History YMMV / MetroExodus

* {{Squick}}: Burning webs with your lighter might cause the spiders to crawl across your arm. Or your gas mask. Or you're face, if you're not wearing the gas mask. They're larger than your ''hand''. See also the leeches in Novosibirsk.

* ScrappyWeapon: The Bastard, which lives up to its name partly by virtue of being outclassed by all other options. While in previous installments it was fairly useful due to using the common 5.45 ammunition and being given for free (and being upgradeable to be a rather serviceable close-range weapon in all respects), in Exodus, it uses the much harder-to-find .44 Magnum, with a correspondingly lower ammunition cap, and is prone to overheating rapidly. It's intensely vulnerable to getting dirty and can be counted on to jam at least once in a magazine, all the while chewing through your pistol ammunition and giving you too little damage to show for it. The other pistol-ammunition weapon, the revolver, does not jam and can be found in the same level along with multiple upgrades that make it an effective sniper or marksman rifle, ensuring excellent ammo economy. Meanwhile, any work requiring an automatic weapon can be handled by the Kalash you are given from the very beginning. Beyond that, the shotgun is just a better close-range weapon by virtue of not jamming and having greater stopping power.

* {{Squick}}: Burning webs with your lighter might cause the spiders to crawl across your arm. Or your gas mask. They're larger than your ''hand''.

* MagnificentBastard:
** [[MinorMajorCharacter Saul]] is a [[AlmightyJanitor high-ranking member]] of Munai-bailer who plots to [[TheStarscream overthrow]] the Baron and replace him with a BodyDouble for Saul to [[TheManBehindTheMan manipulate]] into running the gang under Saul's direction. Working with Giulnara Khakimova to assassinate the Baron, Saul attempts to kill Artyom when he interferes with his plans. If Artyom decides to let Saul live, Saul will later appear and tasks Artyom with killing the Baron for him, promising to reward him if he completes this task, even providing Artyom weapon upgrades and supplies to help him.
** ''The Two Colonels'' [[DownloadableContent DLC]]: [[DrivenToVillainy General Anatoly Semyonovich "Tolya" Vinogradov]] is the leader of OSKOM who tries to protect the people living under the highly radiated city of Novosibirsk, having his soldiers kill any mutants coming close to his community. Becoming more [[IDidWhatIHadToDo pragmatic]] as the decrease of medicine needed to defend against high radiation becomes more apparent, Tolya decides to confiscate the medicine from people who hoard it and redistributes it such that everyone can have it, especially children. When there is no medicine left and the citizens decides to riot, Toyla unleashes chlorine gas to kill both the rioters and his own men, [[MercyKill believing]] that he's sparing them all from a worse death and arranges to have the High Command killed when they decide to abandon him before [[DrivenToSuicide taking his own life]] after learning about the death of his son.

* ScrappyWeapon: The Bastard, which lives up to its name. While in previous installments it was fairly useful due to using the common 5.45 ammunition and being given for free (and being upgradeable to be a rather serviceable close-range weapon in all respects), in Exodus, it uses the much harder-to-find .44 Magnum, with a correspondingly lower ammunition cap, and is prone to overheating rapidly. It's intensely vulnerable to getting dirty and can be counted on to jam at least once in a magazine, all the while chewing through your pistol ammunition and giving you too little damage to show for it. The other pistol-ammunition weapon, the revolver, does not jam and can be found in the same level along with multiple upgrades that make it an effective sniper or marksman rifle, while close-range work can be handled by the Kalash you are given from the very beginning.

* AuthorsSavingThrow: Many consider the Two Colonels DLC to be an impressive return to Metro's roots. Despite its short length, the DLC brought back the condensed, but homely feeling of living amongst a crowded underground station full of people with their own personalities and personal tragedies, something the series has always been lauded for. And for once, the meat of the story is brought back inside an actual Metro once again in all of its claustrophobic and cramped glory, making even the TheyChangedItNowItSucks crowd have a change of opinion.

