Image: 4A Games & Deep Silver

It's always nice to see a studio remember that they've got a back catalogue that people still play. Yesterday, classic post-apocalyptic, post-Soviet shooters METRO 2033 Redux (already a near-total remake) and its sequel Last Light saw a major round of patching, bringing them up to spec to clear the way for the upcoming fourth game in the series - Metro 2039. And if you've never played any of these games before, now's a good time to start, as the two updated games are discounted down to pocket change for the next two weeks, and are still very pretty games that'll make most modern GPUs sweat.

For newcomers who are looking at these screenshots and thinking 'That looks a lot like STALKER', you'd be correct. Both series are inspired by the classic sci-fi novel Roadside Picnic and the following 1979 film. While the STALKER games are more uncompromising sandbox experiences, the Metro series are more cinematic, story-driven affairs. The Metro games are subterranean road trips, following a wanderer named Artyom through underground human towns, punctuated with nerve-wracking expeditions to the surface where the air is toxic and mutant monsters roam.

They also hold up great. The original Metro 2033 launched way back in 2010 and had some rough edges, but got a comprehensive Redux update in 2014 to bring it in line with its sequel. And now they're even better still. You can see the full notes for 2033 and Last Light here, with the log shared between the two games. Lots of graphical tune-ups, with uncapped framerates, full current-gen DLSS support, better lighting via Screen Space Global Illumination and upgrades to 4k textures, PBR materials and more. In short, everything just looks nicer. A full graphical touch-up.

There's also full support for current controllers, including fancy force-feedback trigger stuff on both DualSense and Xbox controllers. 4A games have also gone back and fixed up a lot of old bugs, including general engine-level issues (both games share an engine as of the Redux release) and some game-specific bugs. There are also quality-of-life improvements, like the game no longer autosaving when you're nearly out of air filters, meaning that you can't get stuck in a dead-man-walking situation where the game constantly rolls you back into an unwinnable situation.

As mentioned, both METRO 2033 and Last Light are 90% off right now until November 4th, and are both great-looking, highly cinematic shooters that are easy to recommend. The third game - the more open-world Metro Exodus - is still full price right now on Steam, but the Gold edition (with two expansions) is 90% off on GOG until October 27th, and nearly as cheap as the Steam version on Fanatical. At under £10 for the whole trilogy so far, you really can't go wrong if you like grimy apocalyptic worlds.

All of these updates and discounts are, of course, in service of getting people primed for the upcoming Metro 2039, due next February, and it looks to be even more bombastic, as war comes back to post-apocalyptic Moscow.