he found memorising lines after his stroke very difficult. In 2016 he made his last on-screen appearance, fittingly in the television remake of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. His final role was a voice-over in the horror movies Stream (2024) and Stream 2: Sudden Death (2026). In 2025 he published his autobiography, Vagabond.

An international treasure, noted for his quick wit, humour, warmth and impressive output, Tim Curry will very much be missed.

RIP Dolly Parton

Dolly Parton, pop culture titan of the 20th and early 21st Century, has sadly passed away at the age of 80.

Parton was born in 1946 in Tennessee and became one of the United States's best-known country singers. She was known for her musical giga-hits, including "Nine to Five," "Jolene," and "I Will Always Love You," as well as her acting career and her philanthropy, including an international literary programme for children that positively impacted millions of lives.

I usually cover the passing of people with genre connections, though if anyone was universally beloved enough to overcome that, certainly it would be Dolly Parton. However, she did have several minor and perhaps surprising ties to genre fiction. In 2011, she voiced a role in the animated fantasy film Gnomeo & Juliet, which was her penultimate acting role. However, far more significant was her ownership of Sandollar Productions.

In 1996, the production company played a key role in bringing the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer to the screen, and was credited as a production partner on the show for all seven seasons (Parton herself declined a producer's credit, not wanting her name to overshadow the cast). Parton watched and enjoyed the show, and arranged parties and gifts for the cast and crew during its early seasons. Sandollar went on to produce spin-off series Angel as well. Star Sarah Michelle Gellar has expressed her admiration and gratitude for Parton's support.

An international legend and icon, Dolly Parton will certainly be greatly missed.

GAME OF THRONES: WAR FOR WESTEROS gets a new trailer

Game of Thrones: War for Westeros, the latest attempt to bring George R.R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire novels and their HBO TV adaptation Game of Thrones to the video game sphere, has received a new trailer.

War for Westeros is a real-time strategy game drawing heavy inspiration from the venerable Battle for Middle-earth series from the mid-2000s. You choose a faction - House Stark, Lannister or Targaryen, or the invading White Walkers - and guide them to victory over a series of battles. Your armies will include cavalry, infantry, archers, siege equipment and more exotic creatures such as giants, wights and, of course, dragons (well, three). The game features multiplayer and a single-player campaign mode, where you apparently choose which area to attack next.

The franchise has had a mixed history with official video game adaptations. Game of Thrones: Genesis was a poorly-received real-time strategy game that has been almost completely forgotten about. Game of Thrones: The Roleplaying Game was a surprisingly decent game (and easily has the best story set in Westeros not written or outlined by Martin himself) but had a horrendous opening couple of hours which put most players off. Game of Thrones: The Telltale Adventure Series was promising but the story devolved in a poor retelling of the main storyline with lower stakes and less-interesting houses.

The franchise has had much better success with fan-made games, such as Westeros: Total War, a mod for Medieval II: Total War, and the mods for Crusader Kings II and III, plus Mount & Blade.

War for Westeros is targeting an early 2027 release window on PC.

METRO 2039 gets first full trailer

Metro 2039, the fourth game in the long-gestating Metro series, has received a new trailer.

The Metro series is set in a post-apocalyptic Moscow, where the survivors of a nuclear war in 2013 have turned the Metro into a series of underground cities linked by the old rail lines. Metro 2033 and Metro: Last Light depicted the complex, multi-sided battle for control of the Metro, whilst Metro: Exodus saw a group manage to escape from Moscow altogether and find out what happened to the world beyond.

Metro 2039, set four years after Exodus, sees a mysterious stranger arrive in Moscow on a mission to kill Hunter, the leader of the Novoreich which has overrun most of the city, and find a missing friend.

It's unclear if the game will continue the move from Exodus to larger, open-world environments, or a return to the more linear levels of the first two games.

Metro 2039 will launch in February 2027 on PC, Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation 5.

CD Projekt Red unveil THE WITCHER III: SONGS OF THE PAST and THE WITCHER III REMASTERED

CD Projekt Red have released the first proper trailer for The Witcher III: Songs of the Past, the third and final major expansion to The Witcher III: Wild Hunt. The expansion will be released in 2027, a full eleven years after the previous expansion, Blood & Wine.

