Metro 2039 arrives on Xbox Series X|S and Xbox on PC in February 2027, and a hands-on preview of the mid-game build describes a punishing, meticulously detailed return to the Moscow Metro.
In the Xbox hands-on, a two-hour session taken from the middle of the game, the series' first voiced protagonist returns from exile to find the Metro ruled by a fascist dictator named Hunter.
The presentation is simulation-heavy by design. There is no crosshair, only iron sights and optics that players craft onto their weapons, a physical folio map with objectives handwritten on the back, a digital watch that tracks remaining time on gas mask filters, and a logbook entry that saves the game.
Crafting distills to two inputs, metal and chemicals, which feed standard items like ammo and filters, with a rarer resource reserved for weapon attachments. Scarcity, not clutter, generates the tension, and the preview describes crossing surface areas stalked by nosarises, the series' standard bear-sized mole enemies, as high-alert avoidance in which conflict is evaded until it is no longer optional.
The session also ran a bandit base in the style of Metal Gear Solid V, with quiet takedowns giving way to a loud push, and moved into a haunted school full of ghost children, where notes, animal masks, and a candle-lighting puzzle marked a turn toward the surreal.
Metro 2039 is the fourth entry in a series built on the novels of Dmitry Glukhovsky, and 4A Games, founded by core developers from S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl, has been open about how the Russian war on Ukraine shaped both the studio and the project. The preview's own verdict is blunt: thoughtful, detailed, and mean. With a February 2027 window set for Xbox Series X|S and Xbox on PC, the open question is whether a quarter century of Metro conflict can hold that intensity across a full campaign.
