4A Games Reveals Metro 2039 coming this Winter

Metro returns to Moscow

4A Games officially unveiled Metro 2039 on Thursday, confirming the next mainline entry will launch this winter and take the series back into the tunnels of post-apocalyptic Moscow.

The reveal positions the game as a darker reset after Metro Exodus, with a new voiced lead called The Stranger and a story centered on a metro system now ruled by a fascist regime under a self-styled Fuhrer.

New hero, familiar dread

This is the first Metro game with a fully voiced protagonist. 4A says The Stranger is a recluse driven back underground by violent nightmares and unfinished trauma.

The debut footage mixed cinematics with short gameplay clips inside a ruined station, showing improvised weapons, minimal UI, and the series' trademark tension around ammo and gear maintenance.

War reshaped the story

The most striking part of the reveal was how directly 4A tied the game to the lived experience of its largely Ukrainian team. Studio leaders said Russia's full-scale invasion forced them to rethink the planned story.

That shift is now baked into the game's themes, with 4A framing Metro 2039 around tyranny, war, silence, and the price of freedom. Novelist Dmitry Glukhovsky, still involved with the series, is also helping shape the story while living in exile from Russia after criticizing the government.

Built for Metro's style

4A is again using its in-house 4A Engine, which the studio says lets it keep pushing the series' dense visuals and immersive design. The team also said it is advancing the ray tracing work it introduced in Metro Exodus.

One other big focus is what 4A calls "frozen stories" in the environment: handcrafted spaces filled with clues, bodies, and objects meant to show what happened before players arrived.

You can read the full Xbox Wire breakdown here. The game will release on Xbox, PS5 and PC.