The next expansion is set in the land of Letten, which is believed to be the homeland of Geralt's friend Dandelion (aka Jaskier). The precise location of Letten is unclear, but it appears the early reports of the expansion taking place on a different continent were incorrect. The expansion will add a new chain weapon to Geralt's repertoire, and feature the enhancements to combat and graphics that are coming from The Witcher III Remastered, a new upgrade to the existing game and expansions that will launch next month. The Witcher III Remastered reworks combat and upgrades the game's lighting and textures. Most impressively, it will be completely free to all existing owners of the game.

CD Projekt Red did not show off any new footage from The Witcher IV, but have confirmed that the game is targeting a 2028 release date.

Red Dwarf (IX): Back to Earth

Nine years have passed since the crew of Red Dwarf saved their ship from destruction at the hands of a matter-destroying microbial virus. In the meantime, Kristine Kochanski has apparently died in an airlock accident, Holly was offlined due to a water tank malfunction and the aging crewmembers have had to face the probability of them dying in deep space due to dwindling supplies. However, a sequence of unusual events seems them return to Earth...and gives Lister hope of a reunion with Kochanski.

Back in 1999, Red Dwarf VIII aired. Although the most critically-lambasted season to date, it also matched Red Dwarf VII's extremely high ratings (well over six million for some episodes, unheard of for a sitcom airing on BBC2). Fans could be excused for expecting the show to continue for many years to come. Instead, they got nothing.

The reasons why the show went off the air seem obtuse, but it seems to have been a combination of the enormous workload on Doug Naylor for writing and producing the series almost single-handedly (after the departure of his co-creator Rob Grant after Season 6) and his insistence, likely not coincidentally, on making a Red Dwarf feature film instead. Funding had apparently been sourced for a larger-budgeted theatrical theatre, only for this to fall through at the last moment. Additional funding was secured but again collapsed. By the time Naylor had gotten tired of this dance and gone back to the BBC, the BBC had lost interest. More bemusingly, they remained resolutely uninterested even after Doctor Who returned in 2005 and became a monster hit, and the BBC started looking for other genre TV ideas (such as Merlin) whilst ignoring their other proven, long-running SF success.

It fell to cable channel Dave to give the show its long-awaited resurrection. Made with what initially appeared to be a reasonable budget, Red Dwarf: Back to Earth (the "IX" is a retcon, applied solely to make the ordering of the seasons make more sense on streaming services and on media releases) was a surprise hit for Dave and led to the commissioning of further series. Critically, however, Back to Earth was mauled on release in 2009 and time has not been much kinder to it.

The mini-season starts promisingly, with some solid Rimmer/Lister gags in the bunk room on Red Dwarf. You may be wondering how the crew survived the events of the Red Dwarf VIII cliffhanger and how Rimmer is back again as a hologram and what happened to the hundreds of crewmembers who evacuated the ship...and you can go on wondering, as you'll get no answers here (to be fair, the wiki has a reasonable guess). More important to the plot is that Kochanski is apparently dead and Holly decommissioned due to a malfunction. There's some very solid CGI at work here, including some half-decent virtual sets and an excellent CG model of Red Dwarf itself, and the show's first move into high-definition is reasonably impressive.

The plot kicks in when the ship's science officer Katerina Bartokovsky is resurrected and promptly decides to retire Rimmer, whom she deems has failed in his mission to keep Lister sane. A sequence of events results in our familiar crew travelling to a parallel universe where their lives exist solely in a television series called Red Dwarf. In an increasingly metafictional story, the crew meet one of the actors playing them on the show and have to find their creator before he decides to write a final episode in which everyone dies, which would kill them in their reality as well.

This metafictional idea isn't necessarily a bad idea, and in fact has been explored in Red Dwarf before, particularly in the likes of Better Than Life and Back to Reality, but those episodes were co-written with Rob Grant. The Grant-Naylor partnership made those meta episodes work, but Naylor by himself struggles. Especially weird is that he latches onto the idea of basing some story ideas on the 1982 movie Blade Runner, a very fine film, but also quite an old one by that point with no guarantee that the general audience knew what he was referencing. The special also relies a lot on knowing that Craig Charles plays a character on soap opera Coronation Street and knowing whom some of the incidental actors were on that show, which dates it painfully. It's also not particularly funny, the direction (also by Naylor) is not great and the pacing is terrible. The lack of a laughter track also hurts the show's timing, with the actors visibly struggling at times with not getting any feedback.

However, the story does perk up whenever Lister has to confront the spectre of Kochanski's death and the parallel world giving him the opportunity to possibly meet her again. Red Dwarf is at its best when it mixes comedy with pathos, something it forgot in the last couple of seasons, and it does bring that element back here with some great scenes of emotional intensity for Craig Charles, which he rises to.

