Looking at Metro Exodus' Message of Peace in 2023
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- Опубліковано 18 тра 2024
- We're looking at Metro Exodus' Message of peace in 2023... a game in 2019 from 4A Games based out of Kyiv Ukraine. We delve into the powerful anti-war themes in Exodus, warning of the consequences of what russia's return to imperial and soviet ways of thinking. Set in post-apocalyptic Russia, the game portrays a world torn apart by conflict and the struggle for survival. But amidst the chaos, a message of independence emerges. Join in dissecting this message and why it matters now, especially in light of the ongoing war. Through gameplay and analysis, we will explore the importance the fine details of this powerful message.
Timestamps:
00:00 Cultural Background of the Metro Series
06:37 What does Metro mean?
10:27 What does Exodus mean?
11:37 Reading into Metro Exodus' subconscious
14:41 Wrestling With the Imperial Past (spoilers beyond this point)
20:40 The Empire Strikes Back
23:37 Oligarchy & Exploitation
27:24 Poisoning of the Future
29:41 War & Isolation
36:11 The Death of the Past
40:00 Saving the Future
3rd party work shown in this video (In order of me remembering that I used them):
Stradcha (Страдча) by Lea and SadSvit: • Лея&SadSvit - Страдча ...
Ink'd up Anna mod (I'm judging you): www.nexusmods.com/metroexodus...
TimePlayer's Metro Exodus Review: • Metro Exodus is overra...
Acorn Cinema's Metro Exodus Review: • Metro Exodus Review
Glukhovsky speaks about Metro Exodus and why it works: variety.com/2019/gaming/featu...
Russia inquality article: www.themoscowtimes.com/2019/1... - Ігри
Unfortunately the copyright overlords flagged the Stradcha intro montage that began at 1:20, it has been cut. To make up for it, I've uploaded it unlisted here: ua-cam.com/video/vcddaWZCnYE/v-deo.html
Stradcha means "Sufferer" "Sufferling" Basically a suffering child, the root word is "Страждати" - which means "to suffer" also there is a village called "Страдч"(stradch) which has pretty dark history. It sounds very old and I'd assume it comes from old Slavonic language. The botchling(poroniec in PL) from Witcher 3 is probably the closest thing.
I talked about the Witcher III's Botchling in the original script, unfortunately the original would have resulted in a cut longer than an hour if I had gone with it, so I did some considerable trimming of the fat. Hope you liked this one in spite of being so long.
@@cantgameright The video is marvelous. I am truly fascinated by your knowledge. Thanks for spreading the word in form of game content.
@@not_your_business666 that`s what I wanted to say
If you think about it, Stradcha is demon's spawn since you will never have a Childern's soul stuck here, in the overworld as it's guided to the gates of heaven by its own angel. The only thing that's ever going to address themselves as a child's soul is a demon.. So the soldier really did worked with the devil..
@@matejaradivojevic3473 Lots of beliefs and legends don't make much sense from christian point of view because they were adopted from the older pre-christian times. Think about Kupala Night, it's an ancient pagan ritual which has been adopted anyways just to appease the people who were doing it for centuries. Some of the orthodox saints are adopted pagan gods as well. By trying to rationalize all the beliefs and traditions you might end up being disappointed. But if you are truly religious person I can understand your point of view.
It’s impressive how you deeply you dive to explain what Ukraine is means. It’s absurd that only because of war we become something unique and different. Wish you luck and stay well.
Ukraine is forever. I have fond memories of learning all about Ukraine during Euro 2012. While your country is in the spotlight now because of the war, I believe millions of people will visit to enjoy what really matters. There is a cultural renaissance in Ukraine going on: magical music, good quality products, world-class athletes, video game development, and so much more. This is what the world will love you for, this is what people will visit your country for, not just the bravery and strength of your people, but where that bravery comes from. Strength to you, Dmytro, thanks for watching.
I'm Eastern European (not in the "Russosphere" tho) so a lot of the symbolism and ideas felt much more familiar to me than it does to your average Western player.
Funnily enough as a result I never associated the Aurora with the northern lights or the dawn, but with the cruiser Aurora as the herald of the Revolution. And because my country was invaded and oppressed by the Russians after world war 2 those connotations weren't exactly positive for me.
