In response to former THQ president Jason Rubin’s eye-opening account of working conditions at Metro: Last Light developer 4A Games, creative director Andrew Prokhorov has stoutly refused the suggestion that the team deserved a better critical response as a result.

“We deserve the ratings we get. After all, the final consumer doesn’t care about our conditions. And this is right. We need no indulgence,” he said in a comment on the article – as Rubin predicted he would.

“It is a fact that our work conditions are worse than those of other developers outside Ukraine. I don’t think anyone can doubt that – yes, it’s true that American and most of European developers operate in a country far more comfortable than Ukraine. And yes, the publishers pay them more. This is clear: the more ‘reasonable’ the country the less the risks. And we don’t want to be all dramatic about that – after all, better conditions are earned, and we strive to do this as soon as possible.”

Prokhorov thanked Rubin for his article, noting that in the ten year the former S.TA.L.K.E.R. team had worked with THQ, he was the only executive to visit and observe the team’s working conditions. He noted that Rubin didn’t have enough time to try and fix the situation – but also asked him to be less harsh towards Deep Silver, which 4A Games believes did the best it could in a bad situation.

The developer even said that 4A Games was itself keen to make a multiplayer mode, but admitted that it ended up wasting a lot of time and resources before cancelling it.

Source: GamesIndustry via VG247

Gigabyte, makers of all things gaming, have decided to celebrate the launch of Metro: Last Light by offering the games.on.net readers the chance to gear up and take on the unforgiving underground of the Russian metro.

Metro: Last Light is the direct sequel to Metro 2033, and promises to fix all the complaints about the original while simultaneously looking drop-dead gorgeous and pushing your PC as far as it can go. Does it live up to the claims? Find out in our video review.

WARNING: Metro Last Light is rated R18+ in Australia. The following video contains scenes and language that are not suitable for viewers under 18.

Former THQ boss Jason Rubin has revealed that 4A Games worked in gruelling conditions to finish Metro: Last Light, including being packed together on folding wedding chairs and with power and heat going off for days at a time.

“4A’s staff sat on folding wedding chairs, literally elbow to elbow at card tables in what looks more like a packed grade school cafeteria than a development studio,” writes Rubin in a revealing post on GamesIndustry International.

Rubin explained that power and heat were unreliable, with 4A staff working “in their parkas and struggling to keep their fingers warm in temperatures well below freezing”. The team also apparently had to deal with constant corruption, with Rubin saying that “When 4A needed another dev kit, or high-end PC, or whatever, someone from 4A had to fly to the States and sneak it back to the Ukraine in a backpack lest it be ‘seized’ at the border by thieving customs officials.”

The whole blog post is very eye-opening and worth a read, so check it out.

Source: GamesIndustry International

Metro: Last Light isn’t really “officially” out in Australia until May 17, but it released on Steam on Tuesday and PC gamers immediately noticed one thing — the FOV can’t be adjusted. At all. Not even in config files.

4A Games have heard these complaints loud and clear and are promising a solution “in the next few days”, but in the meantime are warning players that this may cause the game to break in all sorts of unexpected ways, as many 3D elements, cutscenes and others aspects are created with the current FOV in mind.

“Changing the FOV would break all the cut-scenes and animations – you would be able to see inside Artyom’s arms, or they would appear to float in the air in front of you. Or worse,” writes the developers on the Steam community forums. “We had considered offering three FOV pre-sets, but this would still require significant work to re-do every animation, adjust the HUD and UI and other seemingly small but incredibly time consuming tasks.”

“Even with a wider but still fixed field of view, Artyom’s hands would look too far away. We know – we tried. Game performance is also tied to FOV – the amount of geometric detail we put in each scene has been partly determined by this set FOV, and setting a wider FOV would have a performance impact.”

“In the immediate term – the next title update, due in the next few days, will allow you to directly change the FOV in the .cfg files.”

Look out for our review of Metro: Last Light shortly.

Source: Steam

The news that Metro: Last Light would feature an ultra-hard Ranger Mode but only in the Limited Edition was met with anger and disbelief by many potential buyers. Now, months later, Koch Media have explained why they segregated this content off.