* CompleteMonster: The [[MadDoctor Doctor]] (or Minister) is the leader of the "Ark" of Yamantau, a [[CannibalTribe group of sadistic cannibals]] who lure in unsuspecting people to be killed and eaten. The Ark group has killed countless innocent men, women and children alike, as seen by the many corpses, disembodied limbs, and flayed skin seen around their bunker. The Doctor himself is a smug sadist who enjoys hurting people, and plans to torture Anna to death unless Artyom tells the rest of his defenseless group to come to the Ark so the cannibals can kill them all. Despite having every opportunity to leave the bunker and ally with other survivors, the Doctor has his group stay in the Yamantau bunker and enjoying their mass murdering and cannibalistic ways simply because it is the most convenient.

** Sam's dialogue in ''Sam's Story'' caused a fair amount of players to cringe due to his tendency to drop incredibly cheesy one-liners like it's going out of style, instead of being a SilentProtagonist like Artyom was. Driven UpToEleven if you're playing with the Russian dub on, since those same lines will be spoken ''in English'' by his Russian actor, who very clearly does not actually speak English and is guessing at the pronunciation.

** '''Iron Mode''' is there for the particularly masochistic. It's CheckpointStarvation cranked UpToEleven, where you can only save at the end of each chapter. Should you die, screw up a PacifistRun, or the game decides to be cute and crash to desktop, you'll need to restart the current chapter from scratch. Fortunately, it can be done on any difficulty, even the easiest one, but for your own sanity's sake, please do not attempt this on Ranger.

* {{Narm}}: Sam's dialogue in ''Sam's Story'' caused a fair amount of players to cringe due to his tendency to drop incredibly cheesy one-liners like it's going out of style, instead of being a SilentProtagonist like Artyom was. Driven UpToEleven if you're playing with the Russian dub on, since those same lines will be spoken ''in English'' by his Russian actor, who very clearly does not actually speak English and is guessing at the pronunciation.

* ScrappyWeapon: The Bastard, which lives up to its name. While in previous installments it was fairly useful due to using the common 5.45 ammunition and being given for free (and being upgradeable to be a rather serviceable close-range weapon in all respects), in Exodus, it uses the much harder-to-find .44 Magnum, with a correspondingly lower ammunition cap, and is prone to overheating rapidly. It's intensely vulnerable to getting dirty and can be counted on to jam at least once in a magazine, all the while chewing through your pistol ammunition and giving you too little damage to show for it. The other pistol-ammunition weapon, the revolver, can be found in the same level along with multiple upgrades that make it an effective sniper rifle, while close-range work can be handled by the Kalash you are given from the very beginning.

* {{Narm}}: Sam's dialogue in ''Sam's Story'' caused a fair amount of players to cringe due to his tendency to drop incredibly cheesy one-liners like it's going out of style, instead of being a SilentProtagonist like Artyom was. Driven UpToEleven if you're playing with the Russian dub on, since those same lines will be spoken ''in English'' by his Russian actor, albeit with a heavy accent.

* BestLevelEver: The Yamantau level has been very well-received, likely due its unique type of horror and the fact that it's one of the ''very'' few times that Metro players have ever been given an opportunity to be as murderous as possible without feeling bad about it.

** Novosibirsk is one true hell hole, living up to its name. First of all, the entire upper ground is heavily irradiated and populated with [[LightningBruiser Blind Ones]], huge gorillas that are tougher than nails and very hard-hitting. Second, the underground sections has you being assaulted by moles that jump out of nowhere, and worms, which pops out of the water and spits acidic goop at you, then immediately haul ass, leaving you no window of action to retaliate. Also, the fleshy surfaces makes it very easy to get your gun dirty, and that said surface are filled to the brim with mutant leeches.