While I absolutely adore Stalker and Metro 2033. Exodus is sort of a mixed bag for me. The story and characters hit very hard emotionally, it's amazing. But I also think the strongest parts of the game gameplay wise and as far as the atmosphere goes is the prologue in the Metro and the Novosibirsk Metro. I think the mystery and horror of it is great and I felt much more tension in those areas than say in the Volga. The open areas are absolutely breathtaking in many ways but they lack a certain type of tension and interest that is present in Stalker.
USSR included Ukrainians aka Ukrainian SSR(2nd nation by population), but it's evil Russians who invaded, only them....
As a Pole all i can say is that i believe there can be a better future,
us and Ukraine were enemies as well but became friends when push came to shove.
Now we are the actual brothers' nations 🇵🇱❤️🇺🇦
I've been a fan of stalker since 2008. The game helped me to at least tepidly support ukraine during maidan and then the "separatist" invasion. It's to my discredit that it took the full scale invasion to realise scale of the struggle of Ukraine and other former soviet states such as Kazakhstan.
Someone linked your stalker video on Twitter and I'm glad I found your channel. Keep up the good work!
found your channel about 1-2 weeks ago and i have loved your videos! this one especially since Exodus is my favorite game. keep up the good work! i hope to see your channel grow :)
Just started the video and the editing is so well done!
High quality video as always bro, especially i love your music usage
Thanks for swinging by, brother! UA-cam is going to strike me with the copyright sword one of these days! 😂
@@cantgameright nah, i will fight YT if this happens)
Thx for your videos and keep doing it.
I played exodus last year, loved every minute of it. The part when you find out Anna is sick, created a pit on my stomach, and then i realized how much i cared for a character. Never feel that way before, even watching that scene here brought me to tears. What an awesome, human story they built.
Thanks for the video
Fantastic video!!!!
Mate, massive props to you for diving so deep into the culture! Lots of love!
Te amoo, amo tus videos!! Seguí así loco
Tengamos un asado acá en los comentarios. Yo comienzo:
🥩🥩🥩
*tsssss
*sube el humo
*huele rico
Nice vid!
I never really picked up on the themes on my playthrough but now it is so obvious. Great vid well done.
proud of you my friend
This is amazing game - cultural context, symbolism, political allegory and very emotional personal story, everything is on point here! The only problem i have with this, is that i want more, game was too short:)
More guns too
amazing job I am so surprised
LGBTR totally got me, man.
There's more LGBTR coming, I can promise you that.
@@cantgameright that's wonderful news lol, I can already imagine a hardbass song about it even
Still cannot believe this channel even hasn’t reached 1k subs. Without checking it feels like well made video on big channel❤
Oi Denys, as long as I'm making videos I'll remember you as one of the first to have subscribed. Thank you for that!
Man that ending was great
Good stuff, super deep insight and understanding of the politics and culture. Thank you!
Honestly playing in Ranger Hardcore, I sometimes had difficulty telling enemies from normal folks specially from a distance.
That's part of what give the game its atmosphere and also why there's so much more tension in RH!
Дякую тобі за ці відео!
My man, thanks for the dive! Unbelievable. Cheers from Kyiv )
this guy gets it!
best thing imo abt metro is that they are literally the spawn of sdalger, well the games atleast, also also, guys, theyre making a metro 2033 movie, THE WRITER IS THE AUTHOR WOOOOOOOOOOO
Дякую за чудове відео, чекаю на нові)))
great film
To me, I love both metro and stalker, ALL OF THEM, they offer their own thing and both are awesome, to each their own and thats ok
I love this kind of "documentaries" about games. And this one, is by far the best that I'v seen.
Yes, maybe it's because I'm Ukrainain and it's warms heart to see such videos about ukrainian games, but after watching hundreds of videos of this tipe, this gave the most emotions of all. Thank you!
Big hello from slidan
Wow, u r so based. Really deep and interesting analysis, I`m already in love with your channel
Congratulations on a thousand subscribers
I cant believe I'm number 1000 damn
I'll remember you, lolgh, I will remember you!
What Stalker game is that at 8:05 and if any mods used, what mods?
Just my own little modpack I had made at the time. I never published it.
Hey author! Can you please tell me the name of the song that start to playing in the background at 13:33 and ends up on 15:08?
