Something to look forward to: Deep Silver, 4A Games, and Xbox released the first trailer and a brief development diary for Metro 2039, the fourth main title in a series of first-person shooters based on the setting of Russian author Dmitry Glukhovsky's post-apocalyptic novels. Shaped by Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Ukrainian developer 4A Games has promised the franchise's darkest entry yet.

The follow up to 2020's Metro Exodus returns to the subway tunnels beneath post apocalyptic Moscow. Although most of the trailer is pre rendered CGI, a brief segment at the end shows real time gameplay with visuals that appear far more detailed than those in Exodus.

During the development diary, 4A explained that Russia's invasion of Ukraine, which began in 2022, significantly affected work on Metro 2039. Similar to how GSC Game World developed Stalker 2 under wartime conditions, 4A faced power outages and drone attacks while continuing production. The studio said those experiences helped push the game's story in a darker direction.

Instead of basing Metro 2039 on one of Glukhovsky's books, 4A collaborated with the author on a new story set several years after Exodus. A new protagonist, known only as The Stranger, enters the metro tunnels after a government called the Novoreich has taken over the surviving communities inside.

The game will likely maintain the franchise's focus on resource management and surviving nuclear radiation. Development footage also suggests the presence of a day-and-night system.

The trailer also hints at stronger psychological horror elements centered on war and propaganda, likely influenced by the invasion's impact on Glukhovsky. In 2023, the author was sentenced to prison in absentia for criticizing the war.

Metro 2039 will continue 4A's focus on ray tracing with its proprietary 4A engine. Metro Exodus was one of the earliest major titles to utilize the technology, and the enhanced version achieved 60 frames per second on consoles while requiring ray-traced global illumination. 4A has rebuilt its ray tracing implementation in Metro 2039 to improve performance, which can be seen in this week's 60fps footage.

The game will be available on Steam, the Microsoft Store, the Epic Games Store, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series consoles this winter. The seasonal window suggests that the game might launch in late 2026 but could slip into early 2027, which would be unsurprising since most major developers are trying to avoid Grand Theft Auto VI's November launch.