Metro 2033 makes killing easy and atrocity

Metro 2033 will celebrate its 15th anniversary on March 16, 2025. Below, we examine how its delicate moral system can help illustrate its broad perspective on humanity and violence.

In video games, evil is often huge. Think of the blood in the evil ending of Bauder Gate 3, or a Sith bow to the Old Republic Cavaliers. These moments are not completely ridiculous, but they are full of joy for them. They are filled with joy of a cartoon villain laughing. In a sense, Metro 2033 is no exception. After the atomic destruction, the Moscow Metro filled itself with cruel bandits, terrible mutants and authoritarian militants. To be sure, this is grimer than the previous examples, but there are still ridiculous records in endless cruel men. However, the ultimate pursuit of the game is to use atomic weapons to destroy the mutated army of “dark weapons”, creating a cruel shadow in the real world. Metro 2033 involves trivial decisions and delusions under the shadow of atoms, which constitute atrocities. Unlike most other ethical systems, Metro 2033 will not announce itself. Instead, it builds the protagonist's character through tiny moments: the butterfly wings turn into hurricanes.

This works in a simple binary way. Completing certain tasks will purify the moral points of the protagonist Artyom. With enough points, he will have a chance to achieve a good ending. Contrary to other ethical systems, players can’t see how many points Artyom earns. Only sound and light flash (more ominous sounds play when Artyom loses its moral point). Suitably, Artyom has a humble origin. He is not a soldier. His station is relatively far away from the central station of the subway, and he rarely leaves his home. He inserted the player inserts as explicitly as a game like this. More familiar with the world than the players, but also outsiders and novices in most worlds. A great thing is waiting for him. The game is open in the media: Artyom is equipped with military-grade equipment and undergoes large-scale migrations with mutants on the surface. But at first, he was just arrogant because of his youth rather than his strength. He can do nothing. This requires his invitation to become a monster.

Metro 2033 visited his hometown with Artyom's older friend and mentor Hunter. Hunter is a Ranger, a special forces special forces of a special force that serves as a de facto police officer in the subway. He warned that the dark people claimed they had destroyed other stations, saying, “My order has a motto: If it is hostile, kill it.” As he set out to find them, Hunter left Arytom with the dog's tag and told him to warn the subway central government at the “Polis” station if he doesn't come back. Hunter trusts Arytom in this mission because he likes him – not because he has any special abilities or skills. There is still a long way to go to turn to a friend to throw a bomb.

This is only in the gradual journey of the entire subway or the accumulation of allies and weapons of Artyom, but in the sense of emotional abilities, not only in the step-by-step journey of the plot. There is a lot of downtime in Metro 2033. The station's gas light market and claustrophobic bedrooms act as a space for breathing, breathing between the dark waste corridors of the train line and hostile settlements of bandits and fascists. Off the radio, Metro 2033 has a survival horror qualities: terrible monsters, limited ammunition and a wasteful environment. But these radio stations themselves act as travels for the ordinary lives of subway citizens. Beg begging for money, domestic disputes bleed on thin walls, dialogues waiting to be eavesdropped. Arytom does more than just fight monsters. He can give begs or ignore them. He can chat with the residents of the station or blow them through them. In other words, Arytom can avoid atrocities by paying attention to others. But generosity is only part of it.

Even if the moral system is not applicable to humans, the moral system values ​​this concern. The economy of the subway is based on military-grade bullets and can be spent directly or used alone as powerful ammunition. On irradiated surfaces, Artyom must wear a gas mask, but its filters will be consumed quickly. He had to clean up or buy more to survive. These systems combined encourage Arytom to find materials to help his journey. Finding the cache left by the dead ranger, or even checking the body itself, would purify more moral views. The level is linear, but maze. Games are rewarded when exploring their own space or setting them for their paths.

In a sense, Metro 2033's emphasis on the road taken makes it an anti-military shooter. Even the widest range of calling-up movements focus on objective marking and direct, set-level designs. Metro 2033 can get clues from it, but there are many ways to do it. Its UI does not have any path metrics. When it slides into more military shooting mode, when Arytom has a guide and others (usually soldiers) show him the road. But even at that moment, the moral system still tracks deviations from the road and rewards them.

In other words, when Arytom obeys the order, he kills the innocent. Hunter attributes violence to dark violence, but Arytom never really saw violence happening. Instead, Arytom saw them looking at him, and when he returned to their eyes they scattered it in the shadows. Rumors and rumors make them a threat to survival, but experience gives something else. The dark people, on the grounds of vision, were mostly Moscow, before the bombs fell. Here's a simple message: “Don't do it again.” The atomic bomb is not literally seen in the world, but spiritually – spiritually. Darkness is the ship of this loss: the prophet who tries to prevent its second destruction.

Even if we tend to lie at the feet of Truman and Oppenheimer, it leads to the atrocities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But even these people are made up of small choices. Christopher Nolan's biography based on the American Prometheus, American Prometheus, endowed with strange virtues. They are the characteristics that make Oppenheimer a charismatic figure, enabling him to create bombs: his persuasion, his ability to understand and sum up complex information, and his consideration of many who work under him. What does it mean to be a “good” person, even with strong moral beliefs, when what you establish is death? It is easy to blame the bomb for the sins and flaws, but there is usually a stronger connection between the first atomic weapon and his virtues.

This is a nuance that Metro 2033 cannot fully manage. If Arytom is caring, generous and attentive, he will have a chance to prevent the smear of a dark person. If he is simple and bullish, he will kill everyone. But atrocities weave it into ordinary in a sinister way. Even generosity can go hand in hand with violence. Just look at the portfolio and political donations of philanthropists to take on this goal. Metro's moral fables undermine its desires.

However, Metro 2033 still has power, not only to subvert its military shooter, but also its revelatory sentiment. The light is soft, insignificant and dispersible. The darkness is wet and everywhere. The emergence of plant life is rough and dead, twisted like the metal of the subway infrastructure. The ghost's shadow is in the flashlight's brightness and disappears by clicking the switch. The world is haunted. Metro 2033's journey is Arytom, which determines whether he will be bothered.