The music is by DivKid, the track in those timestamps is called "Dusk" :D
@@cantgameright Thank you very much for your reply :)
Cool video btw 👍🏻
Que buen pinche canal compa
Brazilian player here 🇧🇷. I first played Last Light and it was my first game of this genre, I liked it so much, then I played Exodus third game, and yet again it was even better, NPCs, Nature, non-lethal takedowns...and then I tried to play Last Light again, but felt brutally depressed, man the Metro was sad as hell.
Very interesting take on that game, however I noticed 2 little details that I think your interpretation might benefit from. First, "Aurora" is the name of the battleship that started the October Revolution. Moreover the whole train theme may be a nod to the anarchist Ukrainian Black Army with their famous armored trains, as the motive of anarchism/freedom is rather prevalent in culture (via Stalker's Freedom faction)
Дякую тобі за файну працю
In my honest opinion, Metro Exodus tells you what death is, to understand it. To make you question if you are even ready to die for something or for someone. In the whole game you will see death, rather it be those you caused, killing bandits or the locals there or be it the corpses of all these lost souls that are there.. A reminder if you are really ready to join them. Noone accepts death well, this game will always remind you of that. When the Miller falls you could feel like it's your own fault for chasing your dreams, Artyom chased them or he didn't have a different choice but Miller paid the price for the lies he was hiding for the truth that he was hiding rather it be for their safety or as he later said, out of fear. If you think about it, can you even blame Miller for lying to them? The truth could only bring death to the lies and to those who believed in them.
Cool video, by the way, I can advise you a game called “Cradle”, it is in Steam and also a split group of gsc developers. It is unique in its own way, especially stylistically.😊
I can definitely look into it. It's definitely made with some "out of the box" thinking from my first impression. The developer is Flying Cafe for Semianimals, right?
@@cantgameright yep
for me the caspian sea was a huge disconnect from the story as I failed to save Damir despite believing that I did good, I knocked out Saul only to never see him again and a huge breaking of immersion when I got ambushed in a bandit outpost that I just cleared and kept getting 1 shot by what sounded like a shotgun, while the guy was on the ground and I was peeking from 2 layers of cover in a tower. The frustration worsened when I opened up the wiki and saw that I lost moral points from killing BANDITS, not slaves (I'm still pissed about it, Damir was my favorite companion), I was supposed to sleep in this one (1) specific outpost to get ambushed by Saul to get an important part of the story that I completely missed. gameplaywise the level felt the weakest for me and I just don't have it in my to replay the whole chapter again strictly for Damir which is just more insult to injury
edit: I simply found Ana annoying but I could ignore her in Last Light while in Exodus she was at the center most of the time which detracted from my enjoyment, skill issue on my part
Amazing video work. This comment just for youtube algoritms
5:00 стоп.... Тодто на 1:50 не грала пiсня як "я спала на сенi" у виконаннi гурту Ватра?. Так я послухала пiсню про яку ви говорили, ви включили не те на тлi
Цiкавинка: Страдча - не популярна назва, ми частiше кажемо "потерчата"
I've been a long time fan of Stalker and Metro series. I've been enjoying the redux versions for Metro lately and it was a blast. Exodus was indeed the better game from the series for my taste as well. Oh, and for Stalker fans, you have to check out Stalker Anomaly + some modpacks like EFP or GAMMA.
Impressive de-construction of this fine piece of media.
Despite being a long tim METRO fan, I never had the chance to go so much under its skin like you did. Good food for thought.
Really like the amount of knowledge you share about ukrainian culture, thus that you're able to pour into videos like this. Let alone how clear your position is in relation to the ongoing invasion of the country.
Will keep a close eye on your future videos!
Also, since there's a noticeable "fil rouge" in the games your videos cover, have you ever considered speaking about CHERNOBYLITE? Although, of this I'm sure, it doesn't have much to share with Metro or Stalker in terms of narrative depth and links with ukrainian culture, I think that, with the destruction still happening in the country, and the overall decaying process of the Zone, it still offers a good example of videogames' history-preservation potential, due to the in-depth 3D scanning performed in Pripyat by the DevTeam....what, some may say, AC Unity did (or rather, offered to do) for Notre Dame after the fire that destroyed most of the Cathedral.
The 80's song "a train on fire" by russian band Akvarium played by Stepan right after the revealing of Anna's condition was really the moment that hit the hardest for me. I had the VO set to ukranian and the Read the lyrics in the subtitles.