Beyond that, the special is, well, not very special. Some good ideas and great vfx are undermined by poor storytelling. Sophie Winkleman as Katerina is saddled with a terrible accent and sound mixing that makes her unintelligible in some sequences. For every joke that lands, there are at least three that do not.

Red Dwarf: Back to Earth (**½) is not totally without merit, with some impressive visual set-pieces and at least a few gags that land well. But poor pacing and direction undermine its better parts. After this special, fans started pondering if it was better for the show to simply end forever. Fortunately, the Dave channel had other ideas.

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Red Dwarf VIII

Due to a bit of a cock-up in the nanotechnology department, the missing mining ship Red Dwarf has been recreated, along with its thousand plus crew. Lister, the Cat, Kryten and Kochanski find themselves locked up for misuse of classified information and are joined in the slammer by the ship's own version of Arnold Rimmer, restored along with the rest of the crew. Lister and the team have to work out how survive life inside and work out how to escape, or if they even want to.

The history of British science fiction sitcom Red Dwarf is pretty well-known at this point. A patchy but promising first season was followed by a tightly-written and brilliantly funny second season which overcame ropey production values. The third, fourth and fifth seasons saw steadily increasing production values and ever-more-clever science fiction ideas merging with eye-wateringly hilarious scripts and just a touch of character pathos, to create an "imperial period" most TV shows can only dream about. The sixth season was almost as good, but behind-the-scenes tensions between writers Doug Naylor and Rob Grant made it a difficult season to write and shoot, and a growing overreliance on running gags and returning characters and references. A four-year break, due to some of the actors having other commitments or legal problems, and the writing team divorcing for good, was followed by the weakest season yet.

Red Dwarf VII was, with the best will in the world, something of a creative misfire, with Doug Naylor both overstretched in writing or co-writing the entire season with less-experienced writing partners (the idea to lighten the load on him was undercut by him having to rewrite the scripts by those less-experienced teammates, negating the advantages in the first place). The departure of Chris Barrie as Rimmer was a blow, but the addition of Chloe Annett to the cast as Kochanski worked much better than expected. However, the season-long subplot of Kryten being jealous of Kochanski was horrendous and kept dragging down even the better episodes of the season, and the overreliance on running gags and returning concepts was an even bigger problem than in the sixth season.

Red Dwarf VIII starts with Naylor completely revamping the premise of the show, a bold move which was probably necessary for the purposes of trying to find some fresh ideas. The season opens with our regular heroes' ship, the redoubtable Starbug which they've been living in since the end of Season 5, being blown into a million pieces as it crash-lands on Red Dwarf in one of the show's more spectacular set pieces. The return of the recurring cast of Season 1 is initially a great thing, giving our heroes more characters to bounce off, and the idea they've been wasting time and screwing around quite irresponsibly and have to answer for this is interesting, for the five seconds the show spends on it before instead dumping the characters in jail for the rest of the season on decidedly spurious grounds.

The "Red Dwarf crew in the slammer" concept is good but not, I fear, good enough to fill eight episodes. Pacing this season is completely out the window with each episode relying on a few Rimmer & Lister bunk scenes to make them work. This was one of the stronger elements of the first few seasons, eventually phased out due to Craig Charles and Chris Barrie getting on one another's nerves, and here returns because Charles and Barrie had reconnected on the convention circuit and found themselves in a better place. To be fair, these conversations are quite amusing and, though not a patch on the imperial period's exchanges (especially the episode-long laugh-fest that was Marooned in Season 3), are often the highlight of their episodes.

The limitation of the concept is rapidly exposed by the fact that although this season has eight episodes, it only has five stories. The opening episode is split into three parts and a later episode in two, with only three stand-alone episodes resulting, and these struggle to move beyond standard prison cliches. All the gags you'd expect from a lesser series about not picking up the soap, being desperate for any hint of female company etc are here, no cliche is overturned and no long-hanging fruit is left unpicked. The question of why Red Dwarf would do a prison season when it didn't have even a tenth of the wit or charm as say, dedicated prison sitcom Porridge arises, and is left unanswered.

