Khan. Is he a supernatural entity, a normal and sane human who pretends to be insane for one reason or another or just a lunatic who only ever happens to be right through sheer coincidence?
The Dark Ones. Are they really as benevolent as The Reveal makes them out to be? Are they simply monsters who Mind Rape Artyom into believing otherwise? Or maybe they have good intentions, but they are just too different from humans to be classified as good?
Hunter. Is his "If it's hostile, kill it" approach reasonable in the world he lives in? Or is he a monster who is just looking for excuses to shed blood?
Hanza. Are they greedy bastards who just want to make money - or bullets in this case - out of other people's misery or are they the "good guys" of the setting and Metro's best hope for prosperity? Their actions and policies provide arguments for either position. The revelation in Metro Exodus that they're purposely suppressing knowledge of the outside world, while murdering any outsiders that come too close and dumping them in mass graves further complicates this.
General Czeslav Korbut is the brains behind the Red Line, a neo-Stalinist army that aims to conquer the Metro. Manipulating his superior Maxim Moskvin into poisoning the latter's own brother and political rival, Andrey, Korbut blackmails Moskvin with this information to obtain more control over the Red Line. Korbut would also test a deadly bioweapon on the peaceful station of Oktyabrskaya before attacking D6 to eliminate the Rangers and obtain more samples of the deadly virus, seeking to repeat the destruction of Oktyabrskaya with the entire Metro just to rule over what remains.
Führer Yevgeniy Petrovich is the leader of the Fourth Reich, a neo-Nazi dictatorship dedicated to the extermination of those the Führer deems racially and genetically "impure". Those whom the Nazis don't instantly kill are sent to one of his concentration camps where the prisoners are tortured and worked to death, with toxic gases unleashed that would kill all the prisoners should even one be seen escaping. When protagonist Artyom Chyornyj and Pavel Morozov attempt to escape one of these camps, they see the Führer announcing his plans to attack D6.
Lesnitsky is Korbut's mole within the Spartan Rangers, where he discovers and retrieves a deadly virus for Korbut. On Korbut's behalf, Lesnitsky unleashes this bioweapon on Oktyabrskaya while personally killing anyone who may have survived the virus's reach. Lesnitsky also attacks a church prior, killing more people and kidnapping Anna Mel'nikova, who he later uses as a Human Shield against her lover Artyom.
The Doctor is the leader of the people living in the Ark of Yamantau, where he convinced them not to leave the bunker to search for survivors and offer shelter for food, in favor of becoming cannibals. He would lure unsuspecting men, women, and children to the Ark for them to kill and eat, already claiming countless victims as seen by the many corpses, disembodied limbs, and flayed skin throughout the bunker. The Doctor also plans to torture Anna to death to force Artyom Chyornyj to lure the rest of the Aurora crew to the Ark for his cannibals to devour.
Sam's StoryDLC: Klim is the unhinged enforcer of Tom's gang, abusing his position to exert his brutality throughout Vladivostok; examples of this include hanging a group of bandits he killed in public, and slaughtering an innocent crew with only the Captain surviving, while Klim has mutants captured to use them against his enemies. Klim would then betray Tom, unleashing his army of bandits and mutants onto Tom and his allies, before commandeering Tom's submarine where Klim attempts to launch the nuclear missile inside to kill countless people.