I could'nt help but cry thinking about the war in Ukraine, and the wasted opportunity for the generatiopn who wrote that song about peace and rebuilding during the Glastnost era. The Author of the song was the typical russian dissident : educated, from St petersburg, full of the west's best music. He represents the generation for whom the iron curtain fell, and the soviet empire was dismantled, the generation that was supposed to take charge of a brighter future. But saddly this chance was taken from them, or they were not abble to seize it. Either way they are now either silenced or exiled.
A quick search told me that he was now mostly retired, living in London, and recently made a collab with a brit and a ukranian for an anti-war song.
The game was very transparent in it's critic of soviet and post-soviet failures. A ton of dire situations we encouter are due to mismanagement, greed and incompetence by those in power.
The Oligarchic Hansa faction rather keep it's place as the dominant power in the shithole that is the metro than risk losing it's power once it is known there is an outside world, The chemical storage were Anna fell was the consequence of the authorities not willing to properly dispose or store chemical weapons, The Lamantaou complex devolved into a mess of cannibalistic savages because the officials responsible for providing enough rations were corrupt, The Caspian region military garrisons never tried to maitain a semblant of order, and rather shoot on sight any local, in the end they either died from gaz leaks in their poorly built comm bunker or joined the forming petrol slave empire's oligarchy... In novossibirsk, it's basically the Moscow Hansa + a shortage of a vital ressource. Said vital ressource that should have been delivered in the thousands to Moscow but never was...
Every situation you encounter is the distant outcome of a pre-war fuck-up or the reproduction of a pre-war failure. The only part of the game that partly escapes this is the Taïga/children of the forest part. I'm not sure what to make of that, maybe it's to show how even with an "innocent" people, starting anew witohout the constraints of the old corrupt power structures, things can still go south and turn a group of peacefull recluse into raider warriors. That maintaining an ethic/moral society demands constant efforts for it not to drift toward somber practices.
I wonder if people, who haven't traveled on a soviet\post-soviet platzkart (couchette) trains, get the same emotions invoked, while they ride on the Aurora. It's such a nostalgic feeling for those who have.
Hello from slidan
Amazing video, Slava Ukraini
Ill explain why Stalker and Metro are similar. So when GSC Game World were making Stalker Shadow of Chernobyl the late versions of the game were a disaster so a guy named Dean Sharpe went for the help with the development as a temporary executive producer and if he wasnt there Stalker SoC would be way worse.
So after the launch of Stalker Shadow of Chernobyl Dean Sharpe left GSC and went to 4A Games again as a role of the executive producer to make Metro 2033 and Last Light
This is the story (btw fun fact the ak reload is 100% the same in both games. The reload animation is similar and the sound is the same)
I only played Metro 2033 (non-redux) is Exodus any good?
Exodus is very good, But Imo the atmosphere isn't as powerful as OG metro 2033 (long dark damp tunnels yk) :D
I'm from Kyiv and thanks for Ukrainian subtitles 😘
i arrived so early that the video isnt even at full res yet 💀
'Twas a 30 gb upload 😫 I usually let them finish processing before they go live but I had this one go up as soon as it was done because I wouldn't be home until the evening.
@@cantgameright Damnnn, meanwhile me tryna upload shit that's like 50gibs💀💀💀💀
I hope in the coming years we can see more titles and publishers like this reach mainstream popularity in the Western World. It's very... eye-opening. It's an accessible way of observing a slice of life outside of our own sphere of experience, but one we can still understand and empathize with. And it would be so refreshing compared to the unfinished copy pasted games we're getting out of Western publishers these days. I think we've kind of forced ourselves into a box of what games can be good or widely appealing, and it is truly a breath of fresh air to see games like this breaking those boundaries.
you know. Prefire like
Thanks
funny video heres your like
Most Ukrainian Dominican on UA-cam. Hello from Ukraine. Keep pushing, you doing great content!
Thank you for taking the time to watch, Mykyta :D
One of your countrywomen living in R. Dominicana introduced me to Kholodets a couple of years ago 🙈 I think that merely mentioning that to you would make you laugh! Strength to you!
