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Metro Awakening is set to launch on all major VR headsets sometime later this year, and while we got a good eye-full in its announcement trailer from January, developer Vertigo Games tells us a bit more what to expect in an interview on the PlayStation blog, including new screenshots, VR implementation details, and a bit about locomotion too.

The game’s standalone story, which has been created in collaboration with the series’ original author Dmitry Glukhovsky, is slated to take place before the events of Metro 2033 (2010).

If you’ve never played or read Glukhovsky’s eponymous novel, Metro 2033 is set in the aftermath of a nuclear war where survivors have found refuge in Moscow’s Metro tunnels. Taking on the role of Artyom, a man tasked with protecting his home station from various threats within the Metro, you face off guns a-blazing against both human and mutant enemies.

Now, Metro Awakening’s Creative Director Martin de Ronde and Game Director Samar Louwe weighed in with a fair bit of detail beyond the game’s announcement from earlier this year. The team reveals Metro Awakening focuses on a personal, emotional story for a new character, putting heavy emphasis on a story-driven approach.

And as any Metro fan might hope, it’s also set to have a similar playstyle to mainline Metro games, including a mix of stealth and combat. The protagonist isn’t supposed to be an OP combat expert though, which is said to lead to slower-paced combat.

“But rest assured for everybody that is a little bit more trigger happy. There’s plenty of classic Metro action in the game,” de Ronde says.

There’s also the ongoing concern with finding ammo, making exploration essential to finding scattered bullets.

“We chose to keep a lot of our UI and interactions as diegetic as possible,” Louwe says. “For example, if you want to see how many bullets you have left in your gun, we could have put a counter on it. But we didn’t do that. Instead we opened up the clip, so that you can actually see how many bullets are in there.”

Built in collaboration with original developer 4A Games, Vertigo Games is making use of
existing assets in addition to creating new ones to maintain the series’ look and feel. As for its VR-native bits, tactile interactions such as wiping gas masks and checking ammo manually sets the stage for immersive interaction.

Locomotion options include ‘Comfort’, which focuses on teleportation, and ‘Immersion’, which offers continuous movement. Customization options will also be included; default locomotion setting is continuous stick movements with snap rotation, however it will also smooth rotation for fans of the locomotion style.

“That said, we are not really shying away from pushing the boundaries of VR when it comes to creating a visceral experience. So in Immersion mode, you can also expect to be moved around a bed or knocked over to wake up unconscious on the floor or, or even be thrown off a rail car for example,” Louwe says.

There’s no release date yet beyond the “2024” window, however you can wishlist the game now on PSVR 2 and SteamVR headsets. The link for Quest seems to be broken for now, however it’s likely set to go live here at some point.