** Caspian is hated by some players due to one reason: it's too damn wide! Even with the car, getting anywhere takes a ''long'' time. Time that you could be spending on something else. Not to mention, the bumpy map geometry makes it incredibly easy for the car to become stuck and not retrievable. If the game autosaves in such a case, be prepared to either restart the entire chapter, or hike your way across the desert. Fortunately, it is also the easiest chapter overall, both in terms of combat and for achieving a PacifistRun.
** Taiga is also pretty frowned upon. It starts out as a NoGearLevel, requiring Artyom to make do with only a crossbow for a long stretch of the chapter before he can get some actual guns to use, and resources like medkits are also scarce. The chapter is also lousy with mutant spawns, and its cramped linear structure makes it an absolute bitch to attempt a PacifistRun on. Did we mention there's an achievement for completing it without killing anyone or ''being seen'' at all?

* BadassDecay: What happened to the Spartans following the Battle for D6. While victorious, the Order lost a lot of it's veteran members and allies, who were either killed in battle (Ulman), medically discharged (Miller), MIA (Hunter) or simply left (Anna, Arytom), as well as their base of operations. They survived, but are now dependent of Hanza for supplies as well as desperate for men. The remaining ones are, however, still the deadliest people in the Metro.

** For more literal demonic spiders, look no further than the Spiderbugs. Their favourite hobby is to run full tilt at Artyom when he's trudging slowly through their webbed lairs, which is made worse when he has to cross areas that cause his flashlights to short out. Better hope you know where the wall torches are.

** You can only carry one shared weapon mod of each type in your backpack. If you pick up another one when you already have one in your backpack, it gets scrapped into resources. Unfortunately, this can cause some problems. Let's say you pick up a silencer, and equip it to your AK. You can then pick up another silencer of the same type, and equip it to another weapon. But if you choose to detach both silencers at the same time, one of the silencers will get scrapped into resources (since already have one in your backpack), leaving you with just one silencer. This is never explained in-game, and most players will only discover it when they wonder why some of their attachments have "disappeared".

** The save system of ''Exodus'' is strongly hated by many players. For each save slot, ''Exodus'' keeps at most three files at any given time, with newer ones being created will result in the oldest saves being deleted. This makes SaveScumming impossible. Not helping matters is its tendency to make all three saves in the exact same location, making it impossible to rollback ''period''. This gets extremely annoying when one is attempting a Ranger Hardcore or GoldenEnding run, as autosaves are not known to be made at convenient points, often leaving restarting entire chapters the only solution when something goes wrong.

* ScrappyMechanic: You can only carry one shared weapon mod of each type in your backpack. If you pick up another one when you already have one in your backpack, it gets scrapped into resources. Unfortunately, this can cause some problems. Let's say you pick up a silencer, and equip it to your AK. You can then pick up another silencer of the same type, and equip it to another weapon. But if you choose to detach both silencers at the same time, one of the silencers will get scrapped into resources (since already have one in your backpack), leaving you with just one silencer. This is never explained in-game, and most players will only discover it when they wonder why some of their attachments have "disappeared".

* ScrappyMechanic: You can only carry one shared weapon mod in your backpack (if you pick up another one when you already have one in your backpack, it gets scrapped into resources). Let's say you pick up a silencer, and equip it to your AK. You can then pick up another silencer of the same type, and equip it to another weapon. But if you choose to detach both silencers, one of the silencers will get scrapped into resources (since you can only carry one in your backpack), leaving you with just one silencer. This is never explained in-game, and most players will only discover it while customizing their weapons, at which point they're one accessory short.

** Caspian is hated by some players due to one reason: it's too damn wide! Even with the car, getting anywhere takes a ''long'' time. Time that you could be spending on something else. Fortunately, it is also the easiest chapter overall, both in terms of combat and for achieving a PacifistRun.

** To drive home just how annoying Forest Child can be, it has one of the lowest achievement rate on any platform, falling in the single-digit percentage range. That means more people have obtained the GoldenEnding on [[HarderThanHard Ranger Hardcore]] than this achievement, to put things into perspective.