The season suffers hugely from wasted potential. Captain Hollister (Mac McDonald) was a fine comic character in the first two seasons and he gets by on his charisma here, but he is the butt of far too many fat jokes. Fair enough that apparently McDonald himself relished making the jokes far harsher than they had been in the original scripts, but one episode of non-stop fat jokes is maybe pushing it, and by the end of eight you'll have tuned right out of them. Most of the other original cast were unavailable (Selby and Chen get one scene and then never reappear) and Kochanski has been back for a season already (though recast) so the benefit of reuniting our main crewmembers with the OG crew is pretty much lost after the first episode. The return of the original Holly (Norman Lovett) is initially welcome and he gets a few good laughs, but quickly the same problem that caused Holly's departure in the first place reasserts itself: with Kryten around, Holly's standard role as a font of exposition is no longer necessary, and with the addition of Kryten and Kochanski and the returning ship full of characters, it's a struggle for Holly to get any screentime, let alone lines. The fact there are also two Hollies around (the original, left powered down when Red Dwarf was stolen, and a new version rebuilt by Kryten's nanodroids) is an interesting idea thrown up in the first story and instantly forgotten.

There's also little or no interest by Hollister or the other crewmembers in what Lister and co. have been up to for the prior two centuries, which beggars belief. In fact, basic plot logic, already under severe strain in Season 7, goes out the window completely here. Naylor didn't seem to consider that having just four characters stuck in a tiny ship constantly scavenging for supplies was a source of tension, but having (at least) a thousand characters on a voluminous and newly-rebuilt-and-repaired five-mile-long ship is a massive advantage that can overcome almost all threats instantly. The idea of having our regulars joining the suicide squad of the prisoners, going head-first into danger in return for some prison privileges, is great, but ceases being a major plot point pretty quickly.

In terms of the episodes, Back in the Red starts off quite well but by its third part has become almost unwatchable. Cassandra is a potential classic, and easily the strongest episode of the season, with the introduction of an AI that can predict the future with 100% accuracy causing havoc as Rimmer tries to out-logic her. Krytie TV is simply the worst episode of the first eight seasons of Red Dwarf and a strong contender for the worst one ever. The inexplicably extended two-parter Pete has some good ideas (the recurring gag of Rimmer and Lister being dragged repeatedly before the Captain for increasingly insane reasons can actually be quite funny) but mostly appalling execution, with too much toilet humour - albeit of the dinosaur variety - and some vfx calls the show is only barely able to answer.

The season finale, Only the Good..., is promising with Rimmer travelling to a mirror universe where everything is reversed and he gets everything he ever wanted, with the inevitable comedown being quite crushing. However, the cliffhanger ending is inexplicable and weird, and this time the audience had to wait even longer for the resolution (technically they still are, since it has never been answered).

Red Dwarf VIII (**½) starts strong with a lot of potential, but generally fails to execute. The much-improved production values and at-last decent CGI seem to have come at the expense of characterisation, laughs and pathos, with lowest-common-denominator humour and predictable plot twists. The season is helped by a strong guest cast, including Geraldine McEwan and a young Graham McTavish, and Cassandra and Only the Good... at least have some good ideas.

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Metro: Exodus

2035. The political struggle for control of the Moscow Metro, where ten thousand survivors from the 2013 nuclear war that ended the old world live with their descendants, has stabilised with an uneasy peace. For Artyom, the hero of the battle at D6, it's an opportunity to follow his dream of finding out what's happened in the world beyond the city limits. The discovery of anomalous radio signals and the capture of an armoured steam train, the Aurora, gives Artyom and his friends their chance to abandon the closed-in world of the Metro for the open skies of the world beyond...and their own, unique dangers.

Metro: Exodus is the third game in the Metro series of video games, developed by Ukrainian studio 4A Games and based on the novels by Russian author Dmitry Glukhovsky (currently living outside of Russia due to his opinions of the current political situation). It was preceded by Metro 2033 (2010) and Metro: Last Light (2013), with remastered versions of both games later released as Metro Redux. Metro: Exodus is something a mild reset of the series, removing detailed references to the events of the first two games in favour of the story at hand, and a new gameplay format.

The basics of the game are more or less unchanged. You play Artyom, a survivor of the nuclear war who has learned the hard way how to survive in the Metro. The game is ostensibly a first-person shooter, though mild survival and crafting mechanics are present and there is a strong focus on stealth. An opening section in Moscow is very much linear business as usual, until you and your allies (many of them recurring from the first two games) find a train heading out of the city and realise you can escape to the open countryside, and find out what the hell happened to the rest of the world.

From here the game adopts a structure more akin to the original Far Cry, with sequential, large and open-ish maps with a primary objective but various sub-objectives you can explore along the way, and with freedom of action in how you approach each mission. You can rush each area by doing the main objective ASAP, but going off the beaten path to explore side-areas will reveal more loot, upgrades, lore and subplots. As with the first two games there is a hidden moral metre, and behaving in a more moral and enlightened way (minimising kills, sparing surrendering enemies etc) will open up new branches in the storyline. Allies you may drive away by adopting a murder-hobo mentality will instead stay on, and provide more support in later missions.

