Played a bit of the new DLC. I felt a serious STALKER vibe.
The DLC has a level that tasks you to scavenge, survive and return to base to upgrade your arsenal. Very STALKER like. The enemy AI is also randomized a bit so you have quite a bit of variation every time you go out and hunt. The map is quite large, a re-designed and re-skinned version of the Library level from Metro 2033. The layout of the map is not linear as you explore and discover alternative routes etc. Plus you have to manage your gas mask (very limited comparing to the main game), ammo and money.
This whole level feels like the underground labs of STALKER SOC. Due to the randomized placement of the mutant AI, some encounters are quite intense and scary.
I hope this is where the 4A guys are taking the Metro franchise. Hopefully with more memory from the next-gen consoles, those 4A guys can finally make a semi-open-world rogue-like Metro/STALKER hybrid.
I have just completed the Sniper mission and it was moderately enjoyable but incredibly short, I was taken aback how fast it ended. The Reich mission is shit, a god damn turret segment, fifteen minutes of life I won't get back. Nobody cares about these missions though, here are my impressions of the meat of the DLC.
To say the map is large and completely non linear is giving it too much credit. You head to area B, scavenge, open shortcut to base, sell junk at base, stroll to B shortcut and make way to area C. Rinse and repeat. You can't use shortcuts that haven't been opened topside first.
I do concur that the first time through is enthralling. Filters are non existent on the surface, what you buy at base is all you have. I was incredibly stressed when my watch signaled the one minute mark for my last filter while I was in a staring contest with a Librarian. Scavenging a clock, tricycle, a map and little odds and ends and returning home with these treasures is pleasurable. However its irritating you can acquire military grade ammo (the currency) from dead muties. An odd mutie that accidentally swallowed a few 7.62 rounds when it was hungrily nuzzling the ropey entrails of a random stalker corpse, a stretch. All of them? It smashes the game balance.
Even with an element of randomization of enemy encounters and no intentions on my behalf to exploit this oversight, I found myself awash with more monies than I knew what to do with. IIRC an incendiary shotgun shell costs 7 rounds and it takes one to put down an average sized mutant. You reap between one and five rounds for each corpse, its even worse with the beagle sized ones that take two or three shots with your Kalashnikov. This asnine idea was probably implemented because of player complaints about the ammo famine in the catacombs level. 4A games once again has swung the pendulum to the other extreme, just as they did with the stealth. Most importantly this part of the DLC is the most buggy. Killing the smaller nosalies doesn't trigger their gratifying rag doll animations, they stay in one spot rocking back and forth, this is common. I experienced a one time instance of a Librarian being perfectly still and a mutant from scripting errors hell appeared ten feet in front of me. Finally in the Reich part, the sandbags are less protective than soiled bed sheets.
4A proved it can fail popamole.
If they scrapped the sniper mission and Reich (even though that took them an hour) and invested more resources into that Stalker mission for a larger map, no monster loot and a less bug free experience, I would easily throw down ten dollars. As it stands, its worth the price of a Subway sammich but it doesn't dissuade my hesitance from upcoming DLC content from 4A.
