Deep Silver and 4A Games have unveiled Metro 2039 with a cinematic trailer that trades the series' usual gritty realism for outright horror. The footage introduces a new protagonist, fresh enemies, and the disturbing return of a character thought long dead, all wrapped in a fever dream that blurs the line between visions and reality.
The unnamed lead character, dubbed 'The Stranger,' carries the familiar gear of Moscow's Spartan rangers: an 'M'-emblazoned helmet fitted with a gas mask, the series' iconic multi-function watch, and the Shambler revolver shotgun. Yet despite his equipment, he's about to face something far more sinister than mutants and radiation.
The trailer plunges viewers into a nightmare sequence where children are rounded up by grey-uniformed soldiers bearing symbols that echo fascist ideology. These troops belong to the Novoreich, a new faction distinct from the Fourth Reich of earlier games. Their leader is Führer Hunter, a name that will jolt longtime fans. Hunter vanished in the original Metro game and novel, sparking Artyom's entire journey. Now, six years later, he's resurfaces as a dictator bent on world domination.
The Novoreich's propaganda broadcasts promise clean air and national purity, but their actions tell a different story. In the nightmare, soldiers force children onto a train marked with the numbers 2039, leaving shoes scattered on the platform in a haunting reference to Holocaust memorials. The children chant slogans of hatred, their individuality stripped away. Only one child, wearing red pajamas and drawing with crayons, appears to resist the indoctrination, though her blank stare suggests her fate is sealed.
A crayon drawing of children surrounding a wooden elephant in a playground becomes the nightmare's anchor. As the Stranger encounters it repeatedly, the images within evolve: the playground catches fire, then shows dead children. The visions manifest as real events before his eyes, suggesting something is manipulating his mind.
That something appears to be the Dark Ones. These psychic mutants, pivotal to the stories of Metro 2033 and Last Light, possess the power to conjure visions and communicate telepathically. Their redesigned forms in the trailer feature unsettling, almost biological gas mask-like faces. A possessed woman delivers a cryptic message: 'They hear everything, but you don't let them speak,' possibly referencing humanity's history of destroying the Dark Ones on sight rather than seeking peace.
The nightmare culminates in tragedy. The Stranger, overwhelmed by the Dark Ones' psychic assault, fires his shotgun in desperation only to realize he's killed the very children he's been trying to save. He collapses, cradling a dying child, screaming at the sky.
Then it ends. The nightmare dissolves. The Stranger awakens in bombed-out Moscow, and in his pocket lies the original crayon drawing, pristine and unburned. His breathing steadies as he descends into the metro tunnels, leaving more questions than answers. Is the drawing his own child's? Has his daughter been taken by the Novoreich? Were the visions flashbacks of past horrors or prophetic glimpses of what awaits?
Interestingly, the Dark Ones used similar playground imagery to communicate with Artyom in Metro 2033, but with peaceful intentions. The extreme violence of these new visions suggests a darker purpose. This raises a troubling possibility: the Dark Ones' survival nest may have turned vengeful after Artyom's genocidal missile barrage in 2033 nearly wiped them out entirely.
The weapons glimpsed throughout the footage include the Kalash assault rifle, what appears to be a modified or new SMG, and a battery-powered rifle on the Stranger's back that hints at energy-based weaponry seen in earlier games. The trailer also teases returning mutants: Demons bat-like creatures spotted over Red Square, and possibly redesigned Nosalis mole creatures with prominent teeth and noses.
The cinematic layers in subtle developer Easter eggs as well. Among the falling children's drawings are logos for 4A Games and Deep Silver embedded in the chaos. A possessed woman's eyes, one blue and one yellow, mirror the Ukrainian flag, honoring the Ukrainian home of developer 4A Games.
Author Emily Chen: "This trailer doesn't just tease a game, it reimagines what Metro can be, ditching subtlety for psychological horror and asking whether revenge and fascism can fill the void left by genocide."
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