“Game makers and publishers now live in a world where offering game content as a pre-order exclusive is a requirement by retail,” said Huw Beynon, global brand manager at Koch Media. “Ranger Mode seemed like the best choice since it was a mode for hardcore fans who would most likely pre-order the game, or purchase it at launch in any case.”

“We rejected requests to make story content or additional missions exclusive. We also rejected requests to make this a timed exclusive.”

Beynon also revealed that Ranger Mode will be available on launch as DLC for USD $5 (Australian pricing not confirmed, probably more) which is “the lowest first parties would permit us to charge for content of this nature”.

Don’t buy Metro: Last Light on Steam for $70 — buy a Steam key from Green Man Gaming instead for $37.50 with the code GMG25-5GT67-87HJ9 (and get Ranger Mode as well). If you insist on buying a boxed copy, Ranger Mode is only available at EB Games.

Source: PC Gamer

How many more trailer do we need before Metro: Last Light launches on May 16? At least one a week, if Deep Silver are to be believed. Never mind, says I — it’s more excuses to look at that gameplay footage in action. Delicious.

We recently went hands-on with Metro: Last Light, and came back feeling that something was missing — that feeling of proper desperation. Check out our preview here.

If your PC up to scratch for Last Light? Here’s your system requirements.

Deep Silver is offering a free digital copy of Dmitry Glukhovsky’s novel Metro 2033 with all PC copies of Metro: Last Light. The eBook will be awarded to players when they authenticate the 4A Games shooter on Steam.

The Metro games and books have a complicated relationship. Metro 2033 drew heavy inspiration from the novel of the first name, but the second book – Metro 2034 – is so experimental and oddball that both 4A Games and Glukhovsky weren’t keen on seeing it adapted. Instead, Metro: Last Light has an original story penned by Glukhovsky specifically for the game.

So, in short: if you really like the themes and story of Metro 2033, and you want the full picture fo the post-apocalyptic canon, you may want to investigate the novels – and luckily, you’ve been given a free opportunity to see if you like the first one.

Metro: Last Light turns up part way through May, after a wait of approximately forever. Metro 2035, Glukhovsky’s third novel in the series, is expected in English later this year. The series has sold over 2 million copies worldwide to date.

Source: Blue’s News

Metro: Last Light is not a game that thrives especially on its systemic gameplay elements — at least outside of ranger difficulty. Instead, the most interesting part of Metro remains the actual experience, the atmosphere, of being in a deadly, post-apocalyptic world that is struggling deep below the remains of Moscow. Patrick Lum goes hands-on to find out more.

It emerged seemingly unscathed from the rubble of THQ and now first person action sequel Metro: Last Light is just a few short weeks away. If you’ve already taken in chapters one and two of the Survival Guide video series, you’ll be just about ready for the third and final instalment.

The new clip focuses on the game’s weapons and inventory. The guns in Last Light’s predecessor generally controlled as well as three legged shopping trolleys, which was probably to be expected given the (post apocalyptic) circumstances. The brief glimpse at the updated arsenal appears to confirm that a degree of finesse will again be required.

Metro: Last Light is slated to arrive on PC on 16 May.

If you’re in the market for a new card and/or a new game, it seems like NVIDIA may have you covered: anybody who purchases a new GTX 660 or better will receive a code which can be redeemed at the official website for a Steam code of the game.

You can find a bit more info on the official site, but if you do get a card (and a code), be quick — the codes are only valid until December 31 this year.

Metro: Last Light revealed its minimum and recommended PC specs last week, with a GTX 690 or an NVIDIA Titan recommended for the best possible experience — it looks like PC gamers may be in for a treat. The game hits our shores on May 17.

Deep Silver and 4A have released the system requirements for the PC version of Metro: Last Light, revealing a few interesting facts — one of them being that they’re taking the unusual step of continuing to support Windows XP.

The listing also shows a video card of a GTX 580/660 Ti or AMD 7870 as the general recommended spec to run the game, which should hopefully indicate that there’s a glorious world of graphics awaiting us in those Russian tunnels. An NVIDIA Titan is recommended as the top-end card, but somehow I don’t think a lot of people will be able to pull that off at a price tag of $1200.

Check out the specs below:

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