Metro 2039 preview: 4A Games rebuilds Moscow's tunnels for ray tracing, out 4 February

A date, and a State of Play slot

After a long quiet stretch since Metro Exodus in 2019, 4A Games has a firm date for its next game. Metro 2039 is set for 4 February 2027, and Insider Gaming reports it was dated during a Sony State of Play showcase in September 2026. That puts it roughly eight years on from the last mainline entry, and squarely in a crowded early-2027 release window.

The platform picture is straightforward. Insider Gaming lists Xbox, PlayStation 5 and PC, and the game's Steam page confirms the PC release under publisher Deep Silver. It is a single-player, story-driven first-person shooter, in keeping with the series rather than any pivot toward multiplayer.

The pitch: the darkest Metro yet

The setting is again the post-apocalyptic Moscow Metro, but the political backdrop has shifted. GamingOnLinux's write-up describes a regime under Hunter, a fanatical Spartan leader who is cast as having betrayed the Spartan Order's founding purpose of protection. The player character, referred to as The Stranger, stands in opposition to that rule.

Tonally, 4A is aiming grim. Insider Gaming characterises it as the darkest Metro game the studio has made, leaning on the series staples of survival, stealth and scarcity rather than spectacle. Steam's tags reinforce that read, listing horror, survival and story-rich alongside the expected first-person shooter label.

The official Steam blurb frames the game as a harrowing conflict for the very soul of the Metro, set in the dark heart of post-apocalyptic Moscow. That points at the factional, ideological struggle the series has always mined underground, rather than a straightforward monster hunt. The single-player-only structure also suggests a return to the tense, narrative-led design of the earlier games rather than anything built around co-op or live service.

Built for ray tracing

The headline technical claim is architectural. According to 4A Games, quoted by GamingOnLinux, Metro 2039 is the first game in the series built from the ground up for ray tracing. The studio frames this as pairing the latest hardware features with its proprietary 4A Engine to render its underground world.

That matters for a series whose atmosphere has always come from light and dark: a torch beam in a flooded tunnel, the glow of a gas-mask filter running low. If ray tracing is baked into the foundations rather than bolted on, the lighting is where any generational leap should be most visible.

Early impressions, and the caveat

There is one hands-on account worth flagging, and it is not ours. Insider Gaming says its writer previewed around 10 hours of the game and called it a phenomenal shooter with immense promise. Those are their impressions from an early build, not a finished-game verdict, and we are attributing them rather than adopting them.

The commercial signal is strong too: Insider Gaming notes the game has close to two million wishlists on Steam ahead of launch. As ever with a Metro, the real question is whether the moment-to-moment tension holds across a full campaign, something no preview build can fully answer. We will reserve judgement until 2039 is out on 4 February.