@@cantgameright Kholodets is tasty, we usually make it during winter. That's ok to learn something new, so I hope you will like it :). Also I suggest to you to try Shuba salad (if you like herring). Thanks for wishes and telling important stuff. I'm looking forward to watch next video
@@cantgameright The main ukrainian dish is borscht (beetroot soup with meat and sour cream). You should try it 😋
1:45 and already like for cool music. That's kinda fun and cool when I(ukrainian) recive cool recomandation of ukrainian music from someone on the other part of the planet🙃
What can I say? Great music finds its way around the world and back! 😂
Too bad they didn't make a tzar-crab instead of a tzar-fish. Would be a great ref.
ok, so for anyone wanting to listen to Страдча (music at 1:37)
ua-cam.com/video/INAySPTvjLc/v-deo.html
Where is the H3VR montage?
Oh I never *really* made that montage hehe. UA-cam actually flagged this video for the song I played but not the H3VR one. I think their system only kicks in after like 5-7 seconds
If Artyom is silent in the sequel again, then I can't exactly take his ambitions seriously if this is how he operates... buuuuut he did have a head and say something at the end of the game.
Can you believe it guys, my proZ ex-friend sent me the full copy of the game, I see it as an achievement. 😏
oh! do tell more!
@@cantgameright so yeah the gift happened 2-3 years ago, i knew he was of wrong views before the full-scale invasion but when he decided to put russian svastika to his nickname i just deleted him, i learned on other people that talking can't help them, they cannot be saved unfortunately.
@@Dark_Brandon_2024 man, it sucks in some ways, but I'm glad you did the smart thing. It's the old "don't feed the wildlife" story, a lot of people get enjoyment from provoking other peoples' negative emotions for some reason.
Imagine breaking friendship because of political disagreements.
@@valder8423 imagine calling a war that has killed 200,000+ people (maybe beyond 300,000) a "political" issue. You're just a spectator.
sad for me I didn't finished the gamevso I can't watch the whole video
I do agree Metro Exodus has an important message and deeper themes but I resent you calling it not fun. That was weird, it's not exactly obscure arthouse gameplay. More similar to, say, Far Cry than people are willing to admit.
A more English name for a Strucha is Willow Wisp.
Do what martincitopants did and upload it and have it unlisted n link it in the description of the h3vr video
The wha? 🤣😅 Would you kindly specify what point you're commenting on?
@@cantgameright ua-cam.com/video/cKAyEV2HpgE/v-deo.html at 7:27 he has a seperate video in the description
@@gasmaskalan1771 oooohhh that's clever🥸
Thanks for your thoughts. People, believe in Ukraine, and you will do an incredible service, because thought is material.
Whole Ukrainian Russo war can be explained in the level of Taiga. The bear as in the video, being the soviet union, Childern of the forest being independent states from such, having fear from it not because they will cause their doom, they lived with it for years but it's still taking them one by one, slowly but surely. And about intruders? They are taught to defend themselves, Yes and they don't know right from wrong, the intruder or an outsider is always going to be bad for them since they don't know their true intentions. And about the teacher.. His words were twisted and two versions of his words were created just like how Christianity or Islam was split in two by people driving their own interpretation of such words into their own way. Ukraine faces uncertainty although it being an independent country without being a puppet is a dream.. Either it be from the west or from the east it's the same poision.
I like both games but I love stalker more
Always sucks when a channel I like, puts out a video I'm interested in, but can't watch because of possible spoilers
D: I'm sorry about that, hopefully you can experience the game before anyone spoils it for you, I'm glad the spoiler warning was well placed.
Based use of Ukrainian music.
Good video, still dislike Exodus though, to me it doesn't really work as a game, should have been a series or something, the original Metro 2033 remains my favorite.
I believe your political connotations deserve more context and a push back here and there. Other then that great video.
yeaah... nice enough video but the game still does not compare to 2033 and Last Light.
Putin already tried peace, Zelensky aays no
XDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD
Because trusting a Ex-KGB dictator is worth it shut up bot
I sugges reading "Flight MH17, Ukraine and the New Cold War", so you learn the actual facts instead of the propaganda.
bruh, Kees Van Der Pijl alleged that Israel was behind the September 11 2001 attacks. You call him a reliable source?
and now 4a is getting reviewbombed lmao
[Z]
People here are just going to point and laugh at you, fool 🤣
Z for Zero chance to win
@@unsuisseegare1291 I don't see Russia losing major cities
9:34 you should probably mention that Dmitri Gluhovsky is sane person and he was always against Putin before war and of course now, also supporting Ukraine