This new approach is refreshing, allowing the introduction of open-world elements without going full open-world with a single massive map on which the whole game takes place and the main storyline takes a back seat for hours or tens of hours at a time. This structure instead allows for a degree of exploration and freedom but not too long before you have to progress the main story, which is quite enjoyable.

This is basically the Road Trip from Hell, made the worse because you don't have full control over your route (you need to stay on the rails, obviously) and even a minor setback can have massive consequences. The Russian rail services ceased to exist twenty-two years before the game takes place, so if a mudslide has washed half a kilometre of track into the Volga, you're screwed and have to go back and find another route (and hope that is passable). But it is fun, as you can repair to the train between missions and chat to other characters, building up relationships and following subplots. The characters in the Metro series have always been a lot of fun and catching up with them here is enjoyable. The main exception is Anna, Artyom's previous girlfriend turned wife, who was a formidable fighter with a sharp sense of humour in previous games and here is a bit too squeeing over Artyom, which feels odd.

Exploration is a lot of fun, with your growing equipment collection allowing for better exploration and detection of possible supplies. Some of the maps provide you with vehicles for exploration, including boats and buggies, which are an enjoyable change of pace. Each map, separated sometimes by thousands of kilometres from the last one, has its own set of characters and factions, making the game sometimes feel like an episodic road trip TV show, which is enjoyable. Making sure you close off the subplots in each region before moving on can be a bit hit-and-miss, and the game sometimes can be unclear on what you should or should not be doing. I had a rather limited experience on the Caspian Sea level, for example, by inadvertently killing what turned out to be a major NPC during an early scuffle, closing off a bunch of options for resolving that particular crisis more peacefully.

Combat remains solid, and mostly unchanged from prior games. Weapon selection is solid and a frontal assault is usually possible as long as you don't get swamped by superior numbers (and can re-arm quickly). Stealth is more more satisfying, however, with silent knife throws, critical takedowns and silenced weapons all providing excellent opportunities for stealth operatives. Lethal and non-lethal options are available in most cases, and going for the non-lethal approach can result in enemies letting you live in thanks rather than trying to kill you later on. There are granular outcomes to your choices in the game that are not immediately obvious, meaning you find yourself considering your options more carefully in a more traditional cartoon sandbox where mass violence is always rewarded positively.

The game does struggle reconciling its linear past with its new, more freeform present. The Volga and Caspian levels are huge and open to explore, but the ultra-linear Taiga level, a corridor pretending to be an open riverbank, is a little weird, and feels designed to shuffle you between cutscenes. The game feels better when it's fully embracing the open-world or when it places you in tight confines once again; a late-game visit to another Russian city with a Metro feels pleasingly nostalgic rather than irritating by snatching the open world away again. A greater irritation is that cutscenes do tend to go on a bit too long, and sometimes repeat information that is redundant. The English-language voice acting can also be a bit of a mixed bag, and hardcore veterans of the series may find the decision to completely ignore some major story and lore ramifications from the first two games a bit odd. Newcomers will be completely at ease, though.

The main game itself is solid, but these days the game also ships with its DLC. The first DLC, The Two Colonels, explains the backstory to a character mentioned but MIA in the main game. It's quite linear and very short, but it does have some interesting gameplay ideas and some great dialogue. The second DLC, Sam's Story, is huge by the standards of most such expansions. It adds the city of Vladivostok to the roster of locations, with your character exploring a fairly large area on foot and by boat, aligning with different factions and searching for vital supplies that will help your ambition of crossing the Pacific Ocean and finding out what happened to America. One of the best maps in the game and some strong NPC characterisation makes this a fine slice of the Metro series.

Overall, Metro: Exodus (****½) is a fine addition to the series. It changes things up at a point when they could have become stale. The gunplay is great, the stealth is excellent and the story is solid, with the subtle way the game handles morality, choice and consequence being refreshing. At around 30 hours (including the DLC), the game gives a solid amount of content without being too stuffed with filler.

The game is available now on PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox S/X, Mac and Linux. A sequel, Metro 2039 which sees a stranger arrive in Moscow, is due for release in 2027.

Thank you for reading The Wertzone. To help me provide better content, please consider contributing to my Patreon page